Indian Slavery Act, 1843

Indian Slavery Act, 1843
British India under East India Company Rule
An Act for declaring and amending the Law regarding the condition of Slavery within the Territories of the East India Company
Enacted by	Governor-General of India, Lord Ellenborough, in Council
Date enacted	7 April 1843

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

Text of the Act

ACT No. V Of 1843^[1] (Passed on the 7th Of April, 1843) An Act for declaring and amending the Law regarding the condition of Slavery within the Territories of the East India Company.

1. 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.
2. 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.
3. 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.
4. 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.

Notes

1. Agnew 1898, pp. 325–326

References

• Agnew, William Fischer (1898). The Indian penal code: and other acts of the Governor-general relating to offences, with notes. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink, and Co. Retrieved 5 September 2011.