Latest / The Atlantic Slave Trade: Empire Built on Human Suffering — Fexingo History / The 1792 Danish Ban: Europe's First Slave Trade Abolition
Transcript
- Lucas: If you've been stepping into history with us episode by episode, you know we've covered a lot of ground — British abolition, the Haitian Revolution, the Amistad. But there's a lesser-known first that often gets overlooked. Luna: What's that? Lucas: In 1792, Denmark-Norway became the first European power to pass a law abolishing the transatlantic slave trade. That's a full fifteen years before Britain's 1807 act. Luna: Wait, really? I thought Britain was the first. Lucas: It's a common assumption, but Denmark got there first — though the law had a twist. It didn't take effect until 1803. That ten-year delay was deliberate. Luna: Why would they delay their own ban? Lucas: The Danish government wanted to give planters in the Danish West Indies — their Caribbean colonies — time to adjust. They could still import enslaved people until 1803, and the Crown even encouraged them to stock up. It was a compromise between abolitionist ideals and colonial economic interests. Luna: So it was more about planning than principle? Lucas: Partly. But there were real abolitionist voices too. King Christian VII was the nominal ruler — though he was mentally ill, so the real power lay with his ministers, especially Ernst Schimmelmann, who chaired the Slave Trade Commission that proposed the ban. Schimmelmann was a wealthy planter himself, which makes his role fascinating. Luna: He owned plantations and still pushed for abolition? Lucas: Exactly. He was the Danish equivalent of a slave-owning abolitionist — a contradiction but not unheard of. He argued that ending the trade would force planters to treat enslaved people better, since they couldn't just import replacements. He also believed the trade was morally wrong, but his economics were pragmatic: he thought a stable, natural increase of the enslaved population was more profitable in the long run than constant imports. Luna: That's a cold calculation, but it worked. Lucas: It did. The ban was passed in 1792, signed by the regent Crown Prince Frederik — later King Frederik VI — and it came into force on January 1, 1803. After that, no Danish ship could legally carry enslaved people from Africa to the Caribbean. Denmark-Norway also banned its citizens from participating in the trade under other flags. Luna: Did other countries follow? Lucas: Not immediately. Britain was next in 1807, then the US in 1808. But Denmark's early move was largely ignored by historians until recent decades. Part of the reason is that Denmark was a minor colonial power — its Caribbean holdings were just three islands: Saint Thomas, Saint John, and Saint Croix. They'd been in Danish hands since the 1600s, originally through the Danish West India Company. Luna: Saint Croix wasn't Danish from the start, was it? Lucas: No, it changed hands. The French sold it to Denmark in 1733. That same year, a major slave revolt broke out on Saint John — the 1733 slave revolt, where enslaved Akwamu people from present-day Ghana took control of the island for nearly a year. It was brutally suppressed by Danish troops and local militias. Luna: So Denmark had its share of violent resistance. Lucas: Absolutely. And the 1792 ban didn't end slavery itself — only the trade. Enslaved people in the Danish West Indies remained enslaved. The push for full emancipation took another half century. It finally came in 1848, when Governor Peter von Scholten — facing a massive rebellion threat — declared emancipation effective immediately. Luna: So emancipation came from a governor's decree? Lucas: Yes, but under pressure. On July 3, 1848, thousands of enslaved people on Saint Croix gathered outside Frederiksted, demanding freedom. They were led by a man named Moses Gottlieb, also known as General Buddhoe. Governor von Scholten, afraid of a bloodbath, issued a proclamation freeing all enslaved people in the Danish West Indies. The Danish government later ratified it. Luna: So Denmark ended slavery relatively peacefully, compared to Haiti or Jamaica. Lucas: Relatively, yes. But it wasn't entirely smooth. After emancipation, former slaves had to work for low wages under strict labor laws, and many remained tied to plantations. Still, Denmark's trajectory from the 1792 ban to the 1848 emancipation is a unique story in Atlantic slavery — a small European power taking an early stand, even if it was imperfect. Luna: It's strange to think of Denmark as a colonial slave power at all. Lucas: It is, because we don't often associate Scandinavia with the transatlantic trade. But Danish ships carried tens of thousands of enslaved Africans to the Caribbean, and Danish plantations produced sugar, rum, and cotton. The legacy is still visible in the Virgin Islands today — the islands the US bought from Denmark in 1917. Luna: I had no idea the US bought the Danish West Indies. Lucas: Yes, during World War I, the US purchased them for $25 million in gold, partly to prevent Germany from seizing them. They were renamed the US Virgin Islands. So Denmark's colonial chapter ended in 1917, but the history of slavery there is a crucial part of the Atlantic story. Luna: And the 1792 ban was the first official abolition of the trade anywhere. Lucas: Exactly. It's a reminder that abolition wasn't just a British or American story — it had many starting points, some of them surprising. Denmark's early move shows how economic self-interest, moral pressure, and political calculation could combine to produce change, even if it took decades to fully unfold. Luna: We talk about these histories because they matter, and we deliberately don't run ads on these episodes. If you want to support that choice, the link is buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. Lucas: Yeah, listener support is what keeps this ad-free. And it lets us dig into these lesser-known stories that don't always make the headlines. Luna: So what happened to the Danish Caribbean after 1848? Lucas: After emancipation, the sugar industry declined. Many former laborers left the plantations, and the Danish government tried various reforms to keep the economy afloat, but it never fully recovered. By the early 1900s, the islands were a strategic liability, which led to the sale to the US. But that's a whole other episode. Luna: We'll have to come back to it. Lucas: Absolutely. For now, it's worth remembering that the first blow against the transatlantic slave trade was struck not by a major empire, but by a small Nordic kingdom — and it came with a ten-year delay, but it came.