1838-December-01: Lord Palmerston officially moved toward formal British recognition of Haiti by instructing Captain George William Conway Courtenay to propo…

1838-December-01: Lord Palmerston officially moved toward formal British recognition of Haiti by instructing Captain George William Conway Courtenay to propose a treaty for the abolition of the slave trade. This diplomatic overture was a direct consequence of Great Britain’s 1833 decree of emancipation for all the enslaved in its own colonies, which removed the primary internal political barrier to acknowledging a free black state. By treating with Haiti as one of the “High Powers,” the British government finally accorded the republic the sovereign status it had sought since 1804. This stood in stark contrast to the United States, where the “peculiar institution” of slavery continued to make such a move politically impossible.