A Brief Chronology Of Slavery, Colonialism and Neo-Colonialism

     Africa Reparations Movement Information Sheet

     -----------------------------------------------------------------

     1441
          Antam Goncalves, Portuguese sailor, seized ten Africans near
          Cape Bojador; usually taken as the start of the Atlantic
          Slave Trade.

     1492
          October 2 Christopher Columbus sights land in the Bahamas;
          October 2, lands in Cuba.

     1515
          First samples of Caribbean sugar sent to Spain

     1662
          John Hawkins first English slave trader, captured 300 slaves
          in Sierra Leone.

     1619
          First Africans sold in Jamestown, Virginia.

     1621
          Dutch East India Company, with monopoly of American trade,
          forced from combination of private companies.

     1624
          English colonise Barbados and St. Kitts.

     1647
          First Barbados sugar sent to England.

     1665
          English capture Jamaica from the Spanish.

     1672
          Establishment of the Royal African Company to control the
          British slave trade.

     1680-1686
          The Royal African Company transported an average of 5,000
          slaves year.

     1698
          Private traders, on payment of 10 percent duty on English
          goods exported to Africa, were given parliamentary approval
          to participate in the slave trade.

     1700
          Liverpool's first slave ship, 'Liverpool Merchant' took 220
          slaves to Barbados and sold them for 4,239 (UK pounds
          Sterling).

     1713
          Treaty of Utrecht: Asiento: treaty between England and Spain
          granting England d monopoly of Spanish slave trade for 30
          years. England promised At lest 144,000 slaves, at the rate
          of 4,800 per year.

     1750
          Parliament gave annual grants to British Royal Africa
          Company (totalling 90,000 (UK pounds Sterling) overall).

     1752
          Liverpool had 8 slavers trading from the city with ships of
          various sizes. Altogether the fleet could transport 25,820
          slaves (50-550 per ship) packed "like books on a shelf"
          (Fryer, 1984, p.36).

     1772
          Lord Mansfield decision in England declaring it illegal to
          remove any person forcibly from England.

     1777-1780
          Richard Pennant was Liverpool's M.P. He owned 8,000 acres of
          sugar plantations and over 600 slaves in Jamaica. He was
          re-elected again in 1784-1790.

     1781
          3 of the 41 councillors in Liverpool were slave ship owners
          or major investors in the slave trade.

     1787 - 1807
          All 20 of Liverpool's mayors holding office between these
          dates financed or owned slave ships .

     1781
          Zong Ship (from Liverpool) throws 131 slaves overboard to
          their deaths.

     1790
          First Census lists 697,897 slaves in the United States.

     1808
          Trans-Atlantic slave trade abolished in British Empire; and
          in the United States.

     1813
          Sweden abolishes slave trade.

     1821
          Spain declares slave trade illegal.

     1827
          Britain declares slave trading piracy, thus punishable by
          death.

     1833
          Emancipation Act in British Parliament, 5 year
          apprenticeship system.

     1838
          Slavery finally abolished in British Empire.

     1846
          Sweden abolishes slavery.

     1863
          Holland abolishes slavery.

     1865
          Abolition of slavery in the United States (13th amendment).

     1873
          Puerto Rico abolishes slavery.

     1886
          Cuba abolishes slavery.

     1891
          Control of West African trade passed to the Elder Dempster
          Company, a Liverpool shipping firm. (Gifford, 1989, p.28)