When David Livingstone landed in the Cape Colony in 1841, he did so in the midst of British anti-slavery euphoria. Britain had abolished slavery throughout the empire only eight years earlier, and as his ship sailed down Africa's coast, he saw the patrols—a sixth of the great British navy—scouting the Atlantic in search of slave smugglers.

Those smugglers who made it through, mainly bound for Cuba, Brazil, and the southern U. S., still carried 60,000 slaves annually, but the number was down by over half from a few years earlier. Although by 1842 almost all major seafaring nations had officially outlawed the trade, in practice they turned a blind eye to its continuation. Slavery was simply too profitable to abandon altogether. A slave bought for $10 in Africa could sell for as much as $600 in Cuba.

By the early 1850s, Britain had nearly obliterated all slave trading from the Portuguese territories Angola and Mozambique, which were among the most notorious. When the American Civil War ended, ...

FREE E-Newsletter Sign up for the ChristianHistory.net e-mail newsletter. Discover more about your Christian heritage with this weekly e-newsletter that features key people, topics, and events from the history of Christianity.      RSS Feed   RSS Help