# Slavery expansion during the period of legal abolition of slavery  
The abolition of the British slave trade was the first response to a powerful social movement gathering thousands of people who, for moral and religious reasons, condemned the persistence of the evil institution even though it still generated significant profits. In the first two decades of the nineteenth century, the movement to abolish slavery in the British West Indies grew as well, owing firstly to the emergence of slave rebellions in Barbados, Guyana, and Jamaica, and secondly to the activities of the Anti-Slavery Society that gathered hundreds  
of thousands of signatures demanding an end to slavery, better conditions for the enslaved populations, and gradual emancipation.  
After intense debates in the months that followed, the Slavery Abolition Act of 28 August 1833 declared the end of slavery in the British colonies starting on 1 August 1834. The Act formally freed nearly 800,000 enslaved persons. But except for Antigua, in all other British colonies of the West Indies bondspeople older than six were submitted to a period of apprenticeship: four years if they worked as domestic servants and six years if they were agricultural workers (Lightfoot, 2015). Moreover, the Abolition Act included a provision to compensate 46,000 slave owners with $£ 20$ million. Intended to control the former enslaved population, the apprenticeship system maintained intact most elements of the old relations between master and bondspeople (Drescher, 2009, p. 212).