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{{short description|Act passed in British India, outlawing economical transactions associated with slavery}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2018}}
{{Infobox legislation
| short_title = Indian Slavery Act, 1843
| image =
| imagesize = 150
| imagelink =
| imagealt =
| caption = [[British India]] under [[Company rule in India|East India Company Rule]]
| long_title = An Act for declaring and amending the Law regarding the condition of Slavery within the Territories of the East India Company
| citation =
| enacted_by = [[Governor-General of India]], [[Edward Law, 1st Earl of Ellenborough|Lord Ellenborough]], in Council
| date_enacted = 7 April 1843
| date_assented =
| date_signed =
| date_commenced =
| bill =
| bill_citation =
| bill_date =
| introduced_by =
| 1st_reading =
| 2nd_reading =
| 3rd_reading =
| white_paper =
| committee_report =
| amendments =
| repeals =
| related =
| summary =
| keywords =
| repealed_by = The Repealing and Amending Act, 1952
| status = repealed
}}

The '''Indian Slavery Act, 1843''', also known as '''Act V of 1843''', was an act passed in [[British India]] under [[Company rule in India|East India Company rule]], which outlawed many economic transactions associated with slavery.

The act states how the sale of any person as a slave was banned, and anyone buying or selling slaves would be booked under the Indian Penal Code with an offence carrying strict punishment.<ref name="Maharajan 2010">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AA7qj7jbR3oC |title=Mahatma Gandhi and the New Millennium |last=Maharajan |first=M. |date=1 January 2010 |publisher=Discovery Publishing House |isbn=9788171416035 |pages=50 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Agnew |first=William Fischer |title=The Indian penal code: and other acts of the Governor-general relating to offences, with notes |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=9u8SAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA325 |access-date=5 September 2011 |year=1898 |publisher=Thacker, Spink, and Co. |location=Calcutta}}</ref>

== Implementation and effect ==
Some East India Company officials opposed the act, citing Hindu and Muslim customs and maintaining the fact that the act would be seen as interference in traditional social structures.<ref name=":1" /> Evangelical politicians who had led successful slavery abolition campaigns in the [[West Indies]] prevailed and the Act was implemented.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AteGAwAAQBAJ |title=Social Legislation of the East India Company: Public Justice versus Public Instruction |last=Cassels |first=Nancy Gardner |date=14 December 2010 |publisher=SAGE Publications India |isbn=9788132106661 |pages=173 |language=en}}</ref>

Historians are divided on whether the Act was able to exclude caste and slavery.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book |url=https://archive.org/details/slaveryabolition00majo |url-access=registration |quote=caste. |title=Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772–1843 |last=Major |first=Andrea |date=1 January 2012 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |isbn=978-1-84631-758-3 |pages=[https://archive.org/details/slaveryabolition00majo/page/222 222] |language=en}}</ref> The condition of workers in tea plantations in Tamil Nadu and Assam were compared to that of African, West Indian counterparts who worked in sugar plantations. Lack of alternatives meant tea plantation workers had become indentured labourers despite the Act,<ref name=":0" /> which historian Amalendu Guha maintained was a new form of slavery.<ref name="Guha Indian Council of Historical Research 1977">{{cite book |last=Guha |first=A. |author2=Indian Council of Historical Research |title=Planter-raj to swraj: freedom struggle and electoral politics in Assam, 1826–1947 |publisher=Indian Council of Historical Research : distributor, People's Pub. House |year=1977 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=nqUeAAAAMAAJ |access-date=16 July 2018 }}</ref>

A 1996 Human Rights Watch report refers to Manjari Dingwaney's book, ''Unredeemed Promises: The Law and Servitude'', and states -
<blockquote>Various forms of debt bondage co-existed with formal slavery, and while the British abolished slavery legislatively through the Anti-Slavery Act of 1843, large numbers of former slaves traded their status for that of perpetually bonded servitude. This was in part due to the fact that the British did not abolish debt-bondage; instead, they regulated it.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.hrw.org/reports/1996/India3.htm#P344_55711 |title=India |publisher=Human Rights Watch |isbn=1-56432-172-X |access-date=11 July 2016}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=Unredeemed Promises: The Law and Servitude |last=Dingwaney |first=Manjari |year=1985 |pages=312–313}}</ref></blockquote>

== Text of the Act ==
<Center>ACT No. V. OF 1843<ref name="India Theobald 1844 p. 585">{{cite book |author=India |last2=Theobald |first2=W. |title=The Acts of the Legislative Council of India, with a Glossary; an Analytical Abstract Prefixed to Each Act, and Copious Indexes. By W. Theobald |year=1844 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PmZjAAAAcAAJ&pg=PA585 |access-date=16 July 2018 |page=585}}</ref><ref name=agnew1898-pp325-326>{{Harvnb|Agnew|1898|pp=325–326}}</ref></Center>
<Center>(Passed on the 7th April, 1843)</Center>
<Center><Big>An Act for declaring and amending the Law regarding the condition of Slavery within the Territories of the East India Company.</Big></Center>
# No public officer shall in execution of any decree or order of Court, or for the enforcement of any demand of rent or revenue, sell or cause to be sold any person, or the right to the compulsory labour or services of any person on the ground that such person is in a state of slavery.
# No rights arising out of an alleged property in the person and services of another as a slave shall be enforced by any Civil or Criminal Court or Magistrate within the territories of the East India Company.
# No person who may have acquired property by his own industry, or by the exercise of any art, calling or profession, or by inheritance, assignment, gift or bequest, shall be dispossessed of such property or prevented from taking possession thereof on the ground that such person or that the person from whom the property may have been derived was a slave.
# Any act which would be a penal offence if done to a free man shall be equally an offence if done to any person on the pretext of his being in a condition of slavery.

== See also ==
* [[Abolition of slavery timeline]]
* [[Indian indenture system]]
* [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]]
* [[Slavery in India]]

== References ==
{{Reflist}}

== Further reading ==
* Allen, Richard B. (2012) "European Slave Trading, Abolitionism, and “New Systems Of Slavery” in the Indian Ocean." ''PORTAL Journal of Multidisciplinary International Studies'' 9.1 (2012) [https://epress.lib.uts.edu.au/index.php/portal/article/download/2624/2879 online].
* Bric, Maurice J. (2016) "Debating empire and slavery: Ireland and British India, 1820–1845." ''Slavery & Abolition'' 37.3 (2016): 561–577. * Hjejle, Benedicte. (1967) "Slavery and agricultural bondage in South India in the nineteenth century." Scandinavian Economic History Review 15.1-2 (1967): 71-126. [https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/03585522.1967.10414353 online]
* Leonard, Zak. (2020) "‘A Blot on English Justice’: India reformism and the rhetoric of virtual slavery." ''Modern Asian Studies'' 1-46. [http://www.academia.edu/download/62424528/Leonard_-_virtualy_slavery_MAS.pdf online]
* {{cite book |last=Major |first=A. |title=Slavery, Abolitionism and Empire in India, 1772–1843 |publisher=Liverpool University Press |series=Liverpool Studies in International Slavery LUP |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78138-903-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/slaveryabolition00majo|url-access=registration }}
* Scarr, D. (1998) '' Slaving and Slavery in the Indian Ocean'' (Macmillan, Londo)n.

[[Category:1843 in British India]]
[[Category:1843 in British law]]
[[Category:1843 in India]]
[[Category:Legislation in British India]]
[[Category:Slavery in India]]
[[Category:Slavery in the British Empire]]
[[Category:Slavery legislation]]
[[Category:Social history of India]]

Indian Slavery Act, 1843 - Revision history

>Monkbot: Task 18 (cosmetic): eval 9 templates: hyphenate params (1×);