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Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end
As in other
Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
and liberate enslaved people around the world.
The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France
France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...
in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies
In modern parlance, a colony is a territory subject to a form of foreign rule. Though dominated by the foreign colonizers, colonies remain separate from the administration of the original country of the colonizers, the '' metropolitan state' ...
. Vermont was the first American colony to abolish slavery in 1777, followed very quickly by other American colonies. Vermont's legislation also gave African-American males the right to vote. The first and only country to self-liberate from slavery was actually a former French colony, Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
, as a result of the Revolution of 1791–1804. The British abolitionist movement began in the late 18th century, and the 1772 Somersett case established that slavery did not exist in English law. In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal throughout the British Empire. In 1808 the United States outlawed the international slave trade and importation of slaves but did not yet ban slavery outright.
In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish the enslavement of the Roma
Roma or ROMA may refer to:
Places Australia
* Roma, Queensland, a town
** Roma Airport
** Roma Courthouse
** Electoral district of Roma, defunct
** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council
* Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...
in Wallachia
Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and s ...
and Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centra ...
between 1843 and 1855, and to emancipate the serfs in Russia in 1861. The United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...
would pass the 13th amendment in December 1865 after having just fought a bloody Civil War
A civil war or intrastate war is a war between organized groups within the same state (or country).
The aim of one side may be to take control of the country or a region, to achieve independence for a region, or to change government polic ...
in order to end slavery. In 1888, Brazil
Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...
became the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery.
After centuries of struggle, slavery was eventually declared illegal at the global level in 1948 under the United Nations
The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be a centre for harmonizi ...
' Universal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
. Mauritania was the last country to officially abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981. Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in almost all countries, as well as being against international law
International law (also known as public international law and the law of nations) is the set of rules, norms, and standards generally recognized as binding between states. It establishes normative guidelines and a common conceptual framework for ...
, but human trafficking
Human trafficking is the trade of humans for the purpose of forced labour, sexual slavery, or commercial sexual exploitation for the trafficker or others. This may encompass providing a spouse in the context of forced marriage, or the extr ...
for labour and for sexual bondage continues to affect tens of millions of adults and children.
France
Early abolition in European France
Balthild of Chelles, herself a former slave, queen consort of Neustria and Burgundy by marriage toClovis II
Clovis II (633 – 657) was King of Neustria and Burgundy, having succeeded his father Dagobert I in 639. His brother Sigebert III had been King of Austrasia since 634. He was initially under the regency of his mother Nanthild until her ...
, became regent in 657 since the king, her son Chlothar III
Chlothar III (or ''Chlotar'', ''Clothar'', ''Clotaire'', ''Chlotochar'', or ''Hlothar'', giving rise to the name Lothair; 652–673) was the eldest son of Clovis II, king of Neustria and Burgundy, and his queen Balthild. When Clovis died in 657, ...
, was only five years old. At some unknown date during her rule, she abolished the trade of slaves, although not slavery. Moreover, her (and contemporaneous Saint Eligius
Saint Eligius (also Eloy, Eloi or Loye; french: Éloi; 11 June 588 – 1 December 660 AD) is the patron saint of goldsmiths, other metalworkers, and coin collectors. He is also the patron saint of veterinarians, the Royal Electrical and Mechani ...
') favorite charity was to buy and free slaves, especially children. Slavery started to dwindle and would be superseded by serfdom
Serfdom was the status of many peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to manorialism, and similar systems. It was a condition of debt bondage and indentured servitude with similarities to and differences from slavery, which develo ...
.
In 1315, Louis X, king of France, published a decree proclaiming that "France signifies freedom" and that any slave setting foot on French soil should be freed. This prompted subsequent governments to circumscribe slavery in the overseas colonies.
Some cases of African slaves freed by setting foot on French soil were recorded such as the example of a Norman slave merchant who tried to sell slaves in Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( , ; Gascon oc, Bordèu ; eu, Bordele; it, Bordò; es, Burdeos) is a port city on the river Garonne in the Gironde department, Southwestern France. It is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the prefecture ...
in 1571. He was arrested and his slaves were freed according to a declaration of the Parlement
A ''parlement'' (), under the French Ancien Régime, was a provincial appellate court of the Kingdom of France. In 1789, France had 13 parlements, the oldest and most important of which was the Parlement of Paris. While both the modern Fr ...
of Guyenne
Guyenne or Guienne (, ; oc, Guiana ) was an old French province which corresponded roughly to the Roman province of ''Aquitania Secunda'' and the archdiocese of Bordeaux.
The name "Guyenne" comes from ''Aguyenne'', a popular transformation of ...
which stated that slavery was intolerable in France, although it is a misconception that there were 'no slaves in France'; thousands of African slaves were present in France during the eighteenth century. Born into slavery in Saint Domingue
Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to refer ...
, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie (; known as Alexandre Dumas; 25 March 1762 – 26 February 1806) was a Creole general, from The French colony of Saint-Domingue, in Revolutionary France. Along with his French contemporary Jos ...
became free when his father brought him to France in 1776.
''Code Noir'' and Age of Enlightenment
As in other New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
colonies, the French relied on the Atlantic slave trade
The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and ...
for labour for their sugar cane
Sugarcane or sugar cane is a species of (often hybrid) tall, perennial grass (in the genus '' Saccharum'', tribe Andropogoneae) that is used for sugar production. The plants are 2–6 m (6–20 ft) tall with stout, jointed, fibrous stal ...
plantations
A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. Th ...
in their Caribbean colonies; the French West Indies
The French West Indies or French Antilles (french: Antilles françaises, ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Antiy fwansez) are the parts of France located in the Antilles islands of the Caribbean:
* The two overseas departments of:
** Guadeloup ...
. In addition, French colonists in ''Louisiane
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a state in the Deep South and South Central regions of the United States. It is the 20th-smallest by area and the 25th most populous of the 50 U.S. states. Louisiana is border ...
'' in North America held slaves, particularly in the South around New Orleans
New Orleans ( , ,New Orleans
The convention, the first elected Assembly of the First Republic (1792–1804), on 4 February 1794, under the leadership of
On 27 April 1848, under the Second Republic (1848–1852), the decree-law written by Victor Schœlcher abolished slavery in the remaining colonies. The state bought the slaves from the ''colons'' (white colonists; ''
Although the exact legal implications of the judgement are unclear when analysed by lawyers, the judgement was generally taken at the time to have determined that slavery did not exist under English common law and was thus prohibited in England. The decision did not apply to the British overseas territories; by then, for example, the American colonies had established slavery by positive laws. Somersett's case became a significant part of the common law of slavery in the English-speaking world and it helped launch the movement to abolish slavery.
After reading about Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved African who had been purchased by his master John Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him. Married and with a child, he filed a
Prior to the 
After the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787, 
In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement revived to campaign against the institution of slavery itself. In 1823 the first Anti-Slavery Society, the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, was founded. Many of its members had previously campaigned against the slave trade. On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. It purchased the slaves from their masters and paved the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire by 1838, after which the first Anti-Slavery Society was wound up.
In 1839, the
During the early 19th century, slavery expanded rapidly in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States, while at the same time the new republics of mainland Spanish America became committed to the gradual abolition of slavery. During the Spanish American wars for independence (1810–1826), slavery was abolished in most of Latin America, though it continued until 1873 in
Throughout the growth of slavery in the American South, Nova Scotia became a destination for black refugees leaving Southern Colonies and United States. While many blacks who arrived in Nova Scotia during the American Revolution were free, others were not. Black slaves also arrived in Nova Scotia as the property of White American Loyalists. In 1772, prior to the American Revolution, Britain Somerset v Stewart, determined that slavery could not exist in the British Isles followed by the Joseph Knight (slave), Knight v. Wedderburn decision in Scotland in 1778. This decision, in turn, influenced the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1788, abolitionist James Drummond MacGregor from Pictou published the first anti-slavery literature in Canada and began purchasing slaves' freedom and chastising his colleagues in the Presbyterian church who owned slaves. In 1790 John Burbidge freed his slaves. Led by Richard John Uniacke, in 1787, 1789 and again on 11 January 1808, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to legalize slavery. Two chief justices, Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange (1790–1796) and Sampson Salter Blowers (1797–1832) were instrumental in freeing slaves from their owners in Nova Scotia. They were held in high regard in the colony. By the end of the War of 1812 and the arrival of the Black Refugees, there were few slaves left in Nova Scotia. The
In his book ''The Struggle For Equality'', historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional, and total abolition of slavery in the United States". He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln or the Republican Party, which called for the gradual ending of slavery.
Benjamin Franklin, a slaveholder for much of his life, became a leading member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first recognized organization for abolitionists in the United States. Following the American Revolutionary War, Northern states abolished slavery, beginning with the Constitution of Vermont#1777, 1777 Constitution of Vermont, followed by Pennsylvania's gradual emancipation act in 1780. Other states with more of an economic interest in slaves, such as New York and New Jersey, also passed gradual emancipation laws, and by 1804, all the Northern states had abolished it, although this did not mean that already enslaved people were freed. Some had to work without wages as "indentured servants" for two more decades, although they could no longer be sold.
Also in the post-Revolutionary years, individual slaveholders, especially in the Upper South, manumitted slaves, sometimes in their wills. (In the Deep South manumission was made difficult; in South Carolina every manumission required legislative approval, and the freed slaves had to leave the state immediately.) Many noted that they had been moved by the revolutionary ideals of the equality of men. The number of free black people as a proportion of the black population increased from less than one percent to nearly ten percent from 1790 to 1810 in the Upper South as a result of these actions.
The 1836–1837 campaign to end free speech in Alton, Illinois culminated in the 7 November 1837 mob murder of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy, which was covered in newspapers nationwide, causing a rise in membership in abolitionist societies. By 1840 more than 15,000 people were members of abolitionist societies in the United States.
In the 1850s in the fifteen states constituting the Southern United States, American South, slavery was legally established. While it was fading away in the cities as well as in the border states, it remained strong in plantation areas that grew cotton for export, or sugar, tobacco, or hemp. According to the 1860 United States Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to four million. American abolitionism was based in the North, although there were anti-abolitionist riots in several cities. In the South abolitionism was illegal, and abolitionist publications, like The Liberator (newspaper), The Liberator, could not be sent to Southern post offices. Amos Dresser, a white alumnus of Lane Theological Seminary, was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, for possessing abolitionist publications.In addition, laws were passed to further repress slaves. These laws included anti-literacy laws and anti-gathering laws. The anti-gathering laws were applied to religious gatherings of free blacks and slaves. These laws, passed around the 1820–1850 period, were blamed in the South on Northern abolitionists. As one slaveowner wrote, "I can tell you. It was the abolition agitation. If the slave is not allowed to read his bible, the sin rests upon the abolitionists; for they stand prepared to furnish him with a key to it, which would make it, not a book of hope, and love, and peace, but of despair, hatred and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Christian, but a demon. [. . .] Allow our slaves to read your writings, stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such unspeakable fools?"
Abolitionism in the United States became a popular expression of moralism, operating in tandem with other social reform efforts, such as the temperance movement, and much more problematically, the Women's suffrage in the United States, women's suffrage movement.
The white abolitionist movement in the North was led by social reformers, especially William Lloyd Garrison (founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society) and writers Wendell Phillips, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Black activists included former slaves such as Frederick Douglass; and free blacks such as the brothers Charles Henry Langston and John Mercer Langston, who helped found the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. Some abolitionists said that slavery was criminal and a sin; they also criticized slave owners of using black women as concubines and taking sexual advantage of them.
The Republican Party (United States), Republican Party wanted to achieve the gradual extinction of slavery by market forces, because its members believed that free labour was superior to slave labour. White southern leaders said that the Republican policy of blocking the expansion of slavery into the West made them second-class citizens, and they also said it challenged their autonomy. With the 1860 United States presidential election, 1860 presidential victory of Abraham Lincoln, seven Deep South states whose economy was based on cotton and the labour of enslaved people decided to secede and form a new nation. The American Civil War broke out in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. When President Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers, Lincoln called for troops to suppress the rebellion, four more slave states seceded. Meanwhile, four slave states (Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, and Kentucky) chose to remain in the Union.
On 16 April 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, abolishing slavery in Washington D. C. Meanwhile, the Union suddenly found itself dealing with a steady stream of escaped slaves from the South rushing to Union lines. In response, Congress passed the Confiscation Acts, which essentially declared escaped slaves from the South to be confiscated war property, called Contraband (American Civil War), contrabands, so that they would not be returned to their masters in the Confederate States of America, Confederacy. Although the initial act did not mention emancipation, the second Confiscation Act, passed on 17 July 1862, stated that escaped or liberated slaves belonging to anyone who participated in or supported the rebellion "shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." On 1 January 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which was an executive order of the U.S. government that changed the legal status of 3 million slaves in the Confederacy from "slave" to "henceforward ... free". Though slaves were legally freed by the Proclamation, they became actually free by escaping to federal lines, or by advances of federal troops. Many served the federal army as teamsters, cooks, laundresses, and labourers, as well as scouts, spies, and guides. Confederate General Robert Lee once said, "The chief source of information to the enemy is through our negroes." Plantation owners sometimes moved the Black people they claimed to own as far as possible out of reach of the Union army. By "Juneteenth" (19 June 1865, in Texas), the Union Army controlled all of the Confederacy and liberated all its slaves. The owners were never compensated; nor were freed slaves compensated by former owners.
The border states were exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, but they too (except Delaware) began their own emancipation programmes. When the Union Army entered Confederate areas, thousands of slaves escaped to freedom behind Union Army lines, and in 1863 many men started serving as the United States Colored Troops.
As the war dragged on, both the federal government and Union states continued to take measures against slavery. In June 1864, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required free states to aid in returning escaped slaves to slave states, was repealed. The state of Maryland abolished slavery on 13 October 1864. Missouri abolished slavery on 11 January 1865. West Virginia, which had been admitted to the Union in 1863 as a slave state, but on the condition of gradual emancipation, fully abolished slavery on 3 February 1865. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect in December 1865, seven months after the end of the war, and finally ended slavery throughout the United States. It also abolished slavery among the Indian tribes, including the Alaska tribes that became part of the U.S. in 1867.
People in modern times have commemorated abolitionist movements and the abolition of slavery in different ways around the world. The United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition. This proclamation marked the bicentenary of the proclamation of the first modern slavery-free state, Haiti. Numerous exhibitions, events and research programmes became associated with the initiative.
2007 witnessed major exhibitions in British museums and galleries to mark the anniversary of the 1807 abolition act – 1807 Commemorated 2008 marked the 201st anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire. It also marked the 175th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.
The Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa held a major international conference entitled, "Routes to Freedom: Reflections on the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade", from 14 to 16 March 2008.
"Abolitionism in the Atlantic World: The Organization and Interaction of Anti-Slavery Movements in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries"
European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2010; retrieved 14 June 2012. * Blackwell, Marilyn S. Women Were Among Our Primeval Abolitionists': Women and Organized Antislavery in Vermont, 1834–1848", ''Vermont History'', 82 (Winter-Spring 2014), 13–44. * Carey, Brycchan, and Geoffrey Plank, eds. ''Quakers and Abolition'' (University of Illinois Press, 2014), 264 pp. * Coupland, Sir Reginald. "The British Anti-Slavery Movement". London: F. Cass, 1964. * Davis, David Brion, ''The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823'' (1999); ''The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture'' (1988) * Drescher, Seymour. ''Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery'' (2009) * Finkelman, Paul, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Slavery'' (1999) * Kemner, Jochen
"Abolitionism"
(2015). University Bielefeld – Center for InterAmerican Studies. * Gordon, M. ''Slavery in the Arab World'' (1989) * Gould, Philip. ''Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the 18th-century Atlantic World'' (2003) * Richard Hellie, Hellie, Richard. ''Slavery in Russia: 1450–1725'' (1982) * Hinks, Peter, and John McKivigan, eds. ''Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition'' (2 vol. 2006) ; 846 pp; 300 articles by experts * Jeffrey, Julie Roy. "Stranger, Buy... Lest Our Mission Fail: the Complex Culture of Women's Abolitionist Fairs". ''American Nineteenth Century History'' 4, no. 1 (2003): 185–205. * Kolchin, Peter. ''Unfree Labor; American Slavery and Russian Serfdom'' (1987) * Kolchin, Peter. "Reexamining Southern Emancipation in Comparative Perspective", ''Journal of Southern History'', (Feb. 2015) 81#1 pp. 7–40. * Oakes, James. ''The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution'' (W.W. Norton, 2021). * Oakes, James. ''Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865'' (W. W. Norton, 2012) * Palen, Marc-William.
Free-Trade Ideology and Transatlantic Abolitionism: A Historiography
. ''Journal of the History of Economic Thought'' 37 (June 2015): 291–304. * Reckord, Mary. "The Colonial Office and the Abolition of Slavery." ''Historical Journal'' 14, no. 4 (1971): 723–734
online
* Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. ''Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World'' (2007) * Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. ''The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery'' (1997) * Sinha, Manisha. ''The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition'' (Yale UP, 2016) 784 pp; Highly detailed coverage of the American movement * Thomas, Hugh. ''The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440–1870'' (2006) * Unangst, Matthew. "Manufacturing Crisis: Anti-slavery ‘Humanitarianism’ and Imperialism in East Africa, 1888–1890." ''Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History'' 48.5 (2020): 805–825. * Wyman‐McCarthy, Matthew. "British abolitionism and global empire in the late 18th century: A historiographic overview." ''History Compass'' 16.10 (2018): e12480.
Largest Surviving Anti Slave Trade Petition
from Manchester, UK 1806
"Scotland and the Abolition of the Slave Trade"
– schools resource
Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice
Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery
*
Elijah Parish Lovejoy: A Martyr on the Altar of American Liberty
'
Brycchan Carey's pages listing British abolitionists
Teaching resources about Slavery and Abolition
on blackhistory4schools.com
The National Archives (UK)
Produced by Sheffield City Council's Libraries and Archives (UK)
American Abolitionism
American Abolitionists
comprehensive list of abolitionists and anti-slavery activists and organizations in the United States
by Right Honourable Lord Archer of Sandwell
"Slavery – The emancipation movement in Britain"
lecture by James Walvin at Gresham College, 5 March 2007 (available for video and audio download)
Escape to Freedom
at Scholastic.com
"Black Canada and the Journey to Freedom"
1807 Commemorated
Trafficking in Persons Report 2008
US Department of State
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
in Cincinnati, Ohio
The Liberator Files
Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator (anti-slavery newspaper), The Liberator'' original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive
a collection of more than 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period.
* Raymond James Krohn
Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in the United States {{Authority control Abolitionism, Political movements African diaspora history
Louis XIV
, house = Bourbon
, father = Louis XIII
, mother = Anne of Austria
, birth_date =
, birth_place = Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, Saint-Germain-en-Laye, France
, death_date =
, death_place = Palace of Ve ...
's '' Code Noir'' regulated the slave trade and institution in the colonies. It gave unparalleled rights to slaves. It included the right to marry, gather publicly, or take Sundays off. Although the ''Code Noir'' authorized and codified cruel corporal punishment against slaves under certain conditions, it forbade slave owners to torture them or to separate families. It also demanded enslaved Africans receive instruction in the Catholic faith, implying that Africans were human beings endowed with a soul, a fact French law did not admit until then. It resulted in a far higher percentage of blacks being free in 1830 (13.2% in Louisiana
Louisiana , group=pronunciation (French: ''La Louisiane'') is a U.S. state, state in the Deep South and South Central United States, South Central regions of the United States. It is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 20th-smal ...
compared to 0.8% in Mississippi
Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Mis ...
). They were on average exceptionally literate, with a significant number of them owning businesses, properties, and even slaves. Other free people of colour, such as Julien Raimond
Julien Raimond (1744 – 1801) was a Saint Dominican indigo planter in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now the Republic of Haiti, who became a leader in its revolution and the formation of Haiti.
Early activism
He was born a free man of ...
, spoke out against slavery.
The ''Code Noir'' also forbade interracial marriages, but it was often ignored in French colonial society and the mulatto
(, ) is a racial classification to refer to people of mixed African and European ancestry. Its use is considered outdated and offensive in several languages, including English and Dutch, whereas in languages such as Spanish and Portuguese ...
es became an intermediate caste between whites and blacks, while in the British colonies mulattoes and blacks were considered equal and discriminated against equally.
During the Age of Enlightenment
The Age of Enlightenment or the Enlightenment; german: Aufklärung, "Enlightenment"; it, L'Illuminismo, "Enlightenment"; pl, Oświecenie, "Enlightenment"; pt, Iluminismo, "Enlightenment"; es, La Ilustración, "Enlightenment" was an intel ...
, many philosophers wrote pamphlets against slavery and its moral and economical justifications, including Montesquieu
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher.
He is the principa ...
in ''The Spirit of the Laws
''The Spirit of Law'' (French: ''De l'esprit des lois'', originally spelled ''De l'esprit des loix''), also known in English as ''The Spirit of the Laws'', is a treatise on political theory, as well as a pioneering work in comparative law, publ ...
'' (1748) and Denis Diderot
Denis Diderot (; ; 5 October 171331 July 1784) was a French philosopher, art critic, and writer, best known for serving as co-founder, chief editor, and contributor to the ''Encyclopédie'' along with Jean le Rond d'Alembert. He was a promine ...
in the ''Encyclopédie
''Encyclopédie, ou dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers'' (English: ''Encyclopedia, or a Systematic Dictionary of the Sciences, Arts, and Crafts''), better known as ''Encyclopédie'', was a general encyclopedia publis ...
''. In 1788, Jacques Pierre Brissot
Jacques Pierre Brissot (, 15 January 1754 – 31 October 1793), who assumed the name of de Warville (an English version of "d'Ouarville", a hamlet in the village of Lèves where his father owned property), was a leading member of the Girondins du ...
founded the Society of the Friends of the Blacks
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks (''Société des amis des Noirs'' or ''Amis des noirs'') was a French abolitionist society founded during the late 18th century. The society's aim was to abolish both the institution of slavery in the F ...
(''Société des Amis des Noirs'') to work for the abolition of slavery. After the Revolution, on 4 April 1792, France granted free people of colour full citizenship.
The slave revolt, in the largest Caribbean French colony of Saint-Domingue
Saint-Domingue () was a French colony in the western portion of the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, in the area of modern-day Haiti, from 1659 to 1804. The name derives from the Spanish main city in the island, Santo Domingo, which came to ref ...
in 1791, was the beginning of what became the Haitian Revolution
The Haitian Revolution (french: révolution haïtienne ; ht, revolisyon ayisyen) was a successful insurrection by self-liberated slaves against French colonial rule in Saint-Domingue, now the sovereign state of Haiti. The revolt began on 22 ...
led by formerly enslaved people like Georges Biassou
George Biassou (1 January 1741 – 14 July 1801) was an early leader of the 1791 slave rising in Saint-Domingue that began the Haitian Revolution. With Jean-François and Jeannot, he was prophesied by the vodou priest, Dutty Boukman, to lead the ...
, Toussaint L'Ouverture, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines
Jean-Jacques Dessalines (Haitian Creole: ''Jan-Jak Desalin''; ; 20 September 1758 – 17 October 1806) was a leader of the Haitian Revolution and the first ruler of an independent Haiti under the 1805 constitution. Under Dessalines, Haiti bec ...
. The rebellion swept through the north of the colony, and with it came freedom to thousands of enslaved blacks, but also violence and death. In 1793, French Civil Commissioners in St. Domingue and abolitionists, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax
Léger-Félicité Sonthonax (7 March 1763 – 23 July 1813) was a French abolitionist and Jacobin before joining the Girondist party, which emerged in 1791. During the French Revolution, he controlled 7,000 French troops in Saint-Domingue during pa ...
and Étienne Polverel, issued the first emancipation proclamation of the modern world (Decree of 16 Pluviôse An II). The Convention sent them to safeguard the allegiance of the population to revolutionary France. The proclamation resulted in crucial military strategy as it gradually brought most of the black troops into the French fold and kept the colony under the French flag for most of the conflict. The connection with France lasted until blacks and free people of colour formed L'armée indigène in 1802 to resist Napoleon's Expédition de Saint-Domingue. Victory over the French in the decisive Battle of Vertières finally led to independence and the creation of present Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
in 1804.
First general abolition of slavery (1794)
The convention, the first elected Assembly of the First Republic (1792–1804), on 4 February 1794, under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre
Maximilien François Marie Isidore de Robespierre (; 6 May 1758 – 28 July 1794) was a French lawyer and statesman who became one of the best-known, influential and controversial figures of the French Revolution. As a member of the Esta ...
, abolished slavery in law in France and its colonies. Abbé Grégoire
''Abbé'' (from Latin ''abbas'', in turn from Greek , ''abbas'', from Aramaic ''abba'', a title of honour, literally meaning "the father, my father", emphatic state of ''abh'', "father") is the French word for an abbot. It is the title for lowe ...
and the Society of the Friends of the Blacks were part of the abolitionist movement, which had laid important groundwork in building anti-slavery sentiment in the metropole
A metropole (from the Greek ''metropolis'' for "mother city") is the homeland, central territory or the state exercising power over a colonial empire.
From the 19th century, the English term ''metropole'' was mainly used in the scope of ...
. The first article of the law stated that "Slavery was abolished" in the French colonies, while the second article stated that "slave-owners would be indemnified" with financial compensation for the value of their slaves. The French constitution passed in 1795 included in the declaration of the Rights of Man that slavery was abolished.
Re-establishment of slavery in the colonies (1802)
During theFrench Revolutionary Wars
The French Revolutionary Wars (french: Guerres de la Révolution française) were a series of sweeping military conflicts lasting from 1792 until 1802 and resulting from the French Revolution. They pitted France against Britain, Austria, Pruss ...
, French slave-owners joined the counter-revolution en masse and, through the Whitehall Accord {{short description, Accord between Great Britain and certain French colonial counter-revolutionaries
The Whitehall Accord (french: Traité de Whitehall) was agreed on 19 February 1793 by Henry Dundas and signed on 25 February 1793. It was an agreem ...
, they threatened to move the French Caribbean colonies under British control, as Great Britain still allowed slavery. Fearing secession from these islands, successfully lobbied by planters and concerned about revenues from the West Indies, and influenced by the slaveholder family of his wife, Napoleon Bonaparte
Napoleon Bonaparte ; it, Napoleone Bonaparte, ; co, Napulione Buonaparte. (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French military commander and political leader wh ...
decided to re-establish slavery after becoming First Consul
The Consulate (french: Le Consulat) was the top-level Government of France from the fall of the Directory in the coup of 18 Brumaire on 10 November 1799 until the start of the Napoleonic Empire on 18 May 1804. By extension, the term ''The ...
. He promulgated the law of 20 May 1802
The French Law of 20 May 1802 was passed by Napoleon Bonaparte that day (30 floréal year X), revoking the Law of 4 February 1794 (16 pluviôse) which had abolished slavery in all the French colonies. However, the 1794 decree was only impleme ...
and sent military governors and troops to the colonies to impose it.
On 10 May 1802, Colonel Delgrès launched a rebellion in Guadeloupe
Guadeloupe (; ; gcf, label=Antillean Creole, Gwadloup, ) is an archipelago and overseas department and region of France in the Caribbean. It consists of six inhabited islands— Basse-Terre, Grande-Terre, Marie-Galante, La Désirade, and the ...
against Napoleon's representative, General Richepanse. The rebellion was repressed, and slavery was re-established.
Abolition of slavery in Haiti (1804)
The news of theLaw of 4 February 1794
The Law of 4 February 1794 was a decree of the French National Convention which abolished slavery in all French colonies.
Background
In 1789, the abolitionist '' Amis des noirs'' society was established in France. It was more radical than simi ...
that abolished slavery in France and its colonies and the revolution led by Colonel Delgrès sparked another wave of rebellion in Saint-Domingue. Although from 1802 Napoleon sent more than 20,000 troops to the island, two-thirds died, mostly from yellow fever.
Seeing the failure of the Saint-Domingue expedition
The Saint-Domingue expedition was a French military expedition sent by Napoleon Bonaparte, then First Consul, under his brother-in-law Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc in an attempt to regain French control of the Caribbean colony of Saint-Doming ...
, in 1803 Napoleon decided to sell
Sell can refer to:
People
* Brenda Sell (born 1955), American martial arts instructor and highest ranking non-Korean female practitioner of taekwondo
* Brian Sell (born 1978), American retired long-distance runner
* Edward Sell (priest) (1839– ...
the Louisiana Territory
The Territory of Louisiana or Louisiana Territory was an organized incorporated territory of the United States that existed from July 4, 1805, until June 4, 1812, when it was renamed the Missouri Territory. The territory was formed out of th ...
to the United States.
The French governments initially refused to recognize Haïti. It forced the nation to pay a substantial amount of reparations (which it could ill afford) for losses during the revolution and did not recognize its government until 1825.
France was a signatory to the first multilateral treaty
A multilateral treaty is a treaty to which two or more sovereign states are parties. Each party owes the same obligations to all other parties, except to the extent that they have stated reservations. Examples of multilateral treaties include th ...
for the suppression of the slave trade, the Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade
The Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade was the first multilateral treaty for the suppression of the slave trade, signed at London on 20 December 1841 by the representatives of the Austrian Empire, the Kingdom of France, the Unite ...
(1841), but the king, Louis Philippe I
Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France.
As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wa ...
, declined to ratify it.
Second abolition (1848) and subsequent events
On 27 April 1848, under the Second Republic (1848–1852), the decree-law written by Victor Schœlcher abolished slavery in the remaining colonies. The state bought the slaves from the ''colons'' (white colonists; ''Béké
Béké or beke is an Antillean Creole term to describe a descendant of the early European, usually French, settlers in the French Antilles.
Etymology
The origin of the term is unclear, although it is attested to in colonial documents from as earl ...
s'' in Creole), and then freed them.
At about the same time, France started colonizing Africa and gained possession of much of West Africa by 1900. In 1905, the French abolished slavery in most of French West Africa. The French also attempted to abolish Tuareg slavery following the Kaocen Revolt. In the region of the Sahel, slavery has however long persisted.
Passed on 10 May 2001, the Taubira law officially acknowledges slavery and the Atlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity
Crimes against humanity are widespread or systemic acts committed by or on behalf of a ''de facto'' authority, usually a state, that grossly violate human rights. Unlike war crimes, crimes against humanity do not have to take place within the ...
. 10 May was chosen as the day dedicated to recognition of the crime of slavery.
Great Britain
Overview
James Oglethorpe
James Edward Oglethorpe (22 December 1696 – 30 June 1785) was a British soldier, Member of Parliament, and philanthropist, as well as the founder of the colony of Georgia in what was then British America. As a social reformer, he hoped to r ...
was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment
Enlightenment or enlighten may refer to:
Age of Enlightenment
* Age of Enlightenment, period in Western intellectual history from the late 17th to late 18th century, centered in France but also encompassing (alphabetically by country or culture): ...
case against slavery, banning it in the Province of Georgia
A province is almost always an administrative division within a country or state. The term derives from the ancient Roman '' provincia'', which was the major territorial and administrative unit of the Roman Empire's territorial possessions ou ...
on humanitarian grounds, and arguing against it in Parliament. Soon after Oglethorpe's death in 1785, Sharp and More united with William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually bec ...
and others in forming the Clapham Sect
The Clapham Sect, or Clapham Saints, were a group of social reformers associated with Clapham in the period from the 1780s to the 1840s. Despite the label "sect", most members remained in the established (and dominant) Church of England, which ...
.
The Somersett case
''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Somersett's case'', ''v. XX Sommersett v Steuart and the Mansfield Judgment)'' is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on En ...
in 1772, in which a fugitive slave was freed with the judgement that slavery did not exist under English common law
English law is the common law legal system of England and Wales, comprising mainly criminal law and civil law, each branch having its own courts and procedures.
Principal elements of English law
Although the common law has, historically, bee ...
, helped launch the British movement to abolish slavery. Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, many colonies and emerging nations continued to use slave labour
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
: Dutch, French
French (french: français(e), link=no) may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France, and its various dialects and accents
** French people, a nation and ethnic group identified with Franc ...
, British, Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...
, and Portuguese territories in the West Indies, South America, and the Southern United States. After the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolu ...
established the United States, many Loyalists who fled the Northern United States immigrated to the British province of Quebec, bringing an English majority population as well as many slaves, leading the province to ban the institution in 1793 (see Slavery in Canada). In the U.S., Northern states, beginning with Pennsylvania in 1780, passed legislation during the next two decades abolishing slavery, sometimes by gradual emancipation. Vermont, which was excluded from the thirteen colonies, existed as an independent state from 1777 to 1791. Vermont abolished adult slavery in 1777. In other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans and African Americans. During the following decades, the abolitionist movement grew in northern states, and Congress heavily regulated the expansion of Slave or Free States in new territories admitted to the union (see Missouri compromise
The Missouri Compromise was a federal legislation of the United States that balanced desires of northern states to prevent expansion of slavery in the country with those of southern states to expand it. It admitted Missouri as a slave state an ...
).
In 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade
The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, also known as the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and sometimes referred to as the Abolition Society or Anti-Slavery Society, was a British abolitionist group formed on ...
was formed in London. Revolutionary France
The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are conside ...
abolished slavery throughout its empire through the Law of 4 February 1794
The Law of 4 February 1794 was a decree of the French National Convention which abolished slavery in all French colonies.
Background
In 1789, the abolitionist '' Amis des noirs'' society was established in France. It was more radical than simi ...
, but Napoleon restored it in 1802 as part of a program to ensure sovereignty over its colonies. Denmark became the first country to abolish chattel slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
on March 16, 1792. Haiti (then Saint-Domingue) formally declared independence from France in 1804 and became the first nation in the Western Hemisphere
The Western Hemisphere is the half of the planet Earth that lies west of the prime meridian (which crosses Greenwich, London, United Kingdom) and east of the antimeridian. The other half is called the Eastern Hemisphere. Politically, th ...
to eliminate slavery in the modern era
The term modern period or modern era (sometimes also called modern history or modern times) is the period of history that succeeds the Middle Ages (which ended approximately 1500 AD). This terminology is a historical periodization that is appli ...
, following the 1804 Haitian massacre. The northern states in the U.S. all abolished slavery by 1804. The United Kingdom (then including Ireland) and the United States outlawed the international slave trade in 1807, after which Britain led efforts to block slave ships. Britain abolished slavery throughout its empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833
The Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. IV c. 73) was an Act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom which provided for the gradual abolition of slavery in most parts of the British Empire. It was passed by Earl Grey's reforming administrati ...
(with the notable exception of India), the French colonies
From the 16th to the 17th centuries, the First French colonial empire stretched from a total area at its peak in 1680 to over , the second largest empire in the world at the time behind only the Spanish Empire. During the 19th and 20th centuri ...
re-abolished it in 1848 and the U.S. abolished slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
Development
The last known form of enforced servitude of adults (villein
A villein, otherwise known as '' cottar'' or '' crofter'', is a serf tied to the land in the feudal system. Villeins had more rights and social status than those in slavery, but were under a number of legal restrictions which differentiated them ...
age) had disappeared in England by the beginning of the 17th century. In 1569 a court considered the case of Cartwright, who had bought a slave from Russia. The court ruled English law could not recognize slavery, as it was never established officially. This ruling was overshadowed by later developments; It was upheld in 1700 by the Lord Chief Justice John Holt when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in England. During the English Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century, sectarian radicals challenged slavery and other threats to personal freedom. Their ideas influenced many antislavery thinkers in the eighteenth century.
In addition to English colonists importing slaves to the North American colonies, by the 18th century, traders began to import slaves from Africa, India and East Asia (where they were trading) to London
London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...
and Edinburgh
Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 Council areas of Scotland, council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian ...
to work as personal servants. Men who migrated to the North American colonies often took their East Indian slaves or servants with them, as East Indians
The East Indians, also called East Indian Catholics or Bombay East Indians, are an ethno-religious Indian Christian community native to the Seven Islands of Bombay and the neighbouring Mumbai Metropolitan Area of the Konkan Division.
Hist ...
have been documented in colonial records.
Some of the first freedom suits
Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or te ...
, court cases in the British Isles to challenge the legality of slavery, took place in Scotland in 1755 and 1769. The cases were ''Montgomery v. Sheddan'' (1755) and ''Spens v. Dalrymple'' (1769). Each of the slaves had been baptized in Scotland and challenged the legality of slavery. They set the precedent of legal procedure in British courts that would later lead to successful outcomes for the plaintiffs. In these cases, deaths of the plaintiff and defendant, respectively, brought an end before court decisions.
African slaves were not bought or sold in London but were brought by masters from other areas. Together with people from other nations, especially non-Christian, Africans were considered foreigners, not able to be English subjects. At the time, England had no naturalization
Naturalization (or naturalisation) is the legal act or process by which a non-citizen of a country may acquire citizenship or nationality of that country. It may be done automatically by a statute, i.e., without any effort on the part of the i ...
procedure. The African slaves' legal status was unclear until 1772 and Somersett's Case
''Somerset v Stewart'' (177298 ER 499(also known as ''Somersett's case'', ''v. XX Sommersett v Steuart and the Mansfield Judgment)'' is a judgment of the English Court of King's Bench in 1772, relating to the right of an enslaved person on En ...
, when the fugitive slave James Somersett forced a decision by the courts. Somersett had escaped, and his master, Charles Steuart, had him captured and imprisoned on board a ship, intending to ship him to Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispan ...
to be resold into slavery. While in London, Somersett had been baptized
Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost inv ...
; three godparents issued a writ of ''habeas corpus
''Habeas corpus'' (; from Medieval Latin, ) is a recourse in law through which a person can report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court and request that the court order the custodian of the person, usually a prison official, t ...
''. As a result, Lord Mansfield
William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield, PC, SL (2 March 170520 March 1793) was a British barrister, politician and judge noted for his reform of English law. Born to Scottish nobility, he was educated in Perth, Scotland, before moving to L ...
, Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench
The Court of King's Bench, formally known as The Court of the King Before the King Himself, was a court of common law in the English legal system. Created in the late 12th to early 13th century from the '' curia regis'', the King's Bench initia ...
, had to judge whether Somersett's abduction was lawful or not under English Common Law
In law, common law (also known as judicial precedent, judge-made law, or case law) is the body of law created by judges and similar quasi-judicial tribunals by virtue of being stated in written opinions."The common law is not a brooding omniprese ...
. No legislation had ever been passed to establish slavery in England. The case received national attention, and five advocates supported the action on behalf of Somersett.
In his judgement of 22 June 1772, Mansfield declared:
The state of slavery is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged.
Although the exact legal implications of the judgement are unclear when analysed by lawyers, the judgement was generally taken at the time to have determined that slavery did not exist under English common law and was thus prohibited in England. The decision did not apply to the British overseas territories; by then, for example, the American colonies had established slavery by positive laws. Somersett's case became a significant part of the common law of slavery in the English-speaking world and it helped launch the movement to abolish slavery.
After reading about Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight, an enslaved African who had been purchased by his master John Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him. Married and with a child, he filed a freedom suit
Freedom suits were lawsuits in the Thirteen Colonies and the United States filed by slaves against slaveholders to assert claims to freedom, often based on descent from a free maternal ancestor, or time held as a resident in a free state or te ...
, on the grounds that he could not be held as a slave in Great Britain
Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...
. In the case of '' Knight v. Wedderburn'' (1778), Wedderburn said that Knight owed him "perpetual servitude". The Court of Session
The Court of Session is the supreme civil court of Scotland and constitutes part of the College of Justice; the supreme criminal court of Scotland is the High Court of Justiciary. The Court of Session sits in Parliament House in Edinburgh a ...
of Scotland ruled against him, saying that chattel slavery
Slavery and enslavement are both the state and the condition of being a slave—someone forbidden to quit one's service for an enslaver, and who is treated by the enslaver as property. Slavery typically involves slaves being made to perf ...
was not recognized under the law of Scotland, and slaves could seek court protection to leave a master or avoid being forcibly removed from Scotland to be returned to slavery in the colonies.
But at the same time, legally mandated, hereditary
Heredity, also called inheritance or biological inheritance, is the passing on of traits from parents to their offspring; either through asexual reproduction or sexual reproduction, the offspring cells or organisms acquire the genetic infor ...
slavery of Scots persons in Scotland had existed from 1606 and continued until 1799, when colliers and salters were emancipated
Emancipation generally means to free a person from a previous restraint or legal disability. More broadly, it is also used for efforts to procure economic and social rights, political rights or equality, often for a specifically disenfranchi ...
by an act of the Parliament of Great Britain (39 Geo. 3
This is a complete list of acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the year 1798.
For acts passed until 1707, see the list of acts of the Parliament of England and the list of acts of the Parliament of Scotland. See also the list of acts of ...
. c. 56). Skilled workers, they were restricted to a place and could be sold with the works. A prior law enacted in 1775 (15 Geo. 3
This is a complete list of acts of the Parliament of Great Britain for the year 1775.
For acts passed until 1707, see the list of acts of the Parliament of England and the list of acts of the Parliament of Scotland. See also the list of acts of ...
. c. 28) was intended to end what the act referred to as "a state of slavery and bondage," but that was ineffective, necessitating the 1799 act.
In the 1776 book ''The Wealth of Nations
''An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations'', generally referred to by its shortened title ''The Wealth of Nations'', is the '' magnum opus'' of the Scottish economist and moral philosopher Adam Smith. First published in ...
'', Adam Smith argued for the abolition of slavery on economic grounds. Smith pointed out that slavery incurred security, housing, and food costs that the use of free labour would not, and opined that free workers would be more productive because they would have personal economic incentives to work harder. The death rate (and thus repurchase cost) of slaves was also high, and people are less productive when not allowed to choose the type of work they prefer, are illiterate, and are forced to live and work in miserable and unhealthy conditions. The free labour markets and international free trade that Smith preferred would also result in different prices and allocations that Smith believed would be more efficient and productive for consumers.
British Empire
Prior to the American Revolution
The American Revolution was an ideological and political revolution that occurred in British America between 1765 and 1791. The Americans in the Thirteen Colonies formed independent states that defeated the British in the American Revolu ...
, there were few significant initiatives in the American colonies that led to the abolitionist movement. Some Quakers were active. Benjamin Kent was the lawyer who took on most of the cases of slaves suing their masters for personal illegal enslavement. He was the first lawyer to successfully establish a slave's freedom. In addition, Brigadier General Samuel Birch
Samuel Birch (3 November 1813 – 27 December 1885) was a British Egyptologist and antiquary.
Biography
Birch was the son of a rector at St Mary Woolnoth, London. He was educated at Merchant Taylors' School. From an early age, his manifest t ...
created the ''Book of Negroes
The ''Book of Negroes'' is a document created by Brigadier General Samuel Birch, under the direction of Sir Guy Carleton, that records names and descriptions of 3,000 Black Loyalists, enslaved Africans who escaped to the British lines during ...
'', to establish which slaves were free after the war.
In 1783, an anti-slavery movement began among the British public to end slavery throughout the British Empire.
After the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787, William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually bec ...
led the cause of abolition through the parliamentary campaign. Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson (28 March 1760 – 26 September 1846) was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (also known ...
became the group's most prominent researcher, gathering vast amounts of data on the trade. One aspect of abolitionism during this period was the effective use of images such as the famous Josiah Wedgwood
Josiah Wedgwood (12 July 1730 – 3 January 1795) was an English potter, entrepreneur and abolitionist. Founding the Wedgwood company in 1759, he developed improved pottery bodies by systematic experimentation, and was the leader in the indus ...
" Am I Not A Man and a Brother?" anti-slavery medallion of 1787. Clarkson described the medallion as "promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom". The 1792 Slave Trade Bill passed the House of Commons mangled and mutilated by the modifications and amendments of Pitt
Pitt most commonly refers to:
*The University of Pittsburgh, commonly known as Pitt, a university located in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States
**Pitt Panthers, the athletic teams of the University of Pittsburgh
* Pitt (surname), a surname o ...
, it lay for years, in the House of Lords. Biographer William Hague
William is a masculine given name of Norman French origin.Hanks, Hardcastle and Hodges, ''Oxford Dictionary of First Names'', Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, , p. 276. It became very popular in the English language after the Norman conq ...
considers the unfinished abolition of the slave trade to be Pitt's greatest failure. The Slave Trade Act
Slave Trade Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom and the United States that relates to the slave trade.
The "See also" section lists other Slave Acts, laws, and international conventions which developed the conce ...
was passed by the British Parliament
The Parliament of the United Kingdom is the Parliamentary sovereignty in the United Kingdom, supreme Legislature, legislative body of the United Kingdom, the Crown Dependencies and the British Overseas Territories. It meets at the Palace of We ...
on 25 March 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire. Britain used its influence to coerce other countries to agree to treaties
A treaty is a formal, legally binding written agreement between actors in international law. It is usually made by and between sovereign states, but can include international organizations, individuals, business entities, and other legal pers ...
to end their slave trade and allow the Royal Navy to seize their slave ships. Britain enforced the abolition of the trade because the act made trading slaves within British territories illegal. However, the act repealed the Amelioration Act 1798 which attempted to improve conditions for slaves. The end of the slave trade did not end slavery as a whole. Slavery was still a common practice.
In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement revived to campaign against the institution of slavery itself. In 1823 the first Anti-Slavery Society, the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions, was founded. Many of its members had previously campaigned against the slave trade. On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. It purchased the slaves from their masters and paved the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire by 1838, after which the first Anti-Slavery Society was wound up.
In 1839, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
British may refer to:
Peoples, culture, and language
* British people, nationals or natives of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories, and Crown Dependencies.
** Britishness, the British identity and common culture
* British English, ...
was formed by Joseph Sturge
Joseph Sturge (1793 – 14 May 1859) was an English Quaker, abolitionist and activist. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (now Anti-Slavery International). He worked throughout his life in Radical political actions support ...
, which attempted to outlaw slavery worldwide and also to pressure the government to help enforce the suppression of the slave trade by declaring slave traders
The history of slavery spans many cultures, nationalities, and religions from ancient times to the present day. Likewise, its victims have come from many different ethnicities and religious groups. The social, economic, and legal positions of ...
to be pirates. The world's oldest international human rights organization, it continues today as Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International, founded as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, is an international non-governmental organisation, registered charity and advocacy group, based in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest inter ...
. Thomas Clarkson was the key speaker at the World Anti-Slavery Convention
The World Anti-Slavery Convention met for the first time at Exeter Hall in London, on 12–23 June 1840. It was organised by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, largely on the initiative of the English Quaker Joseph Sturge. The exclus ...
it held in London in 1840.
Moldavia and Wallachia
In the principalities ofWallachia
Wallachia or Walachia (; ro, Țara Românească, lit=The Romanian Land' or 'The Romanian Country, ; archaic: ', Romanian Cyrillic alphabet: ) is a historical and geographical region of Romania. It is situated north of the Lower Danube and s ...
and Moldavia
Moldavia ( ro, Moldova, or , literally "The Country of Moldavia"; in Romanian Cyrillic: or ; chu, Землѧ Молдавскаѧ; el, Ἡγεμονία τῆς Μολδαβίας) is a historical region and former principality in Centra ...
, the government held slavery of the Roma
Roma or ROMA may refer to:
Places Australia
* Roma, Queensland, a town
** Roma Airport
** Roma Courthouse
** Electoral district of Roma, defunct
** Town of Roma, defunct town, now part of the Maranoa Regional Council
* Roma Street, Brisbane, a ...
(often referred to as Gypsies) as legal at the beginning of the 19th century. The progressive pro-European and anti-Ottoman movement, which gradually gained power in the two principalities, also worked to abolish that slavery. Between 1843 and 1855, the principalities emancipated all of the 250,000 enslaved Roma people.
In the Americas
Bartolomé de las Casas
Bartolomé de las Casas, Dominican Order, OP ( ; ; 11 November 1484 – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish Empire, Spanish landowner, friar, priest, and bishop, famed as a historian and social reformer. He arrived in Hispaniola as a layman ...
was a 16th-century Spanish
Spanish might refer to:
* Items from or related to Spain:
** Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain
**Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries
**Spanish cuisine
Other places
* Spanish, Ontario, Ca ...
Dominican priest, the first resident Bishop of Chiapas
Chiapas (; Tzotzil and Tzeltal: ''Chyapas'' ), officially the Free and Sovereign State of Chiapas ( es, Estado Libre y Soberano de Chiapas), is one of the states that make up the 32 federal entities of Mexico. It comprises 124 municipalities ...
(Central America, today Mexico). As a settler in the New World
The term ''New World'' is often used to mean the majority of Earth's Western Hemisphere, specifically the Americas."America." ''The Oxford Companion to the English Language'' (). McArthur, Tom, ed., 1992. New York: Oxford University Press, p. ...
he witnessed and opposed the poor treatment and virtual slavery of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists, under the encomienda
The ''encomienda'' () was a Spanish labour system that rewarded conquerors with the labour of conquered non-Christian peoples. The labourers, in theory, were provided with benefits by the conquerors for whom they laboured, including military ...
system. He advocated before King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor on behalf of rights for the natives.
Las Casas for 20 years worked to get African slaves imported to replace natives; African slavery was everywhere and no one talked of ridding the New World of it, though France had abolished slavery in France itself and there was talk in other countries about doing the same. However, Las Casas had a late change of heart, and became an advocate for the Africans in the colonies.Blackburn 1997: 136; Friede 1971: 165–166. Las Casas' change in his views on African slavery is expressed particularly in chapters 102 and 129, Book III of his ''Historia''.
His book, ''A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies
A, or a, is the first letter and the first vowel of the Latin alphabet, used in the modern English alphabet, the alphabets of other western European languages and others worldwide. Its name in English is ''a'' (pronounced ), plural ''ae ...
'', contributed to Spanish passage of colonial legislation known as the New Laws of 1542, which abolished native slavery for the first time in European colonial history. It ultimately led to the Valladolid debate
The Valladolid debate (1550–1551) was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of an indigenous people by European colonizers. Held in the Colegio de San Gregorio, in the Spanish city of Valladolid, it ...
, the first European debate about the rights of colonized people.
Latin America
During the early 19th century, slavery expanded rapidly in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States, while at the same time the new republics of mainland Spanish America became committed to the gradual abolition of slavery. During the Spanish American wars for independence (1810–1826), slavery was abolished in most of Latin America, though it continued until 1873 in Puerto Rico
Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...
, 1886 in Cuba, and 1888 in Brazil (where it was abolished by the ''Lei Áurea'', the "Golden Law"). Chile declared freedom of wombs in 1811, followed by the United Provinces of the River Plate in 1813, Colombia and Venezuela in 1821, but without abolishing slavery completely. While Chile abolished slavery in 1823, Argentina did so with the signing of the Argentine Constitution of 1853. Peru abolished slavery in 1854. Colombia abolished slavery in 1851. Slavery was abolished in Uruguay during the ''Uruguayan Civil War, Guerra Grande'', by both the government of Fructuoso Rivera and the government in exile of Manuel Oribe.
Canada
Throughout the growth of slavery in the American South, Nova Scotia became a destination for black refugees leaving Southern Colonies and United States. While many blacks who arrived in Nova Scotia during the American Revolution were free, others were not. Black slaves also arrived in Nova Scotia as the property of White American Loyalists. In 1772, prior to the American Revolution, Britain Somerset v Stewart, determined that slavery could not exist in the British Isles followed by the Joseph Knight (slave), Knight v. Wedderburn decision in Scotland in 1778. This decision, in turn, influenced the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1788, abolitionist James Drummond MacGregor from Pictou published the first anti-slavery literature in Canada and began purchasing slaves' freedom and chastising his colleagues in the Presbyterian church who owned slaves. In 1790 John Burbidge freed his slaves. Led by Richard John Uniacke, in 1787, 1789 and again on 11 January 1808, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to legalize slavery. Two chief justices, Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange (1790–1796) and Sampson Salter Blowers (1797–1832) were instrumental in freeing slaves from their owners in Nova Scotia. They were held in high regard in the colony. By the end of the War of 1812 and the arrival of the Black Refugees, there were few slaves left in Nova Scotia. The Slave Trade Act
Slave Trade Act is a stock short title used for legislation in the United Kingdom and the United States that relates to the slave trade.
The "See also" section lists other Slave Acts, laws, and international conventions which developed the conce ...
outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833, Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slavery altogether.
With slaves escaping to New York and New England, legislation for gradual emancipation was passed in Upper Canada (1793) and Lower Canada (1803). In Upper Canada, the Act Against Slavery of 1793 was passed by the Assembly under the auspices of John Graves Simcoe. It was the first legislation against slavery in the British Empire. Under its provisions no new slaves could be imported, slaves already in the province would remain enslaved until death, and children born to female slaves would be slaves but must be freed at the age of 25. The last slaves in Canada gained their freedom when slavery was abolished in the entire British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833.
United States
In his book ''The Struggle For Equality'', historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional, and total abolition of slavery in the United States". He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln or the Republican Party, which called for the gradual ending of slavery.
Benjamin Franklin, a slaveholder for much of his life, became a leading member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first recognized organization for abolitionists in the United States. Following the American Revolutionary War, Northern states abolished slavery, beginning with the Constitution of Vermont#1777, 1777 Constitution of Vermont, followed by Pennsylvania's gradual emancipation act in 1780. Other states with more of an economic interest in slaves, such as New York and New Jersey, also passed gradual emancipation laws, and by 1804, all the Northern states had abolished it, although this did not mean that already enslaved people were freed. Some had to work without wages as "indentured servants" for two more decades, although they could no longer be sold.
Also in the post-Revolutionary years, individual slaveholders, especially in the Upper South, manumitted slaves, sometimes in their wills. (In the Deep South manumission was made difficult; in South Carolina every manumission required legislative approval, and the freed slaves had to leave the state immediately.) Many noted that they had been moved by the revolutionary ideals of the equality of men. The number of free black people as a proportion of the black population increased from less than one percent to nearly ten percent from 1790 to 1810 in the Upper South as a result of these actions.
The 1836–1837 campaign to end free speech in Alton, Illinois culminated in the 7 November 1837 mob murder of abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy, which was covered in newspapers nationwide, causing a rise in membership in abolitionist societies. By 1840 more than 15,000 people were members of abolitionist societies in the United States.
In the 1850s in the fifteen states constituting the Southern United States, American South, slavery was legally established. While it was fading away in the cities as well as in the border states, it remained strong in plantation areas that grew cotton for export, or sugar, tobacco, or hemp. According to the 1860 United States Census, the slave population in the United States had grown to four million. American abolitionism was based in the North, although there were anti-abolitionist riots in several cities. In the South abolitionism was illegal, and abolitionist publications, like The Liberator (newspaper), The Liberator, could not be sent to Southern post offices. Amos Dresser, a white alumnus of Lane Theological Seminary, was publicly whipped in Nashville, Tennessee, for possessing abolitionist publications.In addition, laws were passed to further repress slaves. These laws included anti-literacy laws and anti-gathering laws. The anti-gathering laws were applied to religious gatherings of free blacks and slaves. These laws, passed around the 1820–1850 period, were blamed in the South on Northern abolitionists. As one slaveowner wrote, "I can tell you. It was the abolition agitation. If the slave is not allowed to read his bible, the sin rests upon the abolitionists; for they stand prepared to furnish him with a key to it, which would make it, not a book of hope, and love, and peace, but of despair, hatred and blood; which would convert the reader, not into a Christian, but a demon. [. . .] Allow our slaves to read your writings, stimulating them to cut our throats! Can you believe us to be such unspeakable fools?"
Abolitionism in the United States became a popular expression of moralism, operating in tandem with other social reform efforts, such as the temperance movement, and much more problematically, the Women's suffrage in the United States, women's suffrage movement.
The white abolitionist movement in the North was led by social reformers, especially William Lloyd Garrison (founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society) and writers Wendell Phillips, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. Black activists included former slaves such as Frederick Douglass; and free blacks such as the brothers Charles Henry Langston and John Mercer Langston, who helped found the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society. Some abolitionists said that slavery was criminal and a sin; they also criticized slave owners of using black women as concubines and taking sexual advantage of them.
The Republican Party (United States), Republican Party wanted to achieve the gradual extinction of slavery by market forces, because its members believed that free labour was superior to slave labour. White southern leaders said that the Republican policy of blocking the expansion of slavery into the West made them second-class citizens, and they also said it challenged their autonomy. With the 1860 United States presidential election, 1860 presidential victory of Abraham Lincoln, seven Deep South states whose economy was based on cotton and the labour of enslaved people decided to secede and form a new nation. The American Civil War broke out in April 1861 with the Battle of Fort Sumter, firing on Fort Sumter in South Carolina. When President Lincoln's 75,000 volunteers, Lincoln called for troops to suppress the rebellion, four more slave states seceded. Meanwhile, four slave states (Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, and Kentucky) chose to remain in the Union.
Civil War and final emancipation
On 16 April 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, abolishing slavery in Washington D. C. Meanwhile, the Union suddenly found itself dealing with a steady stream of escaped slaves from the South rushing to Union lines. In response, Congress passed the Confiscation Acts, which essentially declared escaped slaves from the South to be confiscated war property, called Contraband (American Civil War), contrabands, so that they would not be returned to their masters in the Confederate States of America, Confederacy. Although the initial act did not mention emancipation, the second Confiscation Act, passed on 17 July 1862, stated that escaped or liberated slaves belonging to anyone who participated in or supported the rebellion "shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." On 1 January 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which was an executive order of the U.S. government that changed the legal status of 3 million slaves in the Confederacy from "slave" to "henceforward ... free". Though slaves were legally freed by the Proclamation, they became actually free by escaping to federal lines, or by advances of federal troops. Many served the federal army as teamsters, cooks, laundresses, and labourers, as well as scouts, spies, and guides. Confederate General Robert Lee once said, "The chief source of information to the enemy is through our negroes." Plantation owners sometimes moved the Black people they claimed to own as far as possible out of reach of the Union army. By "Juneteenth" (19 June 1865, in Texas), the Union Army controlled all of the Confederacy and liberated all its slaves. The owners were never compensated; nor were freed slaves compensated by former owners.
The border states were exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, but they too (except Delaware) began their own emancipation programmes. When the Union Army entered Confederate areas, thousands of slaves escaped to freedom behind Union Army lines, and in 1863 many men started serving as the United States Colored Troops.
As the war dragged on, both the federal government and Union states continued to take measures against slavery. In June 1864, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required free states to aid in returning escaped slaves to slave states, was repealed. The state of Maryland abolished slavery on 13 October 1864. Missouri abolished slavery on 11 January 1865. West Virginia, which had been admitted to the Union in 1863 as a slave state, but on the condition of gradual emancipation, fully abolished slavery on 3 February 1865. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution took effect in December 1865, seven months after the end of the war, and finally ended slavery throughout the United States. It also abolished slavery among the Indian tribes, including the Alaska tribes that became part of the U.S. in 1867.
Notable abolitionists
White and Black opponents of slavery, who played a considerable role in the movement. This list includes some escaped slaves, who were traditionally called abolitionists. * John Quincy Adams * Jeremy Bentham * John Brown (abolitionist), John Brown * William Wells Brown * Oren B. Cheney, Oren Burbank Cheney *Thomas Clarkson
Thomas Clarkson (28 March 1760 – 26 September 1846) was an English abolitionist, and a leading campaigner against the slave trade in the British Empire. He helped found The Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade (also known ...
* Ellen and William Craft
* Frederick Douglass
* Sarah Mapps Douglass
* Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville, Henry Dundas
* John Gregg Fee
* Henry Highland Garnet
* William Lloyd Garrison
* Abbé Grégoire
* Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
* Johns Hopkins
* Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil
* John Laurens
* Toussaint Louverture
* Harriet Martineau
* John Stuart Mill
* Charles Miner
* Joaquim Nabuco
* Daniel O'Connell
* José do Patrocínio
* William B. Preston
* André Rebouças
* Granville Sharp
* Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
* Harriet Beecher Stowe
* Henry David Thoreau
* Sojourner Truth
* Harriet Tubman
* Nat Turner
* David Walker (abolitionist), David Walker
* William Wilberforce
William Wilberforce (24 August 175929 July 1833) was a British politician, philanthropist and leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. A native of Kingston upon Hull, Yorkshire, he began his political career in 1780, eventually bec ...
* John Woolman
Abolitionist publications
United States
* ''The Emancipator'' (1819–20): founded in Jonesboro, Tennessee in 1819 by Elihu Embree as the ''Manumission Intelligencier'', ''The Emancipator'' ceased publication in October 1820 due to Embree's illness. It was sold in 1821 and became ''The Genius of Universal Emancipation''. * ''Genius of Universal Emancipation'' (1821–39): an Abolitionism in the United States, abolitionist newspaper published and edited by Benjamin Lundy. In 1829 it employed William Lloyd Garrison, who would go on to create ''The Liberator''. * ''The Liberator (newspaper), The Liberator'' (1831–65): a weekly newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison. * ''The Emancipator (newspaper), The Emancipator'' (1833–50): different from ''The Emancipator'' above. Published in New York and later Boston. * ''The Slave's Friend'' (1836–38): an anti-slavery magazine for children produced by the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). * ''The Philanthropist (Cincinnati, Ohio), The Philanthropist'' (1836–37): newspaper published in Ohio for and owned by the Anti-Slavery Society (1823–1838), Anti-Slavery Society. * ''The Liberty Bell (annual), The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom'' (1839–58): an annual gift book edited and published by Maria Weston Chapman, to be sold or gifted to participants in the anti-slavery bazaars organized by the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. * ''National Anti-Slavery Standard'' (1840–70): the official weekly newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society, the paper published continuously until the ratification of the Fifteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1870. * ''The Unconstitutionality of Slavery'' (1845): a pamphlet by Lysander Spooner advocating the view that the U.S. Constitution prohibited slavery. * ''The Anti-Slavery Bugle'' (1845–1861): a newspaper published in Lisbon, Ohio, New Lisbon and Salem, Ohio, Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, Columbiana County, Ohio, and distributed locally and across the mid-west, primarily to Quakers. * ''The National Era'' (1847–60): a weekly newspaper which featured the works of John Greenleaf Whittier, who served as associate editor, and first published, as a serial, Harriet Beecher Stowe's ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1851). * North Star (anti-slavery newspaper), ''North Star'' (1847–51): an anti-slavery American newspaper published by the escaped slave, author, and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.International
* Slave narratives, books published in the U.S. and elsewhere by former slaves or about former slaves, relating their experiences. * Anti-Slavery International#Publications, Anti-Slavery International publications * ''Voice of the Fugitive'' (1851–1853): one of the first black newspapers in Upper Canada aimed at fugitive and escaped slaves from the United States. Written by Henry Bibb, an escaped slave who also published his own slave narrative. Published biweekly. * The Provincial Freeman (newspaper), ''Provincial Freeman'' (March 1853–June 1857): a weekly newspaper published by free Black American ex-patriates in Canada, Mary Ann Shadd and others. * ''Voice of the Bondsman'' (1856–1857): a small run two-issue newspaper published by John James Linton, a sympathizing white Canadian.National abolition dates
After abolition
In societies with large proportions of the population working in conditions of slavery or serfdom, stroke-of-the-pen laws declaring abolition can have thorough-going social, economic and political consequences. Issues of Compensated emancipation, compensation/redemption, land-redistribution and citizenship can prove intractable. For example: *Haiti
Haiti (; ht, Ayiti ; French: ), officially the Republic of Haiti (); ) and formerly known as Hayti, is a country located on the island of Hispaniola in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea, east of Cuba and Jamaica, and ...
, which effectively achieved abolition due to Haitian Revolution, slave revolt (1792–1804), struggled to overcome racial or anti-revolutionary prejudice in the international financial and diplomatic scene, and economy of Haiti, exchanged unequal prosperity for relative poverty.
* Russia's emancipation of its serfs in 1861 failed to allay rural and industrial unrest, which played a part in fomenting the Russian Revolution, revolutions of 1917.
* The United States achieved freedom for its slaves in 1865 with the ratification of the 13th Amendment (United States), 13th Amendment on 6 December of that year but faced ongoing slavery-associated racial issues (Jim Crow system, Civil rights movement, civil-rights struggles).
* Queensland deported most of its blackbirding, blackbirded Pacific Islander labour-force in 1901–1906.
Commemoration
People in modern times have commemorated abolitionist movements and the abolition of slavery in different ways around the world. The United Nations General Assembly declared 2004 the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition. This proclamation marked the bicentenary of the proclamation of the first modern slavery-free state, Haiti. Numerous exhibitions, events and research programmes became associated with the initiative.
2007 witnessed major exhibitions in British museums and galleries to mark the anniversary of the 1807 abolition act – 1807 Commemorated 2008 marked the 201st anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire. It also marked the 175th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.
The Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa held a major international conference entitled, "Routes to Freedom: Reflections on the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade", from 14 to 16 March 2008.
Abolitionist constitutionalism
Abolitionist constitutionalism is a line of thinking which invokes the historical view of the Constitution as an abolitionist document. It calls for an appeal to constitutionalism and progressive constitutionalism. This vision is interdisciplinary and finds its roots in the anti-slavery movement in the United States of America and is largely based on the tenet that current state institutions, particularly the carceral system, is rooted in the transatlantic slave trade. Some constitutional abolitionists critique the claim that the Constitution was pro-slavery. Radical abolitionist constitutionalism calls for the idea of dignity and the use of jurisprudence to address social inequalities. While the original American Constitution was pro-slavery, the Reconstruction Amendments can be seen as a compromise for freedom, without allowing for the full transformation of radical abolition. Criminal punishment was a major way that Southern states maintained the exploitation of black labour and effectively nullified the Reconstruction Amendments. This was done namely through Black Codes, harsh vagrancy laws, apprenticeship laws and extreme punishment for black people. The Reconstruction Amendments in their aim to promote citizenship and emancipation are believed by these thinkers to still be guiding principles in the fight for freedom and abolition. There are suggestions that a broad reading of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Thirteenth Amendment can convey an abolitionist vision of the freedom advocated for by black people in the public sphere beyond emancipation. Section one of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, Fourteenth Amendment was used by many abolitionist lawyers and activists throughout the North to advance the case against slavery. Proponents of abolitionist constitutionalism believe the Thirteenth and Fourteenth Amendments can be used today to extend the abolitionist logics to the various current barriers to injustices that are faced by marginalized peoples. Just like abolitionism more generally, abolitionist constitutionalism seeks to provide a vision which will lead to the abolition of many different neoliberal state institutions, such as the Prison–industrial complex, prison industrial complex, the wage system, and policing. This is tied to a belief that white supremacy is woven into the fabric of legal state institutions. ‘Radical abolitionists’ are often marginalized. There is a belief that constitutionalism as a main tenet of radical abolitionism can change and appeal to the popular opinion more. Historically, slavery abolitionists have had to use the public meaning of Constitutional terms in order in their fight against slavery. Constitutional abolitionists are generally in favour of incremental changes that follow the principles of the Reconstructive Amendments. There are debates among abolitionists, where some claim that the Constitution ought not to be treated as an abolitionist text, as it is rather used as a legal tool by the state to deny freedoms to marginalized communities; and that contemporary abolitionist work cannot be done by relying on the constitutional texts. Some argue that the narrative and scholarly literature around Reconstruction Amendments is not coherent regarding their original aims.Contemporary abolitionism
On 10 December 1948, the United Nations General Assembly, General Assembly of the United Nations adopted theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is an international document adopted by the United Nations General Assembly that enshrines the rights and freedoms of all human beings. Drafted by a UN committee chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, ...
. Article 4 states:
No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.Although outlawed in most countries, slavery is nonetheless practised secretly in many parts of the world. Enslavement still takes place in the Human trafficking in the United States, United States, Europe, and Latin America, as well as parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia. Modern slavery keeps around 50 million people from exercising their freedom. In Mauritania alone, estimates are that up to 600,000 men, women and children, or 20% of the population, are enslaved. Many of them are used as bonded labour. Modern-day abolitionists have emerged over the last several years, as awareness of slavery around the world has grown, with groups such as
Anti-Slavery International
Anti-Slavery International, founded as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1839, is an international non-governmental organisation, registered charity and advocacy group, based in the United Kingdom. It is the world's oldest inter ...
, the American Anti-Slavery Group, International Justice Mission, and Free the Slaves working to rid the world of slavery.
In the United States, The Action Group to End Human Trafficking and Modern-Day Slavery is a coalition of NGOs, Foundation (nonprofit organization), foundations and corporations working to develop a policy agenda for abolishing slavery and human trafficking. Since 1997, the United States Department of Justice has, through work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, prosecuted six individuals in Florida on charges of slavery in the agricultural industry. These prosecutions have led to freedom for over 1000 enslaved workers in the tomato and orange fields of South Florida. This is only one example of the contemporary fight against slavery worldwide. Slavery exists most widely in agricultural labour, apparel and sex industries, and service jobs in some regions.
In 2000, the United States passed the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act (TVPA) "to combat trafficking in persons, especially into the sex trade, slavery, and involuntary servitude." The TVPA also "created new law enforcement tools to strengthen the prosecution and punishment of traffickers, making human trafficking a Federal crime with severe penalties."
In 2014, for the first time in history major Anglican, Catholic, and Orthodox Christian leaders, as well as Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist leaders, met to sign a shared commitment against modern-day slavery; the declaration they signed calls for the elimination of slavery and human trafficking by 2020.
The United States Department of State publishes the annual Trafficking in Persons Report, identifying countries as either Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 2 Watch List or Tier 3, depending upon three factors: "(1) The extent to which the country is a country of origin, transit, or destination for severe forms of trafficking; (2) The extent to which the government of the country does not comply with the TVPA's minimum standards including, in particular, the extent of the government's trafficking-related corruption; and (3) The resources and capabilities of the government to address and eliminate severe forms of trafficking in persons."
See also
* Abolitionism (disambiguation), other movements to address perceived social ills, such as the Prison abolition movement * Abolitionist teaching * Anti-Slavery Society (disambiguation), various organisations referred to by this name * Compensated emancipation * History of slavery * List of abolitionist forerunners * London Society of West India Planters and Merchants, a lobby group representing slave owners * , in Puerto Rico * Representation of slavery in European art * Slavery in the British and French Caribbean * Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdomOrganisations and commemorations
* International Day for the Abolition of Slavery * International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its AbolitionReferences and notes
Footnotes
Citations
Sources
*Further reading
* Bader-Zaar, Birgitta"Abolitionism in the Atlantic World: The Organization and Interaction of Anti-Slavery Movements in the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries"
European History Online, Mainz: Institute of European History, 2010; retrieved 14 June 2012. * Blackwell, Marilyn S. Women Were Among Our Primeval Abolitionists': Women and Organized Antislavery in Vermont, 1834–1848", ''Vermont History'', 82 (Winter-Spring 2014), 13–44. * Carey, Brycchan, and Geoffrey Plank, eds. ''Quakers and Abolition'' (University of Illinois Press, 2014), 264 pp. * Coupland, Sir Reginald. "The British Anti-Slavery Movement". London: F. Cass, 1964. * Davis, David Brion, ''The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823'' (1999); ''The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture'' (1988) * Drescher, Seymour. ''Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery'' (2009) * Finkelman, Paul, ed. ''Encyclopedia of Slavery'' (1999) * Kemner, Jochen
"Abolitionism"
(2015). University Bielefeld – Center for InterAmerican Studies. * Gordon, M. ''Slavery in the Arab World'' (1989) * Gould, Philip. ''Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the 18th-century Atlantic World'' (2003) * Richard Hellie, Hellie, Richard. ''Slavery in Russia: 1450–1725'' (1982) * Hinks, Peter, and John McKivigan, eds. ''Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition'' (2 vol. 2006) ; 846 pp; 300 articles by experts * Jeffrey, Julie Roy. "Stranger, Buy... Lest Our Mission Fail: the Complex Culture of Women's Abolitionist Fairs". ''American Nineteenth Century History'' 4, no. 1 (2003): 185–205. * Kolchin, Peter. ''Unfree Labor; American Slavery and Russian Serfdom'' (1987) * Kolchin, Peter. "Reexamining Southern Emancipation in Comparative Perspective", ''Journal of Southern History'', (Feb. 2015) 81#1 pp. 7–40. * Oakes, James. ''The Crooked Path to Abolition: Abraham Lincoln and the Antislavery Constitution'' (W.W. Norton, 2021). * Oakes, James. ''Freedom National: The Destruction of Slavery in the United States, 1861–1865'' (W. W. Norton, 2012) * Palen, Marc-William.
Free-Trade Ideology and Transatlantic Abolitionism: A Historiography
. ''Journal of the History of Economic Thought'' 37 (June 2015): 291–304. * Reckord, Mary. "The Colonial Office and the Abolition of Slavery." ''Historical Journal'' 14, no. 4 (1971): 723–734
online
* Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. ''Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World'' (2007) * Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. ''The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery'' (1997) * Sinha, Manisha. ''The Slave's Cause: A History of Abolition'' (Yale UP, 2016) 784 pp; Highly detailed coverage of the American movement * Thomas, Hugh. ''The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440–1870'' (2006) * Unangst, Matthew. "Manufacturing Crisis: Anti-slavery ‘Humanitarianism’ and Imperialism in East Africa, 1888–1890." ''Journal of Imperial and Commonwealth History'' 48.5 (2020): 805–825. * Wyman‐McCarthy, Matthew. "British abolitionism and global empire in the late 18th century: A historiographic overview." ''History Compass'' 16.10 (2018): e12480.
External links
Largest Surviving Anti Slave Trade Petition
from Manchester, UK 1806
"Scotland and the Abolition of the Slave Trade"
– schools resource
Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice
Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery
*
Elijah Parish Lovejoy: A Martyr on the Altar of American Liberty
'
Brycchan Carey's pages listing British abolitionists
Teaching resources about Slavery and Abolition
on blackhistory4schools.com
The National Archives (UK)
Produced by Sheffield City Council's Libraries and Archives (UK)
American Abolitionism
American Abolitionists
comprehensive list of abolitionists and anti-slavery activists and organizations in the United States
by Right Honourable Lord Archer of Sandwell
"Slavery – The emancipation movement in Britain"
lecture by James Walvin at Gresham College, 5 March 2007 (available for video and audio download)
Escape to Freedom
at Scholastic.com
"Black Canada and the Journey to Freedom"
1807 Commemorated
Trafficking in Persons Report 2008
US Department of State
National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
in Cincinnati, Ohio
The Liberator Files
Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's ''The Liberator (anti-slavery newspaper), The Liberator'' original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.
University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive
a collection of more than 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period.
* Raymond James Krohn
Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in the United States {{Authority control Abolitionism, Political movements African diaspora history