The Indian Slavery Act was passed on this day. Ten years after the Slavery Abolition Act was passed by the British Parliament, this Act intended to eliminate slavery in India.
“…no public officer shall in execution of any decree or order of Court, or for the enforcement of any demand of Rent or Revenue sell or cause to be sold any person, or the right to the compulsory labour or services of any person on the ground that such person is in a state of slavery,” the Act began.
Henry Bartle Frer, who was on the Viceroy’s council from 1859 to 1867, estimated that the slave population of British India, in 1841, was 8-9 millions. So the number of enslaved “in British India, far exceeded the number of the same classes in the colonies of Britain and America put together”.
