istoryworld
Events relating to trade
The Dutch expel the Portuguese from the last of their trading posts in Sri Lanka
Dutch traders purchase Kakiemon wares in Japan for import to the Netherlands
Aphra Behn's novel Oroonoko makes an early protest against the inhumanity of the African slave trade
Boston merchant Samuel Sewall publishes The Selling of Joseph, a very early anti-slavery tract
John Peter Zenger, editor of the Weekly Journal, is acquitted of libelling the governor of New York on the grounds that what he published was true
The French seize or evict every English-speaking trader in the region of the upper Ohio
Quaker minister John Woolman publishes the first part of Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes, an essay denouncing slavery
The triangular trade, controlled from Liverpool, ships millions of Africans across the Atlantic as slaves
20-year-old John Jacob Astor emigrates from Germany to America and sets up in the fur trade
The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in London, with a strong Quaker influence
A British ship lands a party of freed slaves as the first modern settlers in Sierra Leone, on the west coast of Africa
The autobiography of Olaudah Equiano, a slave captured as a child in Africa, becomes a best-seller on both sides of the Atlantic
The US Congress passes Fugitive Slave Laws, enabling southern slave owners to reclaim escaped slaves in northern states
Napoleon imposes his Continental System, designed to strangle Britain's trade
Legislation abolishing the slave trade is passed in both Britain and America
The British government uses Freetown, in Sierra Leone, as a base in the fight against the slave trade
John Jacob Astor establishes Astoria, a settlement on the Pacific coast to develop his fur trade with China
Damage to US trade by British orders in council prompts war (the War of 1812) between the two nations
The Turks recapture Belgrade and sell thousands of Serb women and children into slavery
Robert Finley, a US anti-slavery campaigner, founds the American Colonization Society to settle freed slaves in Africa
The British establish Bathurst (now Banjul) at the mouth of the Gambia as a base against the slave trade
The Missouri Compromise, admitting Maine and Missouri to the union, keeps the balance between 'free' and 'slave' states in the US senate
The Sante Fe Trail, from Missouri to New Mexico, is opened up by the US trader William Becknell
The American Colonization Society buys the area later known as Liberia to settle freed slaves
The first shipload of freed slaves reaches Cape Mesurado (in the region soon called Liberia) from the USA
