Editing Slavery (section)

== Abolitionism ==
{{Main|Abolitionism}}
{{For timeline|Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom}}
{{Campaignbox Suppression of the Slave Trade}}
{{Anti-Slavery Society Convention 1840|align=right|size=300px|thumb|caption=A painting of the 1840 [[World Anti-Slavery Convention]] at [[Exeter Hall]] in London.<ref name="npg">{{Cite news |title=The Anti-Slavery Society Convention, 1840 – National Portrait Gallery |url=https://www.npg.org.uk/collections/search/portrait/mw00028/The-Anti-Slavery-Society-Convention-1840 |access-date=February 11, 2021 |publisher=[[NPR]] |author-link=Benjamin Robert Haydon |first=Benjamin Robert |last=Haydon |year=1841 |location=London}} Donated by [[Anti-Slavery International|British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society]] in 1880</ref>}}

Slavery has existed, in one form or another, throughout recorded human history&nbsp;– as have, in various periods, movements to free large or distinct groups of slaves.{{Citation needed|date=March 2024}}

=== In antiquity ===
[[File:Wang Mang.jpg|thumb|upright|Chinese Emperor [[Wang Mang]] abolished slavery in 17 CE but the ban was overturned after his assassination.]]
Emperor [[Ashoka]], who ruled the [[Maurya Empire]] in the [[Indian subcontinent]] from 269 to 232 BCE, abolished the slave trade but not slavery.<ref>{{cite web |last=Clarence-Smith |first=William |url=http://www2.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/Research/GEHN/GEHNPDF/Conf10_ClarenceSmith.pdf |title=Religions and the abolition of slavery – a comparative approach |access-date=August 28, 2013 |archive-date=March 29, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170329055714/http://www.lse.ac.uk/economicHistory/Research/GEHN/GEHNPDF/Conf10_ClarenceSmith.pdf}}</ref> The [[Qin dynasty]], which ruled China from 221 to 206 BC, abolished slavery and discouraged serfdom. However, many of its laws were overturned when the dynasty was overthrown.<ref>{{cite book |publisher=[[Cengage Learning]] |isbn=978-0-618-99238-6 |title=The Earth and Its Peoples: A Global History |year=2009 |page=165}}</ref> Slavery was again abolished by [[Wang Mang]] in China in 17 CE but was reinstituted after his assassination.<ref name="Greenwood Publishing Group">{{cite book |publisher=[[Greenwood Publishing Group]] |isbn=978-0-313-33143-5 |title=Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition |year=2011 |page=155}}</ref>

=== Americas ===
The [[Spanish colonization of the Americas]] sparked a discussion about the right to enslave Native Americans. A prominent critic of [[slavery in the Spanish New World colonies]] was the Spanish missionary and bishop, [[Bartolomé de las Casas]], who was the first to document the European maltreatment of and cruelty towards American natives.<ref>{{cite encyclopedia |last=Dussel |first=Enrique |author-link=Enrique Dussel |title=Bartolomé de Las Casas |encyclopedia=Encyclopedia Britannica |date=January 4, 2021 |url=https://www.britannica.com/biography/Bartolome-de-Las-Casas |access-date=February 13, 2021}}</ref>

In the United States, all of the northern states had abolished slavery by 1804, with New Jersey being the last to act.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Green|first=Howard L.|url={{google books |plainurl=y |id=plHxL2XIKloC|page=84}}|title=Words that Make New Jersey History: A Primary Source Reader|date=1995|publisher=Rutgers University Press|isbn=978-0-8135-2113-8|page=84|quote=1804: With passage of the law excerpted here, New Jersey became the last state in the North to abolish slavery.}}</ref> Abolitionist pressure produced a series of small steps towards emancipation. After the [[Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves]] went into effect on January 1, 1808, the importation of slaves into the United States was prohibited,<ref>{{Cite news |last=Foner |first=Eric |date=December 30, 2007 |title=Opinion {{!}} Forgotten Step Toward Freedom (Published 2007) |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/opinion/30foner.html |access-date=February 6, 2021 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref> but not the [[Slavery in the United States#Internal slave trade|internal slave trade]], nor involvement in the international slave trade externally. Legal slavery persisted outside the northern states; most of those slaves already in the U.S. were [[Emancipation Proclamation|legally emancipated]] only in 1863. Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the [[Underground Railroad]]. Violent clashes between anti-slavery and pro-slavery Americans included [[Bleeding Kansas]], a series of political and armed disputes in 1854–1858 as to whether Kansas would join the United States as a [[Slave and free states|slave or free state]]. By 1860, the total number of slaves reached almost four million, and the [[American Civil War]], beginning in 1861, led to the end of slavery in the United States.<ref name=SocialAspects /> In 1863, Lincoln issued the [[Emancipation Proclamation]], which freed slaves held in the Confederate States; the [[Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution|13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution]] prohibited most forms of slavery throughout the country.

Many of the freed slaves became sharecroppers and indentured servants. In this manner, some became tied to the very parcel of land into which they had been born a slave having little freedom or economic opportunity because of [[Jim Crow laws]] which perpetuated discrimination, limited education, promoted persecution without due process and resulted in continued poverty. Fear of reprisals such as unjust incarcerations and lynchings deterred upward mobility further.
[[File:Olaudah Equiano, frontpiece from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano.png|thumb|upright|[[Olaudah Equiano]]. His autobiography, published in 1789, helped in the creation of the Slave Trade Act 1807 which ended the African slave trade for Britain and its colonies.]]
[[File:Joseph Jenkins Roberts.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Joseph Jenkins Roberts]], born in Virginia, was the first president of [[Liberia]], which was founded in 1822 for freed American slaves.]]

=== Europe ===
France abolished slavery in 1794 during the Revolution,<ref>{{cite book |editor1-last=Dorigny |editor1-first=Marcel |title=The Abolitions of Slavery: From L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848 |date=2003 |publisher=UNESCO Publishing |location=Paris |page=vi |isbn=978-1-57181-432-6 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cbNNFxiAMeAC |access-date=August 16, 2022 |via=[[Google Books]]}}</ref> but it was restored in 1802 under Napoleon.<ref name="dwyer">{{cite journal |last=Dwyer |first=Philip |title=Remembering and Forgetting in Contemporary France: Napoleon, Slavery, and the French History Wars |journal=French Politics, Culture & Society |year=2008 |volume=26 |issue=3 |pages=110–122 |publisher=[[Berghahn Books]] |doi=10.3167/fpcs.2008.260306|jstor=42843569}}</ref> It has been asserted that, before the Revolution, slavery was illegal in metropolitan France (as opposed to its colonies),<ref name="peabody">{{cite journal |last=Peabody |first=Sue |year=1984 |title=Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France |journal=The Historian |volume=56 |issue=3 |pages=501–510 |publisher=[[Taylor & Francis]] |doi=10.1111/j.1540-6563.1994.tb01322.x |jstor=24448702}}</ref> but this has been refuted.<ref name="chatman">{{cite journal |last=Chatman |first=Samuel L. |year=2000 |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 |issue=3 |pages=144–153 |publisher=[[University of Chicago Press]] on behalf of the Association for the Study of African American Life and History |doi=10.2307/2649071 |jstor=2649071 |s2cid=141017958}}</ref>

One of the most significant milestones in the campaign to abolish slavery throughout the world occurred in England in 1772, with British Judge [[William Murray, 1st Earl of Mansfield|Lord Mansfield]], whose opinion in [[Somersett's Case]] was widely taken to have held that slavery was illegal in England. This judgement also laid down the principle that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions could not be enforced in England.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Wise |first=Steven M. |url={{google books|plainurl=y|id=A76TPwAACAAJ}} |title=Though the Heavens May Fall: The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery |date=2006 |publisher=Pimlico |isbn=978-1-84413-430-4}}</ref> The last person to be deemed a slave in a British court was [[Bell (Belinda)]] who was transported to the Americas in 1772 as a "slave for life" by a [[Perth, Scotland|Perth]] court.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Rothschild |first=Emma |title=The inner life of empires: an eighteenth-century history |date=2013 |publisher=Princeton Univ. Press |isbn=978-0-691-15612-5 |edition=1. paperback pr |location=Princeton, NJ}}</ref>

[[Sons of Africa]] was a late 18th-century British group that campaigned to end slavery. Its members were Africans in London, freed slaves who included [[Ottobah Cugoano]], [[Olaudah Equiano]] and other leading members of London's black community. It was closely connected to the [[Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade]], a non-denominational group founded in 1787, whose members included [[Thomas Clarkson]]. British Member of Parliament [[William Wilberforce]] led the anti-slavery movement in the United Kingdom, although the groundwork was an anti-slavery essay by Clarkson. Wilberforce was urged by his close friend, Prime Minister [[William Pitt the Younger]], to make the issue his own and was also given support by reformed Evangelical [[John Newton]]. The [[Slave Trade Act 1807|Slave Trade Act]] was passed by the British Parliament on March 25, 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the [[British Empire]],<ref>{{cite web |url=http://royalnavy.mod.uk/history/battles/royal-navy-and-the-slave-trade/ |archive-url=http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20090128205546/royalnavy.mod.uk/history/battles/royal-navy-and-the-slave-trade/ |archive-date=January 28, 2009 |title=Royal Navy and the Slave Trade : Battles: History: Royal Navy |access-date=September 29, 2015}}</ref> Wilberforce also campaigned for abolition of slavery in the British Empire, which he lived to see in the [[Slavery Abolition Act 1833]].

After the 1807 act abolishing the slave trade was passed, these campaigners switched to [[Blockade of Africa|encouraging other countries]] to follow suit, notably France and the British colonies. Between 1808 and 1860, the British [[West Africa Squadron]] seized approximately 1,600 slave ships and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/devon/content/articles/2007/03/20/abolition_navy_feature.shtml |title=Devon – Abolition – Sailing against slavery |publisher=[[BBC]] |date=February 28, 2007 |access-date=September 29, 2015}}</ref> Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against "the usurping King of Lagos", deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.pdavis.nl/Background.htm#WAS |title=The West African Squadron and slave trade |publisher=Pdavis.nl |access-date=August 29, 2010}}</ref>

=== Worldwide ===
In 1839, the world's oldest international human rights organization, [[Anti-Slavery International]], was formed in Britain by [[Joseph Sturge]], which campaigned to outlaw slavery in other countries.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://portal.unesco.org/education/en/ev.php-URL_ID=9462&URL_DO=DO_PRINTPAGE&URL_SECTION=201.html |title=Anti-Slavery International: UNESCO Education |publisher=[[UNESCO]] |date=November 13, 2002 |access-date=September 29, 2015}}</ref> There were celebrations in 2007 to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the abolition of the slave trade in the United Kingdom through the work of the British [[Anti-Slavery International|Anti-Slavery Society]].

In the 1860s, [[David Livingstone]]'s reports of atrocities within the Arab slave trade in Africa stirred up the interest of the British public, reviving the flagging abolitionist movement. The Royal Navy throughout the 1870s attempted to suppress "this abominable Eastern trade", at [[Zanzibar]] in particular. In 1905, the French abolished indigenous slavery in most of [[French West Africa]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/16peterson.pdf |title=Home Page &#124; Agrarian Studies |publisher=[[Yale University]] |access-date=September 30, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130502161407/http://www.yale.edu/agrarianstudies/colloqpapers/16peterson.pdf |archive-date=May 2, 2013}}</ref>

On December 10, 1948, the [[United Nations General Assembly]] adopted the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]], which declared freedom from slavery is an internationally recognized [[human rights|human right]]. Article 4 of the [[Universal Declaration of Human Rights]] states:

{{blockquote|No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/slavery/modern/law.shtml |title=The law against slavery |publisher=[[BBC]] |access-date=October 5, 2008}}</ref>}}

In 2014, for the first time in history, major leaders of many religions, [[Buddhism|Buddhist]], [[Hinduism|Hindu]], [[Christianity|Christian]], [[Judaism|Jewish]], and [[Islam|Muslim]]<!--alphabetical--> 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 |last1=Belardelli |first1=Giulia |date=December 2, 2014 |title=Pope Francis And Other Religious Leaders Sign Declaration Against Modern Slavery |url=http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/pope-francis-and-other-re_n_6256640 |newspaper=[[HuffPost]]}}</ref> The signatories were: [[Pope Francis]], [[Mata Amritanandamayi|Mātā Amṛtānandamayī]], Bhikkhuni Thich Nu [[Chân Không]] (representing Zen Master [[Thích Nhất Hạnh]]), Datuk K Sri Dhammaratana, Chief High Priest of Malaysia, Rabbi [[Abraham Skorka]], Rabbi David Rosen, Abbas Abdalla Abbas Soliman, Undersecretary of State of Al Azhar Alsharif (representing Mohamed Ahmed El-Tayeb, Grand Imam of Al-Azhar), Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Taqi al-Modarresi, Sheikh Naziyah Razzaq Jaafar, Special advisor of Grand Ayatollah (representing Grand Ayatollah Sheikh Basheer Hussain al Najafi), Sheikh Omar Abboud, Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury, and Metropolitan Emmanuel of France (representing Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew.)<ref name="The Huffington Post"/>

Groups such as the [[American Anti-Slavery Group]], [[Anti-Slavery International]], [[Free the Slaves]], the Anti-Slavery Society, and the Norwegian Anti-Slavery Society continue to campaign to eliminate slavery.{{Citation needed|date=May 2022}}

[[UNESCO]] has been working to break the silence surrounding the memory of slavery since 1994, through [[The Slave Route Project]].<ref>{{Cite web |title=Routes of Enslaved Peoples |url=https://www.unesco.org/en/routes-enslaved-peoples?hub=70211 |access-date=July 13, 2023 |publisher=UNESCO}}</ref>