Oxford LibGuides: Legal history: England & common law tradition: Slavery and its abolition

Slavery: particularly in the English colonies and early USA

Subject searches to use in SOLO

Slave labor
Slavery - law and legislation
Slaves -- Legal status, laws, etc

Antislavery movements
Slavery & abolition of slavery
Slave insurrections

Note: Uprisings in the Caribbean slavery include - in Jamaica Tacky’s revolt (1760s) and Sam Sharpe's (1831/2), the Haitian Revolution (1789), Fedon (1790s) in Grenada, Bussa (1816) in Barbados. These names might also be useful search terms, perhaps especially in search of journal articles.

The two links below give useful introductory overviews:

Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History
Remote access requires Oxford SSO. The entry Slavery contains six subentries, on slavery in ancient Greek law, in Roman law, in English common law, in South and Central America, in the colonial United States, and in United States law. For discussion of slavery in Chinese law, see Punishment and Status in Chinese Law, subentry on Slaves. For discussion of slavery in Islamic law, see Persons, subentry on Islamic Law.
Alternative name: OIELH

The Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History is the online version of the Oxford International Encyclopedia of Legal History (edited by S.N. Katz et al) published by OUP in 2009.

Introduction to English Legal History by John Baker
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this online via title link
ISBN: 9780198812616
Publication Date: 5th edn 2019
Print copy is available at Legal Hist B167a5 if preferred
See section in Ch 27 Persons: Status and Liberty

HeinOnline
Remote access requires Oxford SSO - see the library within Hein called Slavery in America and the World: History, Culture & Law. For search tips and further details of content there is a libguide from Hein https://libguides.heinonline.org/slavery-in-america-and-the-world
Alternative names: Hein Online ; HOL

HeinOnline includes five major collections:
The Law Journal Library includes over 500 U.S., U.K., Australian and International Law Journals. For most journals the date coverage starts very early (in many cases at the first issue). However the most recent editions (within the last calendar year) are sometime unavailable due to licensing restrictions. HeinOnline makes these journals available on a rolling yearly basis.
The Treaties and Agreements Library includes all U.S. treaties and agreements including those in force, expired or yet to be published.
The U.S. Supreme Court Library includes all U.S. Supreme Court opinions as published in the U.S. Reports
The Federal Register 1936-1995, and indexes to the register.
Legal Classics Library. Full text of over 100 legal texts including Blackstone's Commentaries (1803), Cardozo's Growth of the Law (1924), and Story's first edition of Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1833). Provincial Statutes of Canada includes Provincial Statutes for ten of the Canadian provinces. Contains public and private acts passed by Canadian provincial governments. Current, revised, and historical content is now available for Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Ontario. Historical and revised content only is available for Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island, Quebec, and Saskatchewan.
All content consists of scanned images of the original printed editions. This allows you to view the content as it originally appeared in print complete with page numbers and pictures.
To save or print articles from HeinOnline choose PRINT OPTIONS followed by DOWNLOAD AS PDF. You will then be able to print out and/or save articles using Adobe Acrobat Reader.
LLMC
Remote access requires Oxford SSO. Potential source of historic legislation and case law from many jurisdictions. Perhaps also some 19th treatises on topic
Alternative names: LLMC Digital ; LLMC-digital ; Law Library Microfilm Consortium’s Online Service

A collection of English language legal titles and government documents divided into ten major jurisdictional or subject areas: US Federal Government; US States and Territories; Canada; United Kingdom; Germany federal; Germany state, kingdoms and free cities; Other Countries (Afghanistan to Zimbabwe); International Law and Organizations; Indigenous Law covering materials from various regions of the United States, Canada and Indonesia; and Special Focus Collections which includes British Empire Studies, Canon Law, Islamic Law, Military Law, Native American Collection, Roman law, etc.
Slavery, Exploitation and Trade in the West Indies, 1759-1832
Remote access requires Oxford SSO.
This collection comprises a careful selection of documents from the extensive Slebech Estate archives now held in the National Library of Wales. They relate chiefly to the interests of Nathaniel Phillips, 1756?-1832, in the West Indies. The collection represents a major resource for research into the social and economic history of West Indies, slavery, plantations and trade.
Alternative names: Jamaican Material in the Slebech Papers ; The West Indies: slavery, plantations and trade, 1759-1832 ; British Online Archives

This collection comprises a careful selection of documents from the extensive Slebech Estate archives now held in the National Library of Wales. They relate chiefly to the interests of Nathaniel Phillips, 1756?-1832, in the West Indies. The collection represents a major resource for research into the social and economic history of West Indies, slavery, plantations and trade.
The papers include business records (accounts, receipts and cash books, inventories, valuations, as well as other business records in the form of instructions on tasks to be performed by agents and slaves, bills of lading, etc.) as well as correspondence, legal documents, and other materials such as a number of diaries, as well as documents relating to the defence of Jamaica.
Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice
Remote access requires Oxford SSO.
Many primary sources from both archives and libraries as well as other materials
Alternative name: Slavery, Abolition & Social Justice

Bringing together primary source documents from archives and libraries across the Atlantic world, this resource allows students and researchers to explore and compare unique material relating to the complex subjects of slavery, abolition and social justice.
In addition to the primary source documents there is a wealth of useful secondary sources for research and teaching; including an interactive map, scholarly essays, tutorials, a visual sources gallery, chronology and bibliography.
Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law (MPEIL)
Alternative names: Max Planck Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL) ; Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (MPEiPro)

The Max Planck Encyclopedias of International Law combines the fully updated online edition of the Encyclopedia of Public International Law (MPEPIL) (originally published in print between 1991 and 2001) with the Max Planck Encyclopedia of International Procedural Law (MPEiPro) which has been published (online only) since September 2019. The peer-reviewed articles in both works are updated and added to monthly.

Creating a Common Law of Slavery for England and its New World Empire
Open Access article by Holly Brewer (2021) 39 Law and History Review 765
The Development of Mastery and Race in the Comprehensive Slave Codes of the Greater Caribbean during the Seventeenth Century
Remote access requires Oxford SSO. Edward B. Rugemer (2013) 70 The William and Mary Quarterly 429
Yorke-Talbot Opinion 1729
Open Access. Digital scan and transcript A group of plantation owners asked Sir Philip Yorke, the Attorney General, and Charles Talbot, Solicitor General, to clarify the legal position of slaves from the colonies brought to UK
Evidence of continued slave trading after 1807
Open access digital scan and transcript of court filing
"This document shows how in some cases slave traders continued to supply British colonies illegally after British participation in the trade had been banned. In a hearing at a special court on the island of Mauritius, a witness gives evidence that 92 'newly imported Blacks' have been seized by the authorities. CO 167/44, no. 8 (1818)"

Granville Sharp's Cases on Slavery by Andrew Lyall
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 9781509911219
Publication Date: 2017
Competing Visions of Empire : Labor, Slavery, and the Origins of the British Atlantic Empire by Abigail L. Swingen
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 9780300187540
Publication Date: 2015
Print copy in BHFL Upper Gladstone Link F2131 SWI 2015
Natural Law and the Theory of Property : Grotius to Hume by Stephen Buckle
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this via title link
ISBN: 9780198240945
Publication Date: 1993
Print copy is at Jurisp 510 B924.4a if preferred
Abolitionism: a Very Short Introduction by Richard S. Newman
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 9780190213220
Publication Date: 2018
A print copy could be requested from Closed Stacks if preferred. "the key people, themes, and ideas that animated abolitionism in the eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries in the United States and internationally."
Caribbean Exchanges : slavery and the transformation of English society, 1640-1700 by Susan Dwyer Amussen
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 9780807831656
Publication Date: 2007
Print copy is in BHFL Upper Gladstone Link HT1165 AMU 2007
Before Dred Scott : slavery and legal culture in the American confluence, 1787-1857 by Anne Twitty
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 9781107112063
Publication Date: 2016
Print copy is at KL412.TWI 2016
Before Dred Scott draws on the freedom suits filed in the St Louis Circuit Court
Voices of the enslaved : love, labor, and longing in French Louisiana by Sophie White
Call Number: Holders of an Oxford SSO can read this book online via title link
ISBN: 1469654067
Publication Date: 2021
"In 18th-century New Orleans, the legal testimony of some 150 enslaved women & men - like the testimony of free colonists - was meticulously recorded & preserved. Questioned in criminal trials as defendants, victims, & witnesses about attacks, murders, robberies, & escapes, they answered with stories about themselves, stories that rebutted the premise on which slavery was founded."

There is a growing number of online resources on this topic available to anyone with access to the internet. The following does not pretend to be comprehensive, and is focussed on those showing the British role and legacy in trans Atlantic slavery. Most of these will also link to other online resources, so do explore their suggestions too!

Parliament and the British Slave Trade (UK)
A portal on official website.
Panel Discussion: The History of Slavery (Law Faculty, Oxford University)
Open Access YouTube "This panel discussion forms part of a three-part public seminar series on the past and present of slavery, organised by the Bonavero Institute of Human Rights and moderated by Samantha Knights QC. The discussions are aimed at a broad interdisciplinary audience and cover what can and should be done to address slavery, with a focus on the history of slavery, the legacy of empire, education about slavery, human trafficking and modern slavery.

The first panel in the series is on 'The History of Slavery' and addresses the history of transatlantic slave trade, abolition and Britain’s own history of slavery.

Panellists:
Trevor Burnard - the Wilberforce Professor of Slavery and Emancipation at the University of Hull and the Director of the Wilberforce Institute.
Faridah Zaman - Associate Professor of the History of Britain and the World at the University of Oxford, and Tutor of Modern History at Somerville College.
Matthew J. Smith - Professor of History and Director of the Centre for the Study of the Legacies of British Slave-Ownership."
Runaway Slaves in Britain: bondage, freedom and race in the eighteenth century
Open access database maintained by University of Glasgow "The purpose of this website and database is not to replicate the objectification of African Americans, South Asians and Indigenous Americans who were brought to eighteenth-century Britain as the enslaved property of white British men and women. Instead we hope that the advertisements collected here will allow readers to explore and understand the people identified in these advertisements as historical subjects in their own right, as individuals who challenged their status and condition. We present the advertisements not with the intention of reproducing the violent circumstances of enslavement, but rather to delegitimise it by enabling readers to recognise the humanity of the individuals whose lives are hidden within a few lines of faded newspaper print."
STeR: Colonialism, Slave Trade and Reparations
The STeR project seeks to find "a group of Academic Experts and Experts by Experience who are willing to work together to formulate a framework for reparations that would be adopted by influential international organisations such as the United Nations, the World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund."
Africa's Sons Under Arms (ASUA)
Funded by the Arts & Humanities Research Council, ‘Africa’s Sons Under Arms’ (ASUA) is a four-year research project that started in October 2014. It uses Britain's West India Regiments (WIR) to explore the relationships between the arming of people of African descent and the changing nature of racial thought from the late 18th to early 20th centuries
Antislavery Usable Past
The Antislavery Usable Past project is an AHRC-funded project (£1.84 million, 2014-2019) led by the University of Nottingham, in partnership with the Universities of Hull and Queen’s Belfast. We are unearthing and theorising the lessons of historic abolitionism for contemporary use - providing the movement against contemporary global slavery with a usable past of antislavery examples and methods.
Legacies of British Slavery
Open access. Work of Centre at UCL including "two earlier projects based at UCL tracing the impact of slave-ownership on the formation of modern Britain: the ESRC-funded Legacies of British Slave-ownership project (2009-2012), and the ESRC and AHRC-funded Structure and significance of British Caribbean slave-ownership 1763-1833 (2013-2015)."
Historians against Slavery
We are a community of scholar-activists who collaborate with partners across sectors to contribute research and historical context in support of today’s global anti-slavery movements. We are equally committed to using the same tools to confront and challenge the legacies of enslavement in the U.S. today, including white supremacy, mass incarceration, police violence, economic injustice, and more.
The Slave Voyages
Open Access "The SlaveVoyages website is a collaborative digital initiative that compiles and makes publicly accessible records of the largest slave trades in history. Search these records to learn about the broad origins and forced relocations of more than 12 million African people who were sent across the Atlantic in slave ships, and hundreds of thousands more who were trafficked within the Americas. Explore where they were taken, the numerous rebellions that occurred, the horrific loss of life during the voyages, the identities and nationalities of the perpetrators, and much more."
TNA Classroom Resources : Slavery How did the Abolition Acts of 1807 and 1833 affect the slave trade?
Open access.
TNA Classroom Resources Bussa’s rebellion How and why did the enslaved Africans of Barbados rebel in 1816?
Open access

Keeping up with related publications

Slavery and Slaving in World History: a Bibliography, 1900-1991 by David Y. Miller
Call Number: Hist Fac Library Level -2 Gladstone Link - (UBHU) M99.C01132 & 33
ISBN: 0765602814
Publication Date: 1998
This two-volume set is a bibliography on the history of slavery, covering the years 1900 through 1996. Listings are from all Western European languages, with the principal sections organized by political/geographical frameworks of the enslavers.

The Slavery & Abolition journal (linked below) provides an annual supplementary bibliography to the above work.

Slavery & Abolition (journal)
Remote access requires Oxford SSO

Recommend a book

If the Bodleian Libraries don't have the print or ebook you are looking for, you can make a recommendation by completing the form below (Oxford Single-Sign On required).

Recommend a purchase

Inter-library requests

If the Bodleian Libraries don't have the book you are looking for, we may be able to source it through Oxford's inter-library request service.

Inter-library Requests Online Form
Request on SOLO via the 'Need more?' link at the top of the page. You'll need to log in with your Single Sign-On (SSO) or Bodleian Libraries account details. Please check SOLO thoroughly to make sure an Oxford library does not hold the material you need.