The Royal Navy Squadron that Ended the African Slave Trade

Guest: John Broich, PhD, Associate Professor of British Empire History, Case Western Reserve University, Author, “Squadron: Ending the African Slave Trade” Many years after the U.S. and England banned the transport of enslaved people across the Atlantic, and America tore itself to pieces in civil war to end slavery, an active slave trade was still going on in the Indian Ocean on the other side of Africa. But that was so far away it was essentially “out of sight, out of mind” for Americans and many British, too. Those who did know of it couldn’t agree on what to do about it. Some hoped it would peter out naturally. Others, including a Royal Navy commodore named Leopold Heath, believed England had a duty to use all of its military might to end the trade of kidnapped Africans as slaves. So, he assembled a squadron of ship captains and they took it upon themselves.