Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies

Audience

The initial audience of the 1833 emancipation bill, the motion that was passed into law a few months later as the Slavery Abolition Act, consisted of the members of Parliament who belonged to the assembly of the House of Commons as well as peers in the House of Lords. As such, the act was formed to appease the political community and the broad opinions they held. Vital to its promotion was not only the increasingly widespread desire to ban slavery but also the provision of mechanisms to ensure the preservation of local colonial societies and economies. As such it was composed to satisfy a variety of parliamentarians so that a broad enough consensus could be reached to ensure its passage into law, such that it could grant, if not straightaway permit, the liberty of persons in enslavement in the British colonies.

Beyond the politicians needed to legally enact the initial proposal for change, the foremost audiences were those whom it would directly effect: the colonizers, in particular the slave owners who were to receive financial compensation, and those once enslaved, who were to be freed. A third important audience consisted of the persons who controlled the structure of colonial economies. Hence, provision was made in the act to ensure that plantation workers stayed on the land at least temporarily, albeit now under a system of freedoms and the status of apprenticed laborers.