On this day, 218 years ago, on March 25, 1807 (February 17, 1807 in the lunar calendar), the United Kingdom announced the abolition of the slave trade. Slavery in England was outlawed in 1102, and the last serf disappeared in the early 17th century. But beginning in the 18th century, black slaves began to be imported into London and Edinburgh as servants of the British. However, black slaves at that time were not acquired through trade, and their legal status has always been unclear. Until 1772, a black slave named James Somerset escaped, was captured by his master, and sent him to Jamaica to grow sugar cane. Since Somerset had been baptized in London, his godfather filed a lawsuit with the court on a writ of habeas corpus. The then President of the Queen's Bench of the High Court of England and Wales ruled on 22 June 1772 that blacks should be released. This declared that slavery did not exist under English law, and owning slaves would be illegal. The verdict freed between 10,000 and 14,000 slaves who had arrived in England. In 1783, the anti-slavery movement began in British society. In May of that year, the "Abolition of the Slave Trade Committee" was established to crack down on the Atlantic slave trade by British businessmen. On March 25, 1807, the British Parliament passed the SlaveTrade Act, making slave trade illegal within the British Empire and imposing a fine of £ 100 per slave on British slave ships. Although the 1807 Act eliminated the slave trade, slavery still existed. In the 1820s, the abolition movement began to become active again. In 1827, the Anti-Slavery Association was established, many of whom were abolitionists who had participated in the anti-slave trade. This movement aimed at the complete abolition of slavery. On August 23, 1833, the Abolition Act outlawed slavery in the British colonies. On August 1, 1834, all slaves under the British Empire were liberated, but they still had to work for their former masters until 1838 as an adjustment period.