Abolitionism

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, was a political movement to end slavery and free enslaved people around the world. It became strong in the western world during the late 1700s and 1800s.

France was the first country to fully end slavery in 1315, but it was used again in its colonies later. Spain was the first to ban slavery for indigenous people in 1542. Japan ended a type of slavery in 1590. Haiti, a former French colony, freed itself from slavery through a revolution from 1791 to 1804.

The movement grew in Britain in the late 1700s. In 1807, the slave trade became illegal across the British Empire, and in 1833, slavery itself was ended there. In the United States, Pennsylvania and Vermont were the first states to end slavery, in 1780 and 1777 respectively. By 1865, after a big civil war, the United States passed the 13th Amendment to end slavery completely.

Other places also worked to end slavery. Groups in Wallachia and Moldavia helped end the enslavement of the Roma between 1843 and 1855, and Russia freed serfs in 1861. Brazil ended slavery in 1888, becoming the last country in the Americas to do so. Today, slavery and forced labor are against the law in most countries.

Europe

France

Early abolition in metropolitan France

Balthild of Chelles, a former enslaved person, became queen and later regent of France. She worked to stop the slave trade and often bought and freed slaves, especially children. Over time, slavery began to decline in France.

In 1315, King Louis X declared that France meant freedom, stating that any enslaved person setting foot on French soil should be freed. This led later governments to limit slavery in France’s overseas colonies.

Code Noir and Age of Enlightenment

French colonies relied on enslaved labor for crops like sugar. The Code Noir set rules for slavery, including some rights for enslaved people. Though it allowed harsh punishments, it also tried to prevent separating families.

During the Age of Enlightenment, many writers spoke out against slavery. In 1788, the Society of the Friends of the Blacks was formed to work toward ending slavery. After the French Revolution, France granted full rights to free people of color in 1792.

In 1791, a rebellion began in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, leading to the Haitian Revolution. This uprising led to freedom for many and eventually to Haiti becoming independent in 1804.

First general abolition of slavery (1794)

In 1794, France’s government officially ended slavery in France and its colonies. The law stated that slavery was abolished.

Re-establishment of slavery in the colonies (1802)

Later, Napoleon Bonaparte decided to bring back slavery in the colonies in 1802. He sent troops to enforce this, and slavery was re-established in places like Guadeloupe.

Abolition of slavery in Haiti (1804)

After years of fighting, Haiti declared independence from France in 1804, becoming the first nation to permanently abolish slavery.

Second abolition (1848)

In 1848, France again abolished slavery in its remaining colonies. The government freed the enslaved people.

Final abolition (1903) and subsequent events

By 1905, France had abolished slavery in most of its African colonies. In 2001, a law officially recognized slavery as a crime against humanity.

Great Britain

Overview

In the 1700s, many people in Britain began speaking out against slavery. In 1772, a British court freed a man named James Somersett, which helped start a larger movement to end slavery.

In 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed in London. They worked to end the slave trade, and in 1807, the British Parliament passed a law making the slave trade illegal across the British Empire.

Development

In 1776, a writer named Adam Smith argued that slavery was not good for the economy. In the late 1700s and early 1800s, many British people continued to work toward ending slavery itself. In 1833, the British Parliament passed a law to end slavery across the empire by 1838.

British Empire

After the American Revolution, people in Britain continued to push for the end of slavery. In 1823, the first Anti-Slavery Society was formed. The world’s oldest international human rights group, Anti-Slavery International, began in 1839 to work against slavery worldwide.

Moldavia and Wallachia

Main article: Slavery in Romania

In the regions of Wallachia and Moldavia, the government allowed the enslavement of Roma people until the mid-1800s. Between 1843 and 1855, these regions freed all of the enslaved Roma people.

The Americas

Bartolomé de las Casas was a 16th-century Spanish Dominican priest, the first resident Bishop of Chiapas (Central America, today Mexico). As a settler in the New World he spoke out against the poor treatment of the Native Americans by Spanish colonists. He spoke to King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor about rights for the native people.

Las Casas later changed his mind and began to support ending slavery in the colonies.

His book, A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies, helped lead to Spanish colonial laws known as the New Laws of 1542. It also led to the Valladolid debate, the first European debate about the rights of colonized people.

Latin America

During the early 19th century, slavery grew in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States, while new republics in Latin America worked toward ending slavery. During the Spanish American wars for independence (1810–1826), slavery ended in most of Latin America, though it continued until later years in some places. Chile declared freedom of wombs in 1811, followed by the United Provinces of the River Plate in 1813, Colombia and Venezuela in 1821. While Chile ended slavery in 1823, Argentina did so with the signing of the Argentine Constitution of 1853. Peru ended slavery in 1854. Colombia ended slavery in 1851. Slavery ended in Uruguay during the Guerra Grande, by both the government of Fructuoso Rivera and the government in exile of Manuel Oribe.

Canada

Main article: Slavery in Canada

While slavery grew in the American South, Nova Scotia became a place for black people leaving the Southern Colonies and United States. In 1772, Britain said that slavery could not exist in the British Isles. This influenced the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1788, abolitionist James Drummond MacGregor from Pictou published the first anti-slavery writings in Canada and began buying slaves' freedom. In 1790 John Burbidge freed his slaves. Led by Richard John Uniacke, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to allow slavery. Two chief justices helped free slaves from their owners in Nova Scotia. 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 1807 ended the slave trade in the British Empire and the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 ended slavery completely.

With slaves escaping to New York and New England, laws for gradual freedom were passed in Upper Canada (1793) and Lower Canada (1803). In Upper Canada, the Act Against Slavery of 1793 was passed by the Assembly under John Graves Simcoe. It was the first law against slavery in the British Empire. Under its rules no new slaves could be brought in, slaves already in the province would stay enslaved until death, and children born to enslaved mothers would be enslaved but must be freed at age 25. The last slaves in Canada gained their freedom when slavery was ended in the entire British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833.

United States

In his book The Struggle For Equality, historian James M. McPherson described an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War had pushed for the immediate, complete, and total end of slavery in the United States".

Benjamin Franklin, who owned slaves for much of his life, became a leading member of the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery, the first recognized group for ending slavery in the United States. Following the American Revolutionary War, Northern states ended slavery, starting with the 1777 Constitution of Vermont, followed by Pennsylvania's gradual freedom law in 1780. Other states with more interest in slaves, such as New York and New Jersey, also passed gradual freedom laws, and by 1804, all the Northern states had ended it.

The 1836–1837 campaign to stop free speech in Alton, Illinois, ended with an attack by a group on abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Parish Lovejoy. By 1840 more than 15,000 people were members of abolitionist groups in the United States. The formation of Christian groups that supported ending slavery as a moral issue happened, such as the organization of Wesleyan Methodist Connection by Orange Scott in 1843, and the formation of the Free Methodist Church by Benjamin Titus Roberts in 1860.

In the 1850s in the fifteen states of the American South, slavery was legally allowed. While it was fading in cities and in border states, it stayed strong in areas that grew cotton for export, or sugar, tobacco, or hemp. American efforts to end slavery were based in the North. In the South ending slavery was against the law.

The white group to end slavery 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 enslaved people such as Frederick Douglass and free black people such as the brothers Charles Henry Langston and John Mercer Langston.

The Republican Party wanted to slowly end slavery through economic changes. With the 1860 presidential victory of Abraham Lincoln, seven Deep South states decided to leave and form a new nation. The American Civil War began in April 1861 with the Confederacy's attack on Fort Sumter, a Union fort in South Carolina.

Civil War and final emancipation

On 16 April 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, ending slavery in Washington D. C. In response, Congress passed the Confiscation Acts, which said that enslaved people from the South who came to Union lines would not be sent back to their owners. On 1 January 1863, Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which was an order from the U.S. government that changed the legal status of enslaved people in the Confederacy from "enslaved" to "free".

Planters sometimes moved the black people they claimed to own far away from Union army reach. By "Juneteenth" (19 June 1865, in Texas), the Union Army controlled all of the Confederacy and freed all its enslaved people.

The states not included in the Emancipation Proclamation also began ending slavery on their own. 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 for everyone in the United States.

Cuba and Brazil

Brazil and Cuba ended slavery in the 1880s, with Cuba ending it in 1886 and Brazil in 1888.

Africa

Senegambia is an example of an influential African region that helped end slavery.

Women and abolitionism

Many women helped in the movement to end slavery. Writers like Harriet Beecher Stowe in the United States and Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda in Brazil used their stories to show that slavery was wrong. Other women, such as the Grimké Sisters, Abigail Adams, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, used their connections to support the fight against slavery.

Enslaved women like Phillis Wheatley and Harriet Tubman also took strong actions against slavery. In places like Cuba and Brazil, some enslaved women used their positions to argue for their freedom and the freedom of their families. They shared messages about ending slavery with others.

Notable abolitionists

Abolitionist publications

United States

Some important newspapers and books helped share ideas about ending slavery in the United States.

The Emancipator (1819–20): started in Jonesboro, Tennessee by Elihu Embree and later became The Genius of Universal Emancipation.
Genius of Universal Emancipation (1821–39): a newspaper by Benjamin Lundy.
The Liberator (1831–65): a weekly newspaper by William Lloyd Garrison.
The Emancipator (1833–50): a different newspaper from the one above, published in New York and Boston.
The Slave's Friend (1836–38): a magazine for children made by the American Anti-Slavery Society.
The Philanthropist (1836–37): a newspaper in Ohio for the Anti-Slavery Society.
The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom (1839–58): an annual book edited by Maria Weston Chapman.
National Anti-Slavery Standard (1840–70): the official newspaper of the American Anti-Slavery Society.
True Wesleyan (1843–present): a magazine started by Orange Scott and Jotham Horton.
The Unconstitutionality of Slavery (1845): a book by Lysander Spooner saying slavery was against the U.S. Constitution.
The Anti-Slavery Bugle (1845–1861): a newspaper in Columbiana County, Ohio.
The National Era (1847–60): a weekly newspaper that first shared Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin.
North Star (1847–51): a newspaper by the escaped slave and abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

International

Other countries also had important writings about ending slavery.

Slave narratives: books by former slaves sharing their stories.
Anti-Slavery International publications
Voice of the Fugitive (1851–1853): a newspaper in Upper Canada for escaped slaves from the United States, written by Henry Bibb.
Provincial Freeman (March 1853–June 1857): a newspaper by free Black Americans living in Canada, including Mary Ann Shadd.
Voice of the Bondsman (1856–1857): a small newspaper by John James Linton in Canada.

National abolition dates

For a chronological guide, see Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom.

International abolitionism

The first international effort to end slavery happened in 1840 with the World Anti-Slavery Convention in London, organized by the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Later, in 1889–90, a conference in Brussels brought together leaders from many countries to discuss ending slavery.

In the 20th century, groups like the League of Nations worked to stop slavery worldwide. In 1926, they created a convention to ban slavery, and after World War II, most countries made slavery illegal. Some places stopped slavery later, in the 1960s and 1970s.

Today, many countries have laws against slavery, but some people are still forced to work against their will. Organizations like the United Nations and the International Labour Organization work to help these people and stop human trafficking.

After abolition

When countries end practices like slavery or serfdom, it can cause big changes in society, the economy, and politics. For example:

Haiti ended slavery through a big uprising from 1792 to 1804, but faced many challenges after that.
When Russia freed its serfs in 1861, it did not stop unrest in rural and industrial areas, which later helped lead to revolutions in 1917.
The United States freed its enslaved people in 1865 with the 13th Amendment, but still faced serious issues related to fairness and rights for many years.

Commemoration

People today remember the movement to end slavery in many ways around the world. In 2004, the United Nations called it the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition to honor the end of slavery, especially the freedom of Haiti. Many shows, events, and studies happened because of this.

In 2007, big shows took place in British museums to remember the year 1807 when the slave trade was stopped in Britain. The year 2008 marked 200 years since the slave trade ended in the British Empire and 175 years since slavery itself ended there. The Faculty of Law at the University of Ottawa held an important meeting called "Routes to Freedom: Reflections on the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade" from March 14 to 16, 2008.

American abolitionist constitutionalism

Abolitionist constitutionalism is a way of thinking that sees the Constitution of the United States as a document that supports ending unfair treatment. It encourages using the ideas and rules of the Constitution to fight for fairness and equality. This idea comes from the movement against slavery in the United States.

Some believe that the Reconstruction Amendments — changes made to the Constitution after slavery was ended — were steps toward freedom. These amendments aimed to help Black people become full citizens. Today, some thinkers suggest that these same amendments can help fight for justice for all people facing unfair treatment.

Abolitionist constitutionalism also talks about changing systems like prisons and policing, because these systems can still carry old unfair ideas. Some people think that using the Constitution’s ideas can help more people understand and support these changes. However, there are debates about whether the Constitution itself can truly help end all unfair treatment.

Contemporary abolitionism

On December 10, 1948, the United Nations said that no one should be kept as a slave. Even though many countries have laws against slavery, some people are still treated this way in secret around the world.

Groups like Anti-Slavery International, the American Anti-Slavery Group, International Justice Mission, and Free the Slaves work to help these people. In the United States, many groups work together to stop unfair treatment of workers and help those who are trapped.

In 2000, the United States made new laws to fight against unfair treatment of people and forced work. In 2014, leaders from many religions agreed to work together to end these problems.

The United States Department of State makes a report each year to show which countries are doing well and which ones need to do more to stop unfair treatment of people.

In 2018, Colorado was the first state to change its laws to fully end slavery, and other states have started to do the same.