1792

Danish decision to abolish transatlantic slavetrade

With the Enlightenment, new thinking about human rights and better conditions for the individual citizen emerged. There were discussions about whether to abolish the inhuman transport of slaves.

In Great Britain, there was a violent public debate for and against, while in Denmark the debate was fairly limited.

The transport of slaves was expensive

An official commission “for the improvement of the slave trade” argued in 1791 that the transatlantic slave trade under a Danish flag was not financially sound. It cost the lives of many sailors, and it was expensive to maintain the necessary forts on the Gold Coast of Africa. The Commission believed that the number of slaves in the West Indies should be increased so that the slave population was able to reproduce. This way, having to import new slaves continually could be avoided. Finally, the treatment of the slaves in the West Indies should be improved, thus limiting the number of deaths and allowing more children to be born to the slaves.

King Christian VII decides to stop the Danish slave trade

The result was that Christian VII signed in 1792 a new ordinance stating that slave trade under a Danish flag was to cease by January 1, 1803. In the meantime, the import of slaves from Africa would be subsidized financially. There was a pronounced need for more female slaves, of which there were only a rather few in the West Indies. Exporting slaves from the Danish colony in the West Indies was prohibited at the same time. Thus, Denmark was the first slave trading nation that decided to put an end to its slave trade.

In the period 1792-1802, private Danish individuals transferred – while subsidized financially from the government coffers – about 25,000 slaves from Africa to the colony in the West Indies. That was more than during any other decade.

In the entire period from the end of the 1600s to 1802, approximately 120,000 enslaved Africans were sent across the Atlantic on Danish ships. That corresponded to about 1-2 percent of the total transatlantic slave trade and made Denmark the seventh largest slaver of the period.

A commemorative medal.
After the decision to end slave trade under a Danish flag after a decade, a commemorative medal was designed with the profile of a young slave and with the inscription “Me miserum” (“I, the misfortunate”). The medal was minted after a design by the Danish artist Nicolai Abildgaard (The National Museum of Denmark).