Editing Slavery (section)

=== 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.]]