Freedom Road

The abolition of the slave trade was significant in that it was the first clear declaration by a major imperial power of the illegality and the barbarism of a traffic in human beings which had previously been widely supported in the highest circles of European society. But, diplomatically, it also allowed Britain to use these achievements as bludgeons against its rivals and to clothe the imperialism of Pax Britannica in moral dress. For the slaves, the abolition of the slave trade was at once a disappointment and a harbinger of the total emancipation which was to come... objectively... despite its ambiguities, the abolition of the slave trade was the beginning of the end for the slave institution in the Anglophone Caribbean. Within three decades, slavery became insupportable, and emancipation became real.-Excerpted from "Introduction to the 2nd edn"