View source for Abolitionism

{{Short description|Movement to end slavery}}
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{{Redirect-multi|2|Anti-slavery|Emancipationist|the British NGO|Anti-Slavery International|pardoned convicts in colonial Australia|Emancipist}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=August 2020}}
{{Use British English|date=June 2022}}
[[File:Slavezanzibar2.JPG|thumb|250px|upright|Photograph of a slave boy in the [[Sultanate of Zanzibar]]. 'An Arab master's punishment for a slight offence.' circa 1890. From at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful weapon in the abolitionist arsenal.]]
{{Slavery}}
{{Campaignbox Suppression of the Slave Trade}}

'''Abolitionism''', or the '''abolitionist movement''', is the [[political movement]] to end [[slavery]] and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. It gained momentum in the western world in the late 18th and 19th centuries.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2025-06-20 |title=Abolitionism {{!}} Movement, U.S. History, Leaders, & Definition {{!}} Britannica |url=https://www.britannica.com/topic/abolitionism-European-and-American-social-movement |access-date=2025-07-11 |website=www.britannica.com |language=en}}</ref>

The first country to fully outlaw slavery was [[Kingdom of France|France]] in 1315, but it was later used in its [[French colonial empire|colonies]]. The first country to abolish and punish slavery for [[indigenous people]] was [[Spanish Empire|Spain]] with the [[New Laws]] in 1542.

Under the actions of [[Toyotomi Hideyoshi]], chattel slavery has been abolished across [[Japan]] since 1590, though other forms of [[forced labour]] were used during [[World War II]]. The first and only country to self-liberate from slavery was a former French colony, [[Haiti]], as a result of the [[Haitian Revolution|Revolution of 1791–1804]]. The [[Slavery in Britain|British abolitionist]] movement began in the late 18th century, and the 1772 [[Somerset v Stewart|Somersett case]] established that slavery did not exist in English law. In 1807, [[Slave Trade Act 1807|the slave trade was made illegal]] throughout the [[British Empire]], though existing slaves in British colonies were not liberated until the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]]. In the [[United States]],  [[Pennsylvania]] and [[Vermont Republic|Vermont]] were the first states to abolish slavery, Vermont in 1777 and Pennsylvania in 1780 (Vermont did not join the Union until 1791). By 1804, the rest of [[Slave states and free states|the northern states had abolished slavery]], but it remained legal in southern states. By 1808, the United States outlawed the [[Slave trade in the United States|importation of slaves]] and in 1865 [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|outlawed slavery]] except as a punishment.

In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish the enslavement of the [[Romani people|Roma]] in [[Wallachia]] and [[Moldavia]] between 1843 and 1855, and [[Emancipation reform of 1861|to emancipate the serfs in Russia in 1861]]. The [[United States]] would pass the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th Amendment]] in December 1865 after having just fought a bloody [[American Civil War|Civil War]], ending slavery "except as a punishment for crime". In 1888, [[Empire of Brazil|Brazil]] became the last country in the Americas to [[Golden Law|outlaw slavery]]. As the [[Empire of Japan]] annexed Asian countries, from the late 19th century onwards, archaic institutions including slavery were abolished in those countries.

During the 20th century, the [[League of Nations]] founded a number of commissions, [[Temporary Slavery Commission]] (1924–1926), [[Committee of Experts on Slavery]] (1932) and the [[Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery]] (1934–1939), which conducted international investigations of the institution of slavery and created international treaties, such as the [[1926 Slavery Convention]], to eradicate the institution worldwide.

In 1948, slavery was declared illegal in the [[United Nations]]' [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]]. By this time, the Arab world was the only region in the world where institutional chattel slavery was still legal. [[Slavery in Saudi Arabia]], [[slavery in Yemen]] and [[slavery in Dubai]] were abolished in 1962–1963, with [[slavery in Oman]] following in 1970.

[[Mauritania]] is the latest country to officially abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981.<ref>"[https://edition.cnn.com/interactive/2012/03/world/mauritania.slaverys.last.stronghold/index.html Slavery's last stronghold]", CNN. March 2012.</ref> Today, [[Contemporary slavery|child and adult slavery]] and [[Unfree labour|forced labour]] are illegal in almost all countries,{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}} as well as being against [[international law]], but [[human trafficking]] for labour and for [[Sexual slavery|sexual bondage]] continues to affect tens of millions of adults and children.

==France==
===Early abolition in metropolitan France===
[[Balthild of Chelles]], herself a former slave, [[queen consort]] of Neustria and Burgundy by marriage to [[Clovis II]], became [[regent]] in 657 since the king, her son [[Chlothar III]], 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]]') favorite charity was to buy and free slaves, especially children. Slavery started to dwindle and would be superseded by [[serfdom]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/basis/eligius.asp |title=The Life of St. Eligius |translator=Jo Ann McNamara |series=Medieval Sourcebook |publisher=Fordham University |access-date=December 2, 2011}}</ref><ref>[https://archive.org/details/forgetfuloft_schu_1998_000_5601595 <!-- quote=Forgetfuloftheirsex:femalesanctityandsociety.--> Schulenburg, Jane. ''Forgetful of their Sex: Female Sanctity and Society, ca. 500–1100'', Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998]</ref>

In 1315, [[Louis X of France|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 [[French colonial Empire|overseas colonies]].<ref>Christopher L. Miller, [https://books.google.com/books?id=480BBURkreYC&pg=PA122 ''The French Atlantic Triangle: literature and culture of the slave trade''], Duke University Press, p. 20.</ref>

Some cases of African slaves freed by setting foot on French soil were recorded such as the example of a [[Normandy|Norman]] slave merchant who tried to sell slaves in [[Bordeaux]] in 1571. He was arrested and his slaves were freed according to a declaration of the [[Parlement]] of [[Guyenne]] 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 18th century.<ref>Malick W. Ghachem, [https://books.google.com/books?id=btNeAEelkNMC&pg=PA54 ''The Old Regime and the Haitian Revolution''], Cambridge University Press, p. 54.</ref><ref>{{cite journal|last=Chatman|first=Samuel L.|doi=10.2307/2649071|title='There Are No Slaves in France': A Re-Examination of Slave Laws in Eighteenth Century France|journal=The Journal of Negro History|volume=85|number=3|year=2000|pages=144–153|jstor=2649071|s2cid=141017958}}</ref> Born into slavery in [[Saint Domingue]], [[Thomas-Alexandre Dumas]] became free when his father brought him to France in 1776.

===''Code Noir'' and Age of Enlightenment===
[[File:Portrait of Chevalier de Saint-George.jpg|thumb|upright|The [[Chevalier de Saint-Georges]], known as the "Black Mozart", was, by his social position, and by his political involvement, a figurehead of free blacks.]]
As in other [[New World]] colonies, the French relied on the [[Atlantic slave trade]] for labour for their [[sugar cane]] [[plantations]] in their Caribbean colonies; the [[French West Indies]]. In addition, French colonists in ''[[Louisiane]]'' in North America held slaves, particularly in the South around [[New Orleans]], where they established sugarcane plantations.

[[Louis XIV]]'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 Black people being free in 1830 (13.2% in [[History of slavery in Louisiana|Louisiana]] compared to 0.8% in [[History of Mississippi#Slavery|Mississippi]]).<ref>Rodney Stark, [https://archive.org/details/forgloryofgodhow0000star/page/322 ''For the Glory of God: How Monotheism Led to Reformations, Science, Witch-hunts, and the End of Slavery''], Princeton University Press, 2003, p. 322. There was typo in the original hardcover stating "31.2 percent"; this was corrected to 13.2% in the paperback edition and can be verified using 1830 census data.</ref> They were on average exceptionally literate, with a significant number of them owning businesses, properties, and even slaves.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4rYMEUqEToUC&pg=PT1117|title=The Rough Guide to the USA|author= Samantha Cook, Sarah Hull|publisher=Rough Guides UK|date= 2011|isbn=978-1-4053-8952-5}}</ref><ref name="books.google.fr">{{cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=rn4p-eFL6oMC&pg=PA115|author=Terry L. Jones |title=The Louisiana Journey|publisher=Gibbs Smith|date=2007|isbn=978-1-4236-2380-9 }}</ref> Other free people of colour, such as [[Julien Raimond]], spoke out against slavery.

The ''Code Noir'' also forbade interracial marriages, but it was often ignored in French colonial society and the [[mulatto]]es became an intermediate caste between whites and blacks, while in the British colonies mulattoes and blacks were considered equal and discriminated against equally.<ref name="books.google.fr"/><ref>{{cite book|author1=Martin H. Steinberg|author2=Bernard G. Forget|author3=Douglas R. Higgs|author4=Ronald L. Nagel|title=Disorders of Hemoglobin: Genetics, Pathophysiology, and Clinical Management|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=PM0zzm7wbvsC&pg=PA725|year=2001|publisher=Cambridge University Press|isbn=978-0-521-63266-9|pages=725–726}}</ref>

During the [[Age of Enlightenment]], many philosophers wrote pamphlets against slavery and its moral and economical justifications, including [[Montesquieu]] in ''[[The Spirit of the Laws]]'' (1748) and [[Denis Diderot]] in the ''[[Encyclopédie]]''.<ref name="lorenzo et al"/> In 1788, [[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] founded the [[Society of the Friends of the Blacks]] (''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]] in 1791, was the beginning of what became the [[Haitian Revolution]] led by formerly enslaved people like [[Georges Biassou]], [[Toussaint L'Ouverture]], and [[Jean-Jacques Dessalines]]. The rebellion swept through the north of the colony, and with it came freedom to thousands of enslaved blacks, but also violence and death.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution |last=Dubois |first=Laurent |publisher=Harvard University Press |year=2004 |isbn=978-0-674-03436-5 |pages=91–114|oclc = 663393691}}</ref> In 1793, French Civil Commissioners in St. Domingue and abolitionists, [[Léger-Félicité Sonthonax]] 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.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=U8IHym0hoQwC |title=You Are All Free: The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery |last=Popkin |first=Jeremy D.  |publisher=Cambridge University Press |year=2010 |isbn=978-0-521-51722-5 |pages=246–375}}</ref> The connection with France lasted until blacks and free people of colour formed L'armée indigène in 1802 to resist [[Napoleon]]'s [[Saint-Domingue expedition|Expédition de Saint-Domingue]]. Victory over the French in the decisive [[Battle of Vertières]] finally led to independence and the creation of present [[Haiti]] in 1804.<ref>{{Cite book |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=K65aBAAAQBAJ |title=The Haitian Revolution: A Documentary History |last=Geggus  |first=David |publisher=Hackett Publishing |year=2014 |isbn=978-1-62466-177-8}}</ref>

===First general abolition of slavery (1794)===
{{More citations needed section|date=July 2019}}
[[File:Jacques Pierre Brissot (1754-1793).jpg|thumb|upright|[[Jacques Pierre Brissot]] (1754–1793), who organized the [[Society of the Friends of the Blacks]] in 1788]]

The convention, the first elected Assembly of the [[French First Republic|First Republic]] (1792–1804), on 4 February 1794, under the leadership of [[Maximilien Robespierre]], [[Law of 4 February 1794|abolished slavery in law]] in France and its colonies.<ref>Popkin, J. (2010) You are all Free. The Haitian Revolution and the Abolition of Slavery, pp. 350–70, 384, 389.</ref> [[Henri Grégoire|Abbé Grégoire]] 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]]. 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 the [[French Revolutionary Wars]], French slave-owners joined the [[counter-revolution]] en masse and, through the [[Whitehall Accord (1794)|Whitehall Accord]], 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 [[Joséphine de Beauharnais|his wife]], [[Napoleon Bonaparte]] decided to re-establish slavery after becoming [[First Consul]]. He promulgated the [[law of 20 May 1802]] and sent military governors and troops to the colonies to impose it.

On 10 May 1802, [[Louis Delgrès|Colonel Delgrès]] launched a rebellion in [[Guadeloupe]] against Napoleon's representative, [[Antoine Richepanse|General Richepanse]]. The rebellion was repressed, and slavery was re-established.

===Abolition of slavery in Haiti (1804)===

The news of the [[Law of 4 February 1794]] that abolished slavery in France and its colonies and the revolution led by [[Louis Delgrès|Colonel Delgrès]] sparked another wave of rebellion in Saint-Domingue. 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]], in 1803 Napoleon decided to [[Louisiana Purchase|sell]] the [[Louisiana Territory]] to the United States.

The French governments initially refused to recognize Haïti. It forced the nation to pay a [[Haitian independence debt|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]] for the suppression of the slave trade, the [[Treaty for the Suppression of the African Slave Trade]] (1841), but the king, [[Louis Philippe I]], declined to ratify it.

===Second abolition (1848)===
[[File:Biard Abolition de l'esclavage 1849.jpg|thumb|left|''[[Proclamation of the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies, 27 April 1848]]'', by [[Auguste François Biard|Biard]] (1849)]]

On 27 April 1848, under the [[French Second Republic|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]]s'' in [[Creole language|Creole]]), and then freed them.

===Final abolition (1903) and subsequent events===

At about the same time, France started colonizing Africa and had 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 long persisted.

The abolition wasn't strictly put in place. Several french territories kept practising slavery until 1904 as was the case in [[french Senegal|Senegal]] or 1894 in Soudan.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Renault |first=François |date=1971 |title=L'abolition de l'esclavage au Sénégal : L'attitude de l'administration française (1848–1905) |url=https://www.persee.fr/doc/outre_0300-9513_1971_num_58_210_1530 |journal=Outre-Mers. Revue d'histoire |volume=58 |issue=210 |pages=14–52 |doi=10.3406/outre.1971.1530}}</ref> The abolition was not strictly enforced.

Passed on 10 May 2001, the [[Taubira]] law officially acknowledges slavery and the Atlantic slave trade as a [[crime against humanity]]. 10 May was chosen as the day dedicated to recognition of the crime of slavery.

==Great Britain==
{{Main|Abolitionism in the United Kingdom|Slavery in the British Isles}}
[[File:William Murray of Mansfield.jpg|thumb|upright|[[William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield|Lord Mansfield]] (1705–1793), whose opinion in [[Somerset's Case]] (1772) was widely taken to have held that there was no basis in law for slavery in England]]

===Overview===
[[James Oglethorpe]] was among the first to articulate the [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] case against slavery, banning it in the [[Province of Georgia]] on humanitarian grounds, and arguing against it in Parliament. Soon after Oglethorpe's death in 1785, Sharp and More united with [[William Wilberforce]] and others in forming the [[Clapham Sect]].<ref>Wilson, Thomas, ''The Oglethorpe Plan'', 201–206.</ref>

The [[Somerset v Stewart|Somersett case]] in 1772, in which a fugitive slave was freed with the judgement that slavery did not exist under [[English common law]], helped launch the British movement to abolish slavery.<ref>Wise, Steven M., ''Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery'', Cambridge, Massachusetts: Da Capo Press, 2005.</ref> Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, many colonies and emerging nations continued to use [[slave labour]]: [[Dutch Empire|Dutch]], [[French colonial empire|French]], [[British Empire|British]], [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]], and [[Portuguese Empire|Portuguese]] territories in the West Indies, South America, and the Southern United States. After the [[American Revolution]] 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|Slavery in Canada]]). In the U.S., Northern states, [[An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery|beginning with Pennsylvania]] in 1780, passed legislation during the next two decades abolishing slavery, sometimes by [[Gradual emancipation (United States)|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]]).

In 1787, the [[Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade]] was formed in London. [[French Revolution|Revolutionary France]] abolished slavery throughout its empire through the [[Law of 4 February 1794]], but [[Napoleon]] [[Law of 20 May 1802|restored it in 1802]] as part of a program to ensure sovereignty over its colonies.  On March 16, 1792, Denmark became the first country to issue a decree to abolish their [[Danish slave trade|transatlantic slave trade]] from the start of 1803.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://aaregistry.org/story/denmark-abolishes-slavery/|title=Denmark Abolishes Slavery|website=African American Registry}}</ref> However, Denmark would not abolish slavery in the Danish West Indies until 1848.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://en.natmus.dk/historical-knowledge/historical-themes/danish-colonies/the-danish-west-indies/the-abolition-of-slavery/|title=The Abolition of Slavery|website=National Museum of Denmark}}</ref> Haiti (then Saint-Domingue) formally [[History of Haiti|declared independence from France]] in 1804 and became the first nation in the [[Western Hemisphere]] to permanently eliminate slavery in the modern era, following the [[1804 Haitian revolution]].<ref name="The Washington Post">{{cite web |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2020/07/12/haiti-was-first-nation-permanently-ban-slavery/ |title=Haiti was the first nation to permanently ban slavery |publisher=Gaffield, Julia|access-date=15 July 2020}}</ref> The northern states in the U.S. all abolished slavery by 1804. The trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire by 1937, with Nigeria and Bahrain being the last British territories to abolish slavery.<ref name="Nwaubani">{{Cite magazine |last=Nwaubani |first=Adaobi Tricia |date=2018-07-15 |title=My Great-Grandfather, the Nigerian Slave-Trader |url=https://www.newyorker.com/culture/personal-history/my-great-grandfather-the-nigerian-slave-trader |access-date=2025-02-03 |magazine=The New Yorker |language=en-US |issn=0028-792X}}</ref><ref>{{Cite book |title=The abolition of the slave trade in southeastern Nigeria, 1885-1950 {{!}} WorldCat.org |oclc=256735611 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Northrup |first=David |date=September 2007 |title=A. E. Afigbo. The Abolition of the Slave Trade in Southeastern Nigeria. 1885-1950. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora. xv + 210 pp. Maps. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $75.00. Cloth. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/a-e-afigbo-the-abolition-of-the-slave-trade-in-southeastern-nigeria-18851950-rochester-university-of-rochester-press-2006-rochester-studies-in-african-history-and-the-diaspora-xv-210-pp-maps-appendixes-bibliography-index-7500-cloth/7279CB1095BDD89AD84EACAA5AAA42CC |journal=African Studies Review |language=en |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=228–229 |doi=10.1353/arw.2007.0116 |issn=0002-0206|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Miers 2003 265–67">{{Cite book |last=Miers |first=Suzanne |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zZk9Y-HTQzcC&q=1926+Slavery+Convention |title=Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem |date=2003 |publisher=Rowman Altamira |isbn=978-0-7591-0340-5 |pages=265–267 |language=en}}</ref>

===Development===
The last known form of enforced servitude of adults ([[villein]]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 (Lord Chief Justice)|John Holt]] when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in England.<ref>V. C. D. Mtubani, [http://archive.lib.msu.edu/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/PULA/pula003002/pula003002007.pdf "African Slaves and English Law"], ''PULA Botswana Journal of African Studies'', Vol. 3, No. 2, November 1983. Retrieved 24 February 2011.</ref> 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.<ref name="lorenzo et al">{{cite journal| last1  = Di Lorenzo| first1 = A.| last2  = Donoghue| first2 = J.| display-authors = etal| title   = Abolition and Republicanism over the Transatlantic Long Term, 1640–1800|url=https://journals.openedition.org/lrf/1690 | journal = La Révolution Française| issue = 11| year = 2016| doi = 10.4000/lrf.1690| doi-access = free}}</ref>

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]] and [[Edinburgh]] to work as personal servants. Men who migrated to the North American colonies often took their East Indian slaves or servants with them, as [[Indian people|East Indians]] have been documented in colonial records.<ref>Paul Heinegg, [http://www.freeafricanamericans.com ''Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware'', 1999–2005], "Weaver Family: Three members of the Weaver family, probably brothers, were called 'East Indians' in Lancaster County, [VA] [court records] between 1707 and 1711." "The indenture of Indians (Native Americans) as servants was not common in Maryland&nbsp;... the indenture of East Indian servants was more common." Retrieved 15 February 2008.</ref><ref>Francis C. Assisi, {{usurped|1=[https://web.archive.org/web/20110515191635/http://www.indolink.com/Analysis/a121403-021037.php "First Indian-American Identified: Mary Fisher, Born 1680 in Maryland"]}}. ''IndoLink''. Retrieved 20 April 2010. "Documents available from American archival sources of the colonial period now confirm the presence of indentured servants or slaves who were brought from the Indian subcontinent, via England, to work for their European American masters."</ref>

Some of the first [[freedom suits]], 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.<ref name="The National Archives of Scotland">{{cite web |url=http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/071022.asp |title=Slavery, freedom or perpetual servitude? – the Joseph Knight case |publisher=[[National Archives of Scotland]] |access-date=27 November 2010 |archive-date=27 September 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110927211836/http://www.nas.gov.uk/about/071022.asp |url-status=dead }}</ref>

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]] procedure. The African slaves' legal status was unclear until 1772 and [[Somersett's Case]], 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]] to be resold into slavery. While in London, Somersett had been [[baptism|baptized]]; three godparents issued a writ of ''[[habeas corpus]]''. As a result, [[William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield|Lord Mansfield]], Chief Justice of the [[Court of King's Bench (England)|Court of the King's Bench]], had to judge whether Somersett's abduction was lawful or not under English [[common law]]. 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 judgment of 22 June 1772, Mansfield declared:

{{quote|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.<ref>Frederick Charles Moncrieff, ''The Wit and Wisdom of the Bench and Bar'', The Lawbook Exchange, 2006, pp. 85–86.</ref>}}

[[File:Olaudah Equiano, frontpiece from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.png|thumb|left|upright=0.8|[[Olaudah Equiano]] was a member of an abolitionist group of prominent free Africans living in Britain, and he was active among leaders of the anti-slave trade movement in the 1780s.]]

Although the [[Slavery at common law|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.<ref>Mowat, Robert Balmain, ''History of the English-Speaking Peoples'', Oxford University Press, 1943, p. 162.</ref> The decision did not apply to the British overseas territories; by then, for example, the American colonies had established slavery by positive laws.<ref>MacEwen, Martin, ''Housing, Race and Law: The British Experience'', Routledge, 2002, p. 39.</ref> 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.<ref>Peter P. Hinks, John R. McKivigan, R. Owen Williams, ''Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition'', Greenwood, 2007, p. 643.</ref>

After reading about Somersett's Case, [[Joseph Knight (slave)|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]], on the grounds that he could not be held as a slave in [[Kingdom of Great Britain|Great Britain]]. In the case of ''[[Knight v. Wedderburn]]'' (1778), Wedderburn said that Knight owed him "perpetual servitude". The [[Court of Session]] of Scotland ruled against him, saying that [[chattel slavery]] 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.<ref name="The National Archives of Scotland"/>

[[File:The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840 by Benjamin Robert Haydon.jpg|thumb|The 1840 [[Anti-Slavery Convention]] at Exeter Hall<ref>[http://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait.php?search=ap&npgno=599&eDate=&lDate= "The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840"], [[Benjamin Robert Haydon]], 1841, London, Given by [[Anti-Slavery International|British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society]] in 1880</ref>{{fcn|reason=Cite the source of this transcript, not merely the (inherently [[WP:V|unverifiable]]) speech itself|date=November 2025}}]]

But at the same time, legally mandated, [[hereditary]] slavery of Scots persons in Scotland had existed from 1606<ref>{{Cite book
| editor-last=Brown
| editor-first=K. M.
| location=St. Andrews
| date=2007
| publisher=[[University of St. Andrews]]
| contribution=Regarding colliers and salters (ref: 1605/6/39)
| contribution-url=http://www.rps.ac.uk/search.php?action=fc&fn=jamesvi_trans&id=id7107
| title=The Records of the Parliaments of Scotland to 1707
| display-editors=etal
| access-date=6 August 2009
| archive-date=11 May 2011
| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110511230622/http://www.rps.ac.uk/search.php?action=fc&fn=jamesvi_trans&id=id7107
| url-status=dead
}}</ref> and continued until 1799, when [[coal mining|colliers]] and [[Drysalter|salters]] were [[emancipation|emancipated]] by an act of the [[Parliament of Great Britain]] ([[39 Geo. 3]] 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]] c. 28) was intended to end what the act referred to as "a state of slavery and bondage",<ref>{{Cite book
|last=May
|first=Thomas Erskine
|author-link=Erskine May, 1st Baron Farnborough
|year=1895
|contribution=Last Relics of Slavery
|contribution-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=sCwYAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA274
|title=The Constitutional History of England (1760–1860)
|volume=II
|publisher=A. C. Armstrong and Son
|publication-date=1895
|location=New York
|pages=274–275
}}</ref> but that was ineffective, necessitating the 1799 act.

In the 1776 book ''[[The Wealth of Nations]]'', [[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===
[[File:Abolition of Slavery The Glorious 1st of August 1838.jpg|thumb|A poster advertising a special chapel service to celebrate the Abolition of Slavery in 1838]]
Prior to the [[American Revolution]], 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.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Blanck |first1=Emily |title=Forging an American Law of Slavery in Revolutionary South Carolina and Massachusetts |date=2014 |publisher=University of Georgia Press |isbn=9780-820338644 |page=35 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8e-wBAAAQBAJ}}</ref> In addition, Brigadier General [[Samuel Birch (military officer)|Samuel Birch]] created the ''[[Book of Negroes]]'', 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.

[[File:Wilberforce john rising.jpg|thumb|left|upright|[[William Wilberforce]] (1759–1833), politician and philanthropist who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade]]
After the formation of the [[Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade]] in 1787, [[William Wilberforce]] led the cause of abolition through the parliamentary campaign. [[Thomas Clarkson]] 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#Abolitionism|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".<ref>{{cite web
 |title=Wedgwood
 |url=http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REwedgwood.htm
 |access-date=12 August 2015
 |quote=Thomas Clarkson wrote of the medallion; promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom.
 |url-status=dead
 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090708094050/http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/REwedgwood.htm
 |archive-date=8 July 2009
}}</ref><ref>[[Elizabeth McGrath (art historian)|Elizabeth McGrath]] and [[Jean Michel Massing]] (eds), ''The Slave in European Art: From Renaissance Trophy to Abolitionist Emblem'', London, 2012.</ref> The 1792 Slave Trade Bill passed the House of Commons mangled and mutilated by the modifications and amendments of [[William Pitt the Younger|Pitt]], it lay for years, in the House of Lords.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4wcxAQAAMAAJ|title=Parliamentary History|year=1817|page=1293|publisher=Corbett}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=NxtDAAAAcAAJ|title=Journal of the House of Lords|year=1790|pages=391 to 738|publisher=H.M. Stationery Office 1790}}</ref> Biographer [[William Hague]] considers the unfinished abolition of the slave trade to be Pitt's greatest failure.<ref>{{Harvnb|Hague|2005|loc=p. 589}}</ref> The [[Slave Trade Act 1807]] was passed by the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|British Parliament]] on 25 March 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire.<ref>Clarkson, T., ''History of the Rise, Progress and Accomplishment of the Abolition of the African Slave Trade by the British Parliament'', London, 1808.</ref> Britain used its influence to coerce other countries to agree to [[Abolition of slavery timeline#1800–1829|treaties]] to end their slave trade and allow the Royal Navy to [[Blockade of Africa|seize their slave ships]].<ref>{{cite book|last1=Falola|first1=Toyin|last2=Warnock|first2=Amanda|title=Encyclopedia of the middle passage|date=2007|publisher=Greenwood Press|isbn=978-0-313-33480-1|pages=xxi, xxxiii–xxxiv|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=UjRYKePKrB8C&pg=PR21}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.pdavis.nl/Background.htm|title=William Loney RN – Background|website=www.pdavis.nl}}</ref> 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.

[[File:Thomas Clarkson by Carl Frederik von Breda.jpg|thumb|right|upright|[[Thomas Clarkson]] was the key speaker at the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society's (today known as [[Anti-Slavery International]]) first conference in London, 1840.]]

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 1833]] was passed. It purchased the slaves from their masters and paved the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire by 1838,<ref>Mary Reckord, "The Colonial Office and the Abolition of Slavery." ''Historical Journal'' 14, no. 4 (1971): 723–734. [http://www.jstor.org/stable/2638103 online].</ref> after which the first Anti-Slavery Society was wound up.

In 1839, the [[British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society]] was formed by [[Joseph Sturge]], 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]] to be pirates. The world's oldest international human rights organization, it continues today as [[Anti-Slavery International]].<ref>[http://arquivo.pt/wayback/20160513171717/http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=9462&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html Anti-Slavery International] UNESCO. Retrieved 11 October 2011.</ref> Thomas Clarkson was the key speaker at the [[World Anti-Slavery Convention]] it held in London in 1840.

The trade of slaves was made illegal throughout the British Empire by 1937, with Nigeria and Bahrain being the last British territories to abolish slavery.<ref name="Nwaubani"/><ref>{{Cite book |title=The abolition of the slave trade in southeastern Nigeria, 1885–1950 {{!}} WorldCat.org |oclc=256735611 |language=en}}</ref><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Northrup |first=David |date=September 2007 |title=A. E. Afigbo. The Abolition of the Slave Trade in Southeastern Nigeria. 1885–1950. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2006. Rochester Studies in African History and the Diaspora. xv + 210 pp. Maps. Appendixes. Bibliography. Index. $75.00. Cloth. |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/african-studies-review/article/abs/a-e-afigbo-the-abolition-of-the-slave-trade-in-southeastern-nigeria-18851950-rochester-university-of-rochester-press-2006-rochester-studies-in-african-history-and-the-diaspora-xv-210-pp-maps-appendixes-bibliography-index-7500-cloth/7279CB1095BDD89AD84EACAA5AAA42CC |journal=African Studies Review |language=en |volume=50 |issue=2 |pages=228–229 |doi=10.1353/arw.2007.0116 |issn=0002-0206|url-access=subscription }}</ref><ref name="Miers 2003 265–67"/>

==Moldavia and Wallachia==
{{Main|Slavery in Romania}}
In the principalities of [[Wallachia]] and [[Moldavia]], the government held slavery of the [[Romani people|Roma]] (often referred to as Gypsies) [[Slavery in Romania|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.<ref>Viorel Achim (2010). "Romanian Abolitionists on the Future of the Emancipated Gypsies", ''Transylvanian Review'', Vol. XIX, Supplement no. 4, 2010, p. 23.</ref>

==In the Americas==
[[File:Hugh Elliot.png|right|thumb|upright=0.75|[[Hugh Elliot]] was a noted abolitionist. Whilst Governor in the [[British West Indies]], he was reported to be the driving force behind the arrest, trial and execution of a wealthy white planter [[Arthur William Hodge|Arthur Hodge]] for the murder of a slave.]]

[[Bartolomé de las Casas]] was a 16th-century [[Spanish Empire|Spanish]] [[Dominican Order|Dominican]] priest, the first resident Bishop of [[Chiapas]] (Central America, today Mexico). As a settler in the [[New World]] he witnessed and opposed the poor treatment and virtual slavery of the [[Indigenous peoples of the Americas|Native Americans]] by the Spanish colonists, under the [[encomienda]] 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.<ref>{{cite news|url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3184668.stm |title=Columbus 'sparked a genocide' |date=12 October 2003|work=BBC News}}</ref><ref name="ReferenceA">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''.</ref>

His book, ''[[A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies]]'', 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 first European debate about the rights of colonized people.

The [[Spanish Empire|Hispanic]] model of identity and representation has been historically characterized by its multi-faceted nature, which transcends strict racial categorizations. Numerous figures exemplify this complexity, including [[Martín de Porres]], [[Beatriz de Palacios]], [[Conquistador|Spanish conquistador]] [[Juan Garrido]] that established the first commercial [[Wheat farmer|wheat farm]] in the Americas,<ref>{{Cite web |title=Review {{!}} February 2012: 1493 by Charles Mann '76 {{!}} Amherst College |url=https://www.amherst.edu/alumni/learn/amherstreads/pastfeatures/2012-features/1493/review |access-date=2024-10-28 |website=www.amherst.edu}}</ref> [[Estevanico]], [[Francisco Menéndez (black soldier)|Francisco Menendez]], Juan de Villanueva, [[Juan Valiente]], {{ill|Juan Beltrán de Magaña|es}}, Pedro Fulupo, Juan Bardales, Antonio Pérez, Gómez de León, Leonor Galiano, [[Teresa Chikaba|Teresa Juliana de Santo Domingo]] and Juan García. Additionally, [[Juan Latino]] stands out as a significant figure in this discourse; he is recognized as the first black African to attend a European university, ultimately achieving the status of professor.

Abolitionism in the Spanish empire is directly related to the difference in the treatment given to the citizens compared to the racial categories applied in the British or French Empire. While the Spanish empire considered all the individuals as citizens and applied a social stratification based mainly in several categories as fortune, origin and prestige, the British and French Empire were more based on the pigment of the skin and the origin of their citizens placing the lightest pigmented individuals with European origin in the top of the social stratification giving them the category of citizens while the darker pigmented individuals were not considered as citizens. The fact that the Spanish Empire gave their black populations the citizen consideration and offering them the possibility to grow socially and economically inside the empire as it is the case of Francisco Menendez in Spanish Florida where the British slaves escaped to, created a different context to abolitionism.

This highlights the notion that the [[Spanish Empire|Hispanic]] identity is not monolithic and is instead enriched by diverse contributions across racial and ethnic lines. Such examples serve to challenge simplistic perceptions of race within the historical narrative of Hispanic culture.

===Latin America===
[[File:Punishing negroes at Cathabouco, Rio de Janeiro.png|thumb|left|upright=0.95|Punishing slaves at Calabouço, in [[Rio de Janeiro]], {{Circa|1822}}. Brazil in 1888 was the last nation in the Americas to abolish slavery.]]
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 of independence|Spanish American wars for independence]] (1810–1826), slavery was abolished in most of Latin America, though it continued until 1873 in [[Afro-Puerto Ricans#Abolition of slavery|Puerto Rico]], 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]].<ref>Peter Hinks and John McKivigan, eds. ''Abolition and Antislavery: A Historical Encyclopedia of the American Mosaic'' (2015).</ref>

===Canada===
{{Main|Slavery in Canada}}
[[File:Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange by Benjamin West.png|thumb|upright|Chief Justice [[Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange]] – helped free [[Black Nova Scotian]] slaves.<ref>The portrait is now at the National Gallery of Scotland.  According to Thomas Akins, this portrait hung in the legislature of [[Province House (Nova Scotia)]] in 1847 (see ''History of Halifax'', p. 189).</ref>]]
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.<ref>{{cite book|url=https://archive.org/stream/jstor-2713627/2713627#page/n0/mode/2up|title=Slavery in the Maritime Provinces|publisher=The Journal of Negro History|date=July 1920}}</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/macgregor_james_drummond_6E.html|title=Biography – MacGregor James Drummond – Volume VI (1821–1835) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography|work=biographi.ca}}</ref> 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.<ref>Bridglal Pachai & Henry Bishop. ''Historic Black Nova Scotia'', 2006, p. 8.</ref><ref>John Grant. ''Black Refugees'', p. 31.</ref> 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.<ref>{{Cite DCB |last=Chard |first=Donald F. |title=Strange, Sir Thomas Andrew Lumisden |volume=7 |url=http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/strange_thomas_andrew_lumisden_7E.html}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://courts.ns.ca/History_of_Courts/history_noframes/milestones.htm|title=Celebrating the 250th Anniversary of the Supreme Court of Nova Scotia.|work=courts.ns.ca|access-date=1 February 2015|archive-date=12 January 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150112162616/http://courts.ns.ca/History_of_Courts/history_noframes/milestones.htm|url-status=dead}}</ref><ref>Barry Cahill, "Slavery and the Judges of Loyalist Nova Scotia", ''UNB Law Journal'', 43 (1994), pp. 73–135.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://novascotia.ca/archives/virtual/africanns/results.asp?Search=&SearchList1=3&Language=English|title=Nova Scotia Archives – African Nova Scotians|work=novascotia.ca|date=20 April 2020}}</ref> The [[Slave Trade Act 1807]] outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire and the [[Slavery Abolition Act 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 1833]].<ref>Robin Winks, ''Blacks in Canada: A History'' (1971).</ref>

===United States===
{{Main|Abolitionism in the United States|Slavery in the United States|Human trafficking in the United States}}
[[File:UncleTomsCabinCover.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|''[[Uncle Tom's Cabin]]'' inflamed public opinion in the North and Britain against the evils of slavery.]]
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".<ref name="McPherson1995"/> He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln or the Republican Party, which called for the gradual ending of slavery.<ref name="McPherson1995">{{cite book|author=James M. McPherson|author-link=James M. McPherson|title=The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP|url=https://archive.org/details/abolitionistlega0000mcph|url-access=registration|year=1995|publisher=Princeton University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/abolitionistlega0000mcph/page/4 4]|isbn=978-0-691-10039-5}}</ref>

[[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.<ref>{{cite book|author=Seymour Stanton Black|title=Benjamin Franklin: Genius of Kites, Flights, and Voting Rights}}</ref> 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.

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.<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Young people's encyclopedia of the United States|date=1993|publisher=Millbrook Press|author=Shapiro, William E.|isbn=1-56294-514-9|location=Brookfield, Conn.|oclc=30932823}}</ref> The formation of Christian denominations that heralded abolitionism as a moral issue occurred, such as the organization of [[Wesleyan Methodist Church (United States)|Wesleyan Methodist Connection]] by [[Orange Scott]] in 1843, and the formation of the [[Free Methodist Church]] by [[Benjamin Titus Roberts]] in 1860 (which is reflected in the name of Church).<ref name="SatterfieldCope2018">{{cite book |last1=Satterfield |first1=Ray |last2=Cope |first2=Daniel |title=A Heritage of Holiness: The Story of Allegheny Wesleyan Methodism |date=2018 |publisher=Allegheny Press |location=[[Salem, Ohio|Salem]]|pages=32–33}}</ref><ref name="AbzugMaizlish1986">{{cite book |last1=Abzug |first1=Robert H. |last2=Maizlish |first2=Stephen E. |title=New Perspectives on Race and Slavery in America: Essays in Honor of Kenneth M. Stampp |year=1986 |publisher=University Press of Kentucky |isbn=978-0-8131-1571-9 |page=1 |language=en}}</ref>
{{Abolition of slavery 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.<ref>[https://www.nps.gov/civilwar/soldiers-and-sailors-database.htm Introduction – Social Aspects of the Civil War] , National Park Service.</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite news
|first=Amos
|last=Dresser
|title=Amos Dresser's Own Narrative
|newspaper=[[The Liberator (newspaper)|The Liberator]]
|date=26 September 1835
|page=4
|via=newspapers.com
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/36563788/amos_dresser_on_his_conviction_and/}}</ref><ref>{{cite news
|title=Amos Dresser's Case
|newspaper=[[New York Post|Evening Post]]
|date=17 September 1835
|page=1
|url=https://www.newspapers.com/clip/34358436/amos_dresser_case_part_1/
|via=newspapers.com}}</ref> 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?"<ref>{{Cite book |last=Cunningham |first=Jerry |title=The Alphabet as Resistance: Laws Against Reading, Writing and Religion in the Slave South |publisher=Independently Published |year=2023 |isbn=9798390042335 |location=Portland, Oregon |pages=116–117}}</ref>

Abolitionism in the United States became a popular expression of [[moralism]],<ref name="Robins2004">{{cite book |last1=Robins |first1=R.G. |title=A. J. Tomlinson: Plainfolk Modernist |date=2004 |publisher=Oxford University Press |isbn=978-0-19-988317-2 |language=en}}</ref> operating in tandem with other social reform efforts, such as the [[temperance movement]],<ref name="Finkelman2006">{{cite book |last1=Finkelman |first1=Paul |author-link=Paul Finkelman|title=Encyclopedia of African American History, 1619–1895 |date=2006 |publisher=Oxford University Press, US |isbn=978-0-19-516777-1 |page=228 |language=en|quote=These and other African American temperance activists – including [[James W. C. Pennington]], [[Robert Purvis]], [[William J. Watkins Sr.|William Watkins]], [[William Whipper]], [[Samuel Ringgold Ward]], [[Sarah Parker Remond]], [[Frances Ellen Watkins Harper|Frances E. Watkins Harper]], [[William Wells Brown]], and [[Frederick Douglass]] – increasingly linked temperance to a larger battle against slavery, discrimination, and racism. In churches, conventions, and newspapers, these reformers promoted an absolute and immediate rejection of both alcohol and slavery. The connection between temperance and antislavery views remained strong throughout the 1840s and 1850s. The white abolitionists [[Arthur Tappan]] and [[Gerrit Smith]] helped lead the American Temperance Union, formed in 1833. Frederick Douglass, who took the teetotaler pledge while in Scotland in 1845, claimed, "I am a temperance man because I am an anti-slavery man." Activists argued that alcohol aided slavery by keeping enslaved men and women addled and by sapping the strength of free black communities.}}</ref><ref name="VenturelliFleckenstein2017">{{cite book |last1=Venturelli |first1=Peter J. |last2=Fleckenstein |first2=Annette E. |title=Drugs and Society |date=2017 |publisher=Jones & Bartlett Learning |isbn=978-1-284-11087-6 |page=252 |language=en|quote=Because the temperance movement was closely tied to the abolitionist movement as well as to the African American church, African Americans were preeminent promoters of temperance.}}</ref> 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]].<ref name="GHS">{{cite book|last=Smith|first= George H.|title= The Encyclopedia of Libertarianism|author-link=George H. Smith|editor-first=Ronald |editor-last=Hamowy |editor-link=Ronald Hamowy  |chapter= Abolitionism|chapter-url=https://sk.sagepub.com/reference/libertarianism/n1.xml |year=2008 |publisher= [[Sage Publications]], [[Cato Institute]] |location= Thousand Oaks, CA |doi=10.4135/9781412965811.n1 |isbn= 978-1412965804 |oclc=750831024 | lccn = 2008009151  |pages=1–2}}</ref> 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.<ref>[[Leon F. Litwack]] and [[August Meier]], eds., "John Mercer Langston: Principle and Politics", in ''Black Leaders of the 19th Century'', University of Illinois Press, 1991, pp. 106–111</ref> 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.<ref>{{cite book|author=James A. Morone|title=Hellfire Nation: The Politics of Sin in American History|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XnP-vMOiRREC&pg=PA154|year= 2004|publisher=Yale University Press|page=154|isbn=978-0-300-10517-9|author-link=James A. Morone}}</ref>

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, known as the [[Border states (American Civil War)|border states]] (Maryland, Missouri, Delaware, and Kentucky), chose to remain in the Union.

====Civil War and final emancipation====
[[File:Mustered out, harper's weekly, little rock, AR.jpg|right|thumb|United States [[Union (American Civil War)|Union]] black volunteer soldiers muster out to their first freedom at [[Little Rock]], [[Arkansas]], ''[[Harper's Weekly]]'', 1866]]
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&nbsp;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. Even before the Emancipation Proclamation, many former slaves served the federal army as teamsters, cooks, laundresses, and laborers, 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."<ref>{{Cite web|title=African Americans in The Civil War|url=https://www.historynet.com/african-americans-in-the-civil-war|access-date=2021-07-24|website=HistoryNet|language=en-US}}</ref> The Emancipation Proclamation, however, provided that people it declared to be free who were "of suitable condition, will be received into the armed service of the United States", and the [[United States Colored Troops]] were formed.

Plantation owners sometimes moved the Black people they claimed to own as far as possible out of reach of the Union army.<ref>Leon F. Litwack, ''Been in the Storm So Long: The Aftermath of Slavery'' (1979), pp. 30–36, 105–166.</ref> 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.<ref>Michael Vorenberg, ed., ''The Emancipation Proclamation: A Brief History with Documents'' (2010).</ref><ref>Peter Kolchin, "Reexamining Southern Emancipation in Comparative Perspective," ''Journal of Southern History'', 81#1 (February 2015), 7–40.</ref>

The border states were exempt from the Emancipation Proclamation, but they too (except Delaware) began their own emancipation programs.<ref name="History Channel on the emancipation Proclamation">{{cite web|last1=Foner|first1=Eric|last2=Garraty|first2=John A.|title=Emancipation Proclamation |date=29 October 2009 |url=http://www.history.com/topics/american-civil-war/emancipation-proclamation|publisher=History Channel|access-date=13 October 2014}}</ref> 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 [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|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 non-criminals 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.<ref>Vorenberg, ''Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment'' (2004).</ref>

=== Cuba and Brazil ===
Brazil and Cuba abolished slavery in the [[1880s]], with Cuba ending it in 1886 and Brazil in 1888. While actors like [[Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda]] in Brazil and {{ill|Adelina Charuteira|fr|Adelina, la cigarière|pt|Adelina, a charuteira}} in Cuba worked to end slavery, it was enslaved people themselves who worked daily to chip away at enslavers' local authority.<ref name=":3">{{Cite book |last=Chira |first=Adriana |title=Patchwork Freedoms: Law, Slavery, and Race beyond Cuba's Plantations |publisher=Cambridge: Cambrisge University Press |year=2022 |isbn=978-1108499545 |pages=4, 29}}</ref> These actions have at times been dismissed because they were small actions, but historian Adriana Chira argues that while "These freedoms were patchwork, often incomplete when measured against liberal – abolitionist yardsticks, precarious and even reversible" the action " ... were very concrete, and in the long term, they served to corrode the legal structures of plantation slavery locally."<ref name=":3" /> These actions included marronage and maroon societies that undermined the authority of enslavers in Brazil and legal challenges relying on the legal history of Spain in Cuba. These practices are regionally specific based on the legal customs of the region that enslaved people knew well from centuries of interactions with Iberian slave laws. A key avenue for these legal arguments was the prominence of "lo extrajudicial", a field of legal interactions adjacent to a lawsuit explained by historian Bianca Premo as consisting of out-of-court settlements, public revelations, and face-to-face encounters.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Premo |first=Bianca |title=The Uses of Justice in Global Perspective, 1600–1900 |publisher=Routledge |year=2019 |editor-last=Vermeesch |editor-first=Griet |location=New York |pages=183–197 |chapter=Lo extrajudicial: Between Court and Community in the Spanish Empire}}</ref><ref name=":3" />

== Women and abolitionism ==
The suffering of women in slavery was a common trope consistently used in abolitionists' rhetoric on both sides of the Atlantic. This was especially true as it relates to the image of suffering mothers and their children. Towards the end of the nineteenth century as slavery was coming to an end throughout the Atlantic world, images appearing in abolitionist publications routinely included images of families being torn apart and pregnant women being forced to do hard labor. As countries imposed "free womb laws" to soften the image of slavery and bring about gradual emancipation, for many it raised the question of the justice of women being used to carry out emancipation without benefiting from it themselves. Speeches given on the topic at the time focused on mothers and compared them to "all other mothers", using motherhood to level the subjects and objects of their speech.<ref name=":4">{{Cite journal |last=Cowling |first=Camillia |date=4 Oct 2011 |title='As a slave woman and as a mother': women and the abolition of slavery in Havana and Rio de Janeiro |journal=Social History |volume=36 |issue=3 |pages=294–311|doi=10.1080/03071022.2011.598728 }}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |date=1 January 1881 |title=A emancipação na tribuna sagrada' |work=O Abolicionista [The Abolitionist] |pages=7–8}}</ref>

Women were also often on the forefront of the abolition movement. Authors such as Harriet Beecher Stowe (United States) and [[Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda]] (Brazil) used their novels to call into question the humanity of slavery. Women such as the [[Grimké sisters|Grimké Sisters]], [[Abigail Adams]], [[Elizabeth Cady Stanton]] and others used their connections to political movements to advocate for the abolition of slavery. Enslaved women such as [[Phillis Wheatley]] and Harriet Tubman took matters into their own hands by challenging the institution of slavery through their writing and their actions.<ref>{{Cite web |last=McCutcheon |first=Roberta |title=Woman Abolitionists |url=https://www.gilderlehrman.org/history-resources/lesson-plan/woman-abolitionists |website=The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History}}</ref> In countries like Cuba and Brazil, where many enslaved women in urban areas were close to the governmental apparatuses needed to challenge slavery, they often used this proximity to pay for their and their families freedom and argued before colonial courts for their freedom with increasing success as the nineteenth century progressed.<ref name=":4" /> Enslaved women like Adelina Charuteira used their mobility as street vendors and as much access as they had to literacy to spread information about abolition between freedom-seeking people and local abolitionist networks.<ref>{{Cite web |last=Acerbi |first=Patricia |title=Stories / Adelina Charuteira |url=https://enslaved.org/fullStory/16-23-126827/ |access-date=May 17, 2024 |website=Enslaved: Peoples of Historical Slave Trade}}</ref>

==Notable abolitionists==
{{See also|List of 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.
{{div col|colwidth=30em}}
* [[John Quincy Adams]]
* [[Abigail Adams]]
* [[Lydia Maria Child]]
* [[Prudence Crandall]]
* [[Gertrudis Gómez de Avellaneda]]
* {{ill|Adelina Charuteira|fr|Adelina, la cigarière|pt|Adelina, a charuteira}}]
* [[Phillis Wheatley]]
* [[Angelina Grimké]]
* [[Sarah Grimké]]
* [[Jeremy Bentham]]
* [[Benjamin Lay]]
* [[James McCune Smith]]
* [[John Brown (abolitionist)|John Brown]]
* [[William Wells Brown]]
* [[Oren B. Cheney|Oren Burbank Cheney]]
* [[Thomas Clarkson]]
* [[Ellen and William Craft]]
* [[Frederick Douglass]]
* [[Sarah Mapps Douglass]]
* [[Henry Dundas, 1st Viscount Melville|Henry Dundas]]{{efn|Henry Dundas achieved the first victory in the House of Commons for the abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade in 1792.}}
* [[John Gregg Fee]]
* [[Henry Highland Garnet]]
* [[William Lloyd Garrison]]
* [[Elijah P. Lovejoy]]
* [[Abbé Grégoire]]
* [[Frances Ellen Watkins Harper]]
* [[Johns Hopkins]]
* [[Isabel, Princess Imperial of Brazil]]
* [[John Laurens]]
* [[Toussaint Louverture]]
* [[Solomon Northup]]
* [[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]]{{efn|Wilberforce was a leader of the abolitionism movement. He was an English politician who became a Member of Parliament. His involvement in the political realm lead to a change in ideology.}}
* [[John Woolman]]
{{div col end}}

==Abolitionist publications==
[[File:Gordon, scourged back, NPG, 1863.jpg|thumb|right|upright|Medical examination photo of [[Gordon (slave)|Gordon]] showing his scourged back, widely distributed by Abolitionists to expose the brutality of slavery. From at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful tool in the abolitionist movement.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-sojourner-truth-used-photography-help-end-slavery-180959952/|title = How Sojourner Truth Used Photography to Help End Slavery}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.whatitmeanstobeamerican.org/identities/why-abolitionist-frederick-douglass-loved-the-photograph|title = Why Abolitionist Frederick Douglass Loved the Photograph|date = 4 December 2015}}</ref>]]

===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.
* ''True Wesleyan'' (1843–present), founded by [[Orange Scott]] and Jotham Horton, this became the periodical of the [[Wesleyan Methodist Church (United States)|Wesleyan Methodist Church]] and had a focus on abolitionism<ref>{{cite web |title=The True Wesleyan |url=https://secure.wesleyan.org/342/the-true-wesleyan |publisher=[[Wesleyan Church]] |access-date=16 July 2024}}</ref>
* ''[[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]], 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 narrative]]s, 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.<ref>{{Cite web |date=2019-08-21 |title=Western News – Western rediscovers, revives long-lost abolitionist newspaper |url=https://news.westernu.ca/2019/08/western-rediscovers-revives-long-lost-abolitionist-newspaper/ |access-date=2022-10-28 |website=Western News |language=en-CA}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Linton |first=J.J.E. |title=Voice of the Bondsman |url=https://news.ourontario.ca/abolition/3611501/data |access-date=2022-10-28 |website=news.ourontario.ca |language=en}}</ref>

==National abolition dates==<!-- This section is linked from [[Slavery]] -->
{{Main|Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom}}
[[File:Abolicion de la esclavitud en Venezuela.jpg|thumb|upright=1.05|[[José Gregorio Monagas]] abolished slavery in [[Venezuela]] in 1854.]]

==International abolitionism==
The first international attempt to address the abolition of slavery was the [[World Anti-Slavery Convention]], organised by the [[British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society]] at Exeter Hall in London, on 12–23 June 1840. This was however an attempt made by NGOs, not by state and governments. In the late 19th century, the issue was addressed on an international level by states and governments. The [[Brussels Anti-Slavery Conference 1889–90]] addressed slavery on a semi-global level via the representatives of the colonial powers. It had concluded with the [[Brussels Conference Act of 1890]]. The 1890 Act was revised by the [[Convention of Saint-Germain-en-Laye 1919]].

During the 20th century the issue of slavery was addressed by the [[League of Nations]], which founded commissions to investigate and eradicate the institution of slavery and slave trade worldwide. The [[Temporary Slavery Commission]] (TSC), which was founded in 1924, conducted a global investigation and filed a report, and a convention was drawn up to hasten the total abolition of slavery and the slave trade.<ref>Miers, Suzanne (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. USA: AltaMira Press, pp. 100–121</ref>
The [[1926 Slavery Convention]], which was founded upon the investigation of the TSC of the [[League of Nations]], was a turning point in banning global slavery.

In 1932, the League formed the [[Committee of Experts on Slavery]] (CES) to review the result and enforcement of the 1926 Slavery Convention, which resulted in a new international investigation under the first permanent slavery committee, the [[Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery]] (ACE).<ref>Miers, S. (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press. p. 216</ref>
The ACE conducted a major international investigation on slavery and slave trade, inspecting all the colonial empires and the territories under their control between 1934 and 1939.

Article 4 of the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]], adopted in 1948 by the [[UN General Assembly]], explicitly banned slavery.
After [[World War II]], [[chattel slavery]] was formally abolished by law in almost the entire world, with the exception of the Arabian Peninsula and some parts of Africa. Chattel slavery was still legal [[slavery in Saudi Arabia|in Saudi Arabia]], [[slavery in Yemen|in Yemen]], in [[slavery in the Trucial States|the Trucial States]] and [[slavery in Oman|in Oman]], and slaves were supplied to the Arabian Peninsula via the [[Red Sea slave trade]].

When the League of Nations was succeeded by the [[United Nations]] (UN) after [[World War II]], [[Charles Wilton Wood Greenidge]] of the [[Anti-Slavery International]] worked for the UN to continue the investigation of global slavery conducted by the ACE of the League, and in February 1950 the [[Ad Hoc Committee on Slavery]] of the United Nations was inaugurated,<ref>Miers, Suzanne (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press, pp. 323–324</ref> which ultimately resulted in the introduction of the [[Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery]].<ref>Miers, S. (2003). Slavery in the Twentieth Century: The Evolution of a Global Problem. Storbritannien: AltaMira Press. p. 326</ref>

The [[United Nations 1956 Supplementary Convention on the Abolition of Slavery]] was convened to outlaw and ban slavery worldwide, including [[child slavery]].
In November 1962, [[Faisal of Saudi Arabia]] finally prohibited the owning of slaves in Saudi Arabia, followed by the abolition of [[slavery in Yemen]] in 1962, [[slavery in Dubai]] 1963 and [[slavery in Oman]] in 1970.

In December 1966, the UN General Assembly adopted the [[International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]], which was developed from the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]]. Article 4 of this international treaty bans slavery. The treaty came into force in March 1976 after it had been ratified by 35 nations.

As of November 2003, 104 nations had ratified the treaty. However, illegal forced labour involves millions of people in the 21st century, 43% for sexual exploitation and 32% for economic exploitation.<ref>{{cite book|editor=David P. Forsythe|title=Encyclopedia of human rights|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=1QbX90fmCVUC&pg=RA1-PA494|year=2009|publisher=Oxford University Press|pages=494–502|isbn=978-0195334029}}</ref>

In May 2004, the 22 members of the [[Arab League]] adopted the [[Arab Charter on Human Rights]], which incorporated the 1990 [[Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam]],<ref>{{cite web|title=Slavery in Islam|url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/islam/history/slavery_1.shtml|website=BBC.co.uk|publisher=BBC|access-date=6 October 2015}}</ref> which states:
{{Blockquote|text=Human beings are born free, and no one has the right to enslave, humiliate, oppress or exploit them, and there can be no subjugation but to God the Most-High. |source=Article 11, Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam, 1990}}

Currently, the Anti-trafficking Coordination Team Initiative (ACT Team Initiative), a coordinated effort between the [[United States Department of Justice|U.S. Departments of Justice]], [[United States Department of Homeland Security|Homeland Security]], and [[United States Department of Labor|Labor]], addresses human trafficking.<ref>{{cite news|last1=McKee|first1=Caroline|title=U.S. works to fight modern-day slavery|url=http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/features/2015/07/07/U-S-works-to-fight-modern-day-slavery.html|access-date=21 July 2015|date=7 July 2015}}</ref> The [[International Labour Organization]] estimates that there are 20.9 million victims of human trafficking globally, including 5.5 million children, of which 55% are women and girls.<ref>{{cite web|title=Human Trafficking|url=http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/overview|website=polarisproject.org|access-date=21 July 2015|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150721184701/http://www.polarisproject.org/human-trafficking/overview|archive-date=21 July 2015|url-status=dead}}</ref>

==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]], which effectively achieved abolition due to [[Haitian Revolution|slave revolt and revolution]] (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]]. One major cause of Haiti's enduring poverty is the [[Haiti Independence Debt]]<ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2022/05/20/world/americas/enslaved-haiti-debt-timeline.html | title=Haiti's Lost Billions | work=The New York Times | date=20 May 2022 | last1=Gamio | first1=Lazaro | last2=Méheut | first2=Constant | last3=Porter | first3=Catherine | last4=Gebrekidan | first4=Selam | last5=McCann | first5=Allison | last6=Apuzzo | first6=Matt }}</ref><ref>{{cite news | url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/05/20/world/americas/haiti-history-colonized-france.html | title=The Root of Haiti's Misery: Reparations to Enslavers | work=The New York Times | date=20 May 2022 | last1=Porter | first1=Catherine | last2=Méheut | first2=Constant | last3=Apuzzo | first3=Matt | last4=Gebrekidan | first4=Selam }}</ref> France forced on Haiti as "[[compensated emancipation]]" for emancipation in 1825 and which (including secondary debts and interests) was not paid off until 1947.<ref>{{cite journal | url=https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Europe/2010/0817/France-dismisses-petition-for-it-to-pay-17-billion-in-Haiti-reparations | title=France dismisses petition for it to pay $17 billion in Haiti reparations | journal=Christian Science Monitor }}</ref>
* [[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]], [[penal labor in the United States]]).

==Commemoration==
[[File:GambiaRoots019 (5418457850).jpg|thumb|Statue on [[Kunta Kinteh Island]], [[The Gambia]], commemorating the end of the [[Atlantic slave trade]]; the stick figure is a [[Kanaga mask]].]]
[[File:Estátua comemorativa dos 121 anos da abolição no Brasil em Botucatu em 2022.jpg|thumb|Commemorative statue of 121 years of abolition in [[Botucatu]], Brazil]]
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<ref>{{cite web |url= http://www.history.ac.uk/1807commemorated |title= 1807 Commemorated |publisher= Institute for the Public Understanding of the Past and the Institute of Historical Research |year= 2007 |access-date= 27 November 2010 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20101226235736/http://www.history.ac.uk/1807commemorated/ |archive-date= 26 December 2010 |url-status= dead }}</ref> 2008 marked the 201st anniversary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade in the British Empire.<ref>{{cite web |title= Slave Trade Act 1807 UK |url= http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-1807act.htm |publisher= anti-slaverysociety.addr.com |access-date= 16 April 2008 |archive-date= 13 May 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080513231620/http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-1807act.htm |url-status= dead }}</ref> It also marked the 175th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire.<ref>{{cite web |title= Slavery Abolition Act 1833 UK |url= http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-1833act.htm |publisher= anti-slaverysociety.addr.com |access-date= 16 April 2008 |archive-date= 29 April 2008 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20080429205055/http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-1833act.htm |url-status= dead }}</ref>

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.<ref>
{{cite web
 |url= http://www.abolition1807-2007.uottawa.ca
 |title= Les Chemins de la Liberté : Réflexions à l'occasion du bicentenaire de l'abolition de l'esclavage / Routes to Freedom : Reflections on the Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade
 |publisher= [[University of Ottawa]], Canada |access-date= 27 November 2010
 |url-status= dead
 |archive-url= https://web.archive.org/web/20110511100645/http://www.abolition1807-2007.uottawa.ca/
 |archive-date= 11 May 2011
}}
</ref>

==American abolitionist constitutionalism==
Abolitionist constitutionalism is a line of thinking which invokes the historical view of the [[Constitution of the United States]] as an abolitionist document. It calls for an appeal to constitutionalism and progressive constitutionalism.<ref name=":0">{{Cite journal |last=Roberts |first=Dorothy |date=2019 |title=Abolition Constitutionalism |url=https://harvardlawreview.org/2019/11/abolition-constitutionalism/ |journal=Harvard Law Review |volume=133 |issue=1}}</ref> 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.<!-- I wonder if this sentence can be re-phrased to be a bit more clear, since in the next paragraph it says the original American Constitution was proslavery. --><ref name=":1">{{Cite journal |last=Barnett |first=Randy E. |author-link=Randy Barnett|date=2011 |title=Whence Comes Section One? The Abolitionist Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment |journal=Journal of Legal Analysis |volume=3 |issue=1 |pages=165–263 |doi=10.1093/jla/3.1.165 |issn=1946-5319|doi-access=free }}</ref>

Radical abolitionist constitutionalism calls for the idea of dignity and the use of jurisprudence to address social inequalities.<ref name=":2">{{Cite book |last=Malkani |first=Bharat |url=https://www.taylorfrancis.com/books/9781317054436 |title=Slavery and the Death Penalty: A Study in Abolition |year=2018 |publisher=Routledge |isbn=978-1-315-60930-0 |edition=1st |location=New York, NY |doi=10.4324/9781315609300}}</ref>

Whereas the original U.S. Constitution was pro-slavery, the [[Reconstruction Amendments]] can be seen as a compromise for freedom, without allowing for the full 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.<ref name=":0" /> 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.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Fox |first=James |date=2021 |title=The Constitution of Black Abolitionism: Re-Framing the Second Founding |url= |journal=University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law |volume=23 |issue=2 |pages= |doi= |issn=}}</ref>

Section one of the [[Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|Fourteenth Amendment]] was used by many abolitionist lawyers and activists throughout the North <!-- Northern U.S. states? -->to advance the case against slavery.<ref name=":1" />

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.<ref name=":2" />

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.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":2" /> Historically, slavery abolitionists have had to use the public meaning of Constitutional terms in order<!-- delete or add to 'in order'? --> in their fight against slavery.<ref name=":1" /> Constitutional abolitionists are generally in favour of incremental changes that follow the principles of the Reconstructive Amendments.<ref name=":0" />

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.<ref name=":0" />

==Contemporary abolitionism==
{{See also|Contemporary slavery|Human trafficking}}
On 10 December 1948, the [[United Nations General Assembly|General Assembly]] of the United Nations adopted the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]]. Article 4 states:

<blockquote>No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.</blockquote>

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,<ref>[[Kevin Bales|Bales, Kevin]]. ''Ending Slavery: How We Free Today's Slaves''. University of California Press, 2007, {{ISBN|978-0-520-25470-1}}.</ref> as well as parts of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.<ref>[http://anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/slavery.htm "Does Slavery Still Exist?"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070406041116/http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/slavery.htm |date=6 April 2007 }} Anti-Slavery Society.</ref> Modern slavery keeps around 50 million people from exercising their freedom.<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.antislavery.org/what-we-do/how-we-work/|title=''How we work to end slavery''|publisher=Anti-Slavery International|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230319132359/https://www.antislavery.org/what-we-do/how-we-work/ |archive-date=19 March 2023}}</ref> 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]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6938032.stm |title=Mauritanian MPs pass slavery law |work=BBC News |date=9 August 2007}}</ref>

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]], the [[American Anti-Slavery Group]], [[International Justice Mission]], and [[Free the Slaves]] working to rid the world of slavery.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Epps|first=Henry|title=A Concise Chronicle History of the African-American People Experience in America|page= 146}}</ref>

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.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Barnes|first1=Kathrine Lynn|last2=Bendixsen|first2=Casper G.|date=2 January 2017|title='When This Breaks Down, It's Black Gold': Race and Gender in Agricultural Health and Safety|journal=Journal of Agromedicine|language=en|volume=22|issue=1|pages=56–65|doi=10.1080/1059924X.2016.1251368|pmid=27782783|s2cid=4251094|issn=1059-924X|pmc=10782830}}</ref>

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".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://2009-2017.state.gov/documents/organization/10492.pdf|title=''Public Law 106–386 – 28 October 2000, Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act of 2000''.}}</ref> 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."<ref>[http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/TVPA_2000.pdf US Department of Health and Human Services] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080910001330/http://www.acf.hhs.gov/trafficking/about/TVPA_2000.pdf |date=10 September 2008 }}, TVPA Fact Sheet.</ref>

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.<ref name="The Huffington Post">{{cite news|url=http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/6256640|title=Pope Francis And Other Religious Leaders Sign Declaration Against Modern Slavery|newspaper=The Huffington Post|date=2 December 2014|last1=Belardelli|first1=Giulia}}</ref>

[[File:13th_amendment_slave_labor_states.png|thumb|Map of states where slave [[Penal labor in the United States|prison labor]] is permitted in the state constitution as of November 2022<ref name="Radde">{{Cite web |last=Radde |first=Kaitlyn |date=November 17, 2022 |title=Louisiana voters rejected an antislavery ballot measure. The reasons are complicated |website=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/2022/11/17/1137398039/louisiana-voters-rejected-an-antislavery-ballot-measure-the-reason-is-complicate}}</ref>{{legend|#FF0000;|Permitted}}{{legend|#1AA7EE;|Forbidden}}{{legend|#E8E8E8;|No mention in constitution}}]]

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."<ref>{{cite web |url=https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2008/105376.htm |title=US Department of State Trafficking in Persons Report 2008, Introduction |date=10 June 2008 |publisher=state.gov}}</ref>

The 13th amendment abolished slavery in the United States "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted".<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/|title=U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment &#124; Resources &#124; Constitution Annotated &#124; Congress.gov &#124; Library of Congress}}</ref> In 2018, Colorado became the first state to remove similar language in its state constitution by a [[Legislative referral|legislatively referred]] [[Referendum|ballot referendum]].<ref>{{Cite web |date=2022-10-20 |title=5 states to decide on closing slavery loopholes in voter referendums |url=https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/five-states-to-decide-on-closing-slavery-loopholes-in-voter-referendums |access-date=2023-10-19 |website=PBS NewsHour |language=en-us}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |last=Chappell |first=Bill |date=November 7, 2018 |title=Colorado Votes To Abolish Slavery, 2 Years After Similar Amendment Failed |website=[[NPR]] |url=https://www.npr.org/2018/11/07/665295736/colorado-votes-to-abolish-slavery-2-years-after-similar-amendment-failed}}</ref><ref name="Radde"/> Other states have followed suit, but implementation has relied on court rulings.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Rios |first=Edwin |date=2022-12-24 |title=Movement grows to abolish US prison labor system that treats workers as 'less than human' |language=en-GB |work=The Guardian |url=https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/dec/24/us-prison-labor-workers-slavery-13th-amendment-constitution |access-date=2023-10-19 |issn=0261-3077}}</ref>

==See also==
* [[Abolitionism (disambiguation)]], other movements to address perceived social ills, such as the [[Prison abolition movement]]
* [[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
* {{Lang|es|italic=no|[[Monumento a la abolición de la esclavitud]]}}, in Puerto Rico
* [[Representation of slavery in European art]]
* [[Slavery in Britain]]
* [[Slavery in the British and French Caribbean]]
* [[Slavery in the United States]]
* [[Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom]]

===Organisations and commemorations===
* [[International Day for the Abolition of Slavery]]
* [[International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and its Abolition]]

==References and notes==
===Footnotes===
{{notelist}}

===Citations===
{{Reflist}}

==Sources==
* {{cite book|last=Hague|first=William|author-link=William Hague|title=William Pitt the Younger|year=2005 |isbn=978-0-00-714720-5|publisher=HarperPerennial}}

==Further reading==
{{Refbegin|30em}}
* Bader-Zaar, Birgitta, [http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:nbn:de:0159-2011120524 "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. [http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/wiki/a_Abolitionism.html "Abolitionism"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160806120434/http://www.uni-bielefeld.de/cias/wiki/a_Abolitionism.html |date=6 August 2016 }} (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) {{ISBN|0-313-33142-1}}; 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.&nbsp;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. "[https://www.academia.edu/12743901/Free-Trade_Ideology_and_Transatlantic_Abolitionism_A_Historiography_Journal_of_the_History_of_Economic_Thought_ 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. {{JSTOR|2638103}}
* 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. {{doi|10.1111/hic3.12480}}
{{Refend}}

==External links==
{{Wikiquote}}
{{Collier's poster|Abolitionists}}
* [https://www.abolitionseminar.org/lesson-plans/ The Abolitionist Seminar], summaries, lesson plans, documents and illustrations for schools; focus on United States
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051227154013/http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/index.htm American Abolitionism],  summaries and documents; focus on United States
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20110515192003/http://www.yale.edu/glc/events/cbss/Miers.pdf Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery]
* ''[https://web.archive.org/web/19990202043039/http://www.altonweb.com/history/lovejoy/ Elijah Parish Lovejoy: A Martyr on the Altar of American Liberty]''
* [http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/ Brycchan Carey's pages listing British abolitionists]
* [http://www.blackhistory4schools.com/slavetrade/ Teaching resources about Slavery and Abolition] on blackhistory4schools.com
* [http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/blackhistory/rights/abolition.htm "The Abolition of the Slave Trade"], The National Archives (UK)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20131030051521/https://www.sheffield.gov.uk/libraries/archives-and-local-studies/research-guides/slavery-and-abolition.html Towards Liberty: Slavery, the Slave Trade, Abolition and Emancipation]. Produced by Sheffield City Council's Libraries and Archives (UK)
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070703222035/http://www.realnews-online.com/rn0112.htm The slavery debate]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20060618001421/http://www.kshs.org/places/johnbrown/index.htm John Brown Museum]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20051029170656/http://americanabolitionist.liberalarts.iupui.edu/ American Abolitionism]
* [http://www.AmericanAbolitionists.com American Abolitionists], comprehensive list of abolitionists and anti-slavery activists and organizations in the United States
* [http://anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-history.htm History of the British abolitionist movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070406041043/http://www.anti-slaverysociety.addr.com/huk-history.htm |date=6 April 2007 }} by Right Honourable Lord Archer of Sandwell
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20070930185612/http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=476 "Slavery – The emancipation movement in Britain"], lecture by James Walvin at [[Gresham College]], 5 March 2007 (available for video and audio download)
* [https://sn2.scholastic.com/issues/2019-20/030220.html Escape to Freedom] at Scholastic.com
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080423222002/http://www.virtualmuseum.ca/blackhistory/ "Black Canada and the Journey to Freedom"]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20101226235736/http://www.history.ac.uk/1807commemorated/ 1807 Commemorated]
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20080828221052/http://www.theactiongroup.org/index.htm The Action Group]
* [https://2001-2009.state.gov/g/tip/rls/tiprpt/2008/ Trafficking in Persons Report 2008], US Department of State
* [https://freedomcenter.org/ National Underground Railroad Freedom Center] in Cincinnati, Ohio
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20200512211654/http://theliberatorfiles.com/ 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.
* [http://research.udmercy.edu/find/special_collections/digital/baa/ 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.
* [http://histclo.com/Act/work/slave/ast/abol.html Abolitionist movement] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110407104924/http://histclo.com/act/work/slave/ast/abol.html |date=7 April 2011 }}
* Raymond James Krohn, [http://uscivilliberties.org/themes/2959-abolitionist-movement.html "Abolitionist Movement"], Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in the United States
* [http://www.parliament.uk/slavetrade Largest Surviving Anti Slave Trade Petition] from Manchester, UK 1806
* [https://web.archive.org/web/20120103172434/http://www.ltscotland.org.uk/abolition/ "Scotland and the Abolition of the Slave Trade"] – schools resource
* [https://www.brown.edu/Research/Slavery_Justice/documents/SlaveryAndJustice.pdf Report of the Brown University Steering Committee on Slavery and Justice]

{{Underground Railroad}}
{{Slave narrative}}
{{Western culture}}
{{Authority control}}

[[Category:Abolitionism| ]]
[[Category:Political movements]]
[[Category:African diaspora history]]