Britain’s remarkable fight to end the slave trade

On 20 June 1897 around 2,000 people paraded outside the colonial Government house in the Seychelles. Like many throughout the British Empire, they were celebrating Queen Victoria’s Diamond Jubilee. The crowd held large Union Jacks printed with the words, ‘The Flag that sets us free.’ All had been rescued by the Royal Navy from the East African Slave Trade. Once gathered, a message translated from Créole was given to the colonial administrator, Cockburn-Stewart. The message said: 

‘We members of the different tribes of Africans living in the Seychelles, take the occasion of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria to express to you – Her Representative in these Islands our thanks for all that She and England have done for us… Kindly, Sir, express to the Queen our thanks for our freedom and to England our gratitude to those English Sailors who were killed and wounded, fighting that we might be free.’ 

This powerful message was representative of the fact that Great Britain was the driving force behind the global abolition of slavery.