Medal Commemorating the United Kingdom’s 1807 Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade

Birmingham, United Kingdom, 1814. Copper medal measuring 1 ½ inches in diameter. Appears Very Fine.. A copper medal commemorating the passage of the United Kingdom’s Slave Trade Act 1807, produced for distribution in Sierra Leone. One side depicts a European and an African man shaking hands and reads, “WE ARE ALL BRETHREN” and exergue: “SLAVE TRADE ABOLISHED BY GREAT BRITAIN 1807”. The reverse is inscribed in Arabic and reads, translated, “Sale of slaves prohibited in 1807, Christian era, in the reign of George the Third; verily we are all brothers.” The 1807 act did not abolish slavery, but rather criminalized British participation in the African branch of the slave trade; it was enforced by the Royal Navy’s West Africa Squadron in the so-called Blockade of Africa. The squadron was based in Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital, and would bring freed people from intercepted slave ships to the city.