Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / The 1787 Dolben Act: Britain's First Anti-Slave Trade Law
Transcript
- Lucas: Luna, we've spent a lot of episodes on the rebellions, the treaties, the economic machinery of the Atlantic slave trade. But I want to zoom in on something that often gets overlooked: the very first time a European government tried to regulate the slave trade from the inside. Luna: You mean before abolition? Like, limiting the number of people on a ship? Lucas: Exactly. In 1787, a British MP named Sir William Dolben introduced the Slave Carrying Bill. It was the first law to set a maximum number of enslaved people per ton of ship. Before that, traders crammed as many people as physically possible into the hold. The mortality rate on the Middle Passage could hit 30 percent or higher. Dolben had seen it firsthand. Luna: What drove him to act? Was it the Zong massacre? Lucas: Partly. The Zong was a slave ship whose owners, in 1781, threw 133 enslaved Africans overboard to claim insurance. They argued it was a jettison of cargo — not murder. The case became a public scandal. But Dolben was also moved by something more personal: he visited a slave ship docked in London, the Fly, and was horrified by the stench and the chains. He wrote that the air was 'so foul, it was impossible to breathe.' Lucas: So he brought a bill to Parliament. He didn't try to ban the trade — that would have been impossible. He just wanted to limit the number of people per ton. The bill passed in 1788, and it set the ratio at five enslaved people for every three tons for ships under 201 tons, and one person per ton for larger vessels. Luna: That still sounds like a lot of people packed in. Lucas: It was. But before the Dolben Act, ships routinely carried eight or ten people per ton. The new law cut that nearly in half. Mortality dropped sharply after the act — from around 15 percent to under 5 percent on some routes. But here's the dark twist: the law actually made the trade more efficient. Healthy slaves fetched higher prices, and fewer deaths meant better returns. Some abolitionists later worried the act had made the trade more profitable, not less. Luna: So a humanitarian law ended up helping the slavers? Lucas: In a sense, yes. Dolben himself was a sincere abolitionist. But the act had a loophole: it only applied to ships sailing from London and Bristol, not Liverpool — the biggest slave port. That was deliberate, to get the bill through Parliament. Liverpool's MPs fought it hard, and they got a six-month exemption. By the time the law applied to them, they'd already packed their ships for the season. Luna: So Liverpool got a head start to cram even more people in before the rules kicked in. Lucas: Precisely. And there's another layer: the Dolben Act was the first time Parliament had ever officially investigated the slave trade. Thomas Clarkson, the abolitionist, spent months gathering evidence — interviewing sailors, measuring ships, documenting the chains and the shackles. He presented his findings to Parliament, and that inquiry became the foundation for the later abolition movement. Lucas: Clarkson's research was meticulous. He even commissioned a model of a slave ship, the Brookes, to show how people were packed in. You've probably seen that diagram — it's become iconic. That model was used to argue for the Dolben Act. But the act itself only regulated space, not treatment. Whipping, rape, and torture continued unchecked. Luna: And the enslaved people themselves — did they have any voice in this? Lucas: Almost none. A few African writers, like Olaudah Equiano, testified before Parliament. Equiano had been enslaved and purchased his freedom. He wrote about the horrors of the Middle Passage. But the Dolben Act was debated entirely by white men in London, most of whom had never set foot on a slave ship. The voices of the enslaved were filtered through abolitionist campaigners. Lucas: Interestingly, the act also spurred a new wave of resistance. In 1787, the same year Dolben introduced his bill, a group of Igbo captives in the Americas — at a place called Igbo Landing in Georgia — walked into the water and drowned themselves rather than be enslaved. They believed the water would carry their spirits back to Africa. That mass suicide is a powerful reminder that the people at the centre of these laws were making their own choices, even in the face of death. Luna: That's the 25 Ibo Landing, right? I've heard that story. They chanted and sang as they walked into the creek. Lucas: Yes. It's a story of agency, of refusal. And it happened in the exact same year that Parliament was debating how many bodies could legally be packed into a ship. The contrast is stark: one group of men in wigs arguing over tonnage ratios, and another group of human beings choosing death over chains. Lucas: The Dolben Act was renewed annually until 1799, when it was made permanent. It set a precedent: the slave trade could be regulated, and Parliament had a moral responsibility to intervene. Without that precedent, the 1807 Abolition Act might never have passed. But it also showed the limits of reform from above. The trade adapted, found loopholes, and continued for another two decades. Luna: It's like they treated the symptoms without curing the disease. Lucas: Exactly. And that's a lesson that applies beyond the slave trade. But let's step back for a moment. If you've been coming with us through these conversations — about the ships, the rebellions, the laws — and you find value in this kind of deep, ad-free history, there's a simple way to keep it going. We're supported by listeners at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. It's a small gesture that keeps the show independent and lets us dive into these overlooked corners of history. Luna: Yeah, and it's nice to know the show isn't beholden to advertisers. Just a thought. Lucas: Anyway — back to the Dolben Act. One of its most lasting impacts was the way it forced the slave trade to become more visible. Ships had to be registered, inspected, and reports filed. That data later became crucial for abolitionists. For example, the number of slaves carried per ship dropped by nearly half in the decade after the act. But the total number of slaves transported actually increased, because more ships were built to compensate. Luna: So the volume of the trade went up even as conditions improved? Lucas: Yes. And that's the tragedy of reform without revolution. The Dolben Act saved lives on individual ships, but it didn't save the system. It took another twenty years and a global war to finally ban the trade. But it's a crucial step — one that historians often skip over in favor of Wilberforce and the big 1807 moment. Dolben doesn't even have a major biography. He's a footnote. But his law changed the economics of the Middle Passage. Luna: Let's talk about the opposition. Who fought it hardest? Lucas: The Liverpool merchants, led by figures like John Tarleton — a slave trader and MP. They argued that regulation would ruin Britain's maritime supremacy and that the trade was already humane enough. They brought in captains to testify that the ships were spacious and that slaves were treated well. Clarkson debunked that testimony by showing that the same captains had previously testified to the opposite when it suited them. Lucas: The parliamentary debate itself was fierce. One pro-trade MP, Lord Penrhyn, claimed that limiting the number of slaves would cause 'the total ruin of the African trade.' He was wrong, of course. The trade boomed for another two decades. But his rhetoric shows how deeply invested the British economy was in slavery. Luna: And the act itself — did it apply to the British colonies, or just the ships? Lucas: Just the ships leaving British ports. It didn't regulate the trade in the colonies at all. That's another limitation. But it did create a bureaucratic machinery: the Surveyor of Ships, the inspection regime, the paperwork. That machinery later became the backbone of the West Africa Squadron, which enforced the ban after 1807. Luna: So in a way, Dolben's law was the administrative prototype for abolition. Lucas: Exactly. And it's a reminder that historical change doesn't always come from dramatic moments. Sometimes it comes from a weary MP inspecting a stinking ship and deciding that something, however small, must be done. Lucas: So the next time you hear about the 1807 Abolition Act, remember that it stood on the shoulders of this earlier, quieter law. And on the shoulders of the people who refused to be cargo — who walked into the water at Igbo Landing, who jumped overboard from Zong, who packed the holds of ships like the Brookes. Their suffering and their resistance made the laws possible. Luna: That's a powerful way to end. Thanks, Lucas. Lucas: Thanks for listening, Luna. And to everyone out there — keep asking questions about the past. It's never as simple as the textbooks make it.