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Establishment of the West Africa Squadron

When: 1808
Where: Coast of West Africa
Part of: Britain abolishes the slave trade and establishes the West Africa Squadron

The Royal Navy established the West Africa Squadron in 1808 to suppress the Atlantic slave trade by patrolling the coast of West Africa.

Formed in 1808 after the British Parliament passed the Slave Trade Act 1807, the squadron was based out of Portsmouth, England. It remained an independent command until 1856. Between 1808 and 1860, the squadron seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.

Sources

West Africa Squadron Wikipedia, revision of 2026-09-26
Slave Trade Act 1807 Wikipedia, revision of 2026-10-02

Machine-drafted from the cited Wikipedia passages and checked by a reviewing model, not by a human editor. Every passage cites the revision it was written from; dates and places follow those passages.