On this day in 1834, slavery was abolished in the British Empire as the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 comes into force. August 1st is Emancipation Day, a public holiday in several Caribbean countries. The British like other colonial powers had allowed the widespread practice of slavery to take place during the time of expansion to the new world. In 1772, the ruling in the case of Somerset v Stewart determined that slavery was unsupported by the common law in England and Wales. Slavery was finally abolished throughout the British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. The territories controlled at that time by the East India Company, Ceylon (modern-day Sri Lanka) and St. Helen's were excluded. Slavery was not abolished in these regions until 1843. The first country in the world to observe a public holiday for Emancipation Day was Trinidad and Tobago , when Emancipation Day replaced Discovery Day in 1985. Ref; Decision of Lord Mansfield in the Somerset Case, 1772 (read on: aaregistry.org/story/somerse…) While the ruling was not clear on the situation in other parts of the Empire, this case was seen as a key turning point in the change towards emancipation.