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The British colonies in the West Indies, including Jamaica, were to declare their slaves free according to Queen Victoria’s Emancipation Proclamation of August 1834. This weak-toned document was more specific about the ways in which the "emancipation" should be celebrated than it was about the actual terms of emancipation Even worse, the terms were influenced heavily by the planters, who saw their already diminishing profits threatened by a free work force. As such, the slaves had to face another four-year "apprenticeship" period, which ostensibly would prepare them for life outside the plantation but in reality simply kept the plantations going a little longer. Slavery was fully abolished in Jamaica in 1838.
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