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Abolitionism

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate slaves around the world.

For other uses, see Abolitionism (disambiguation).

The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. 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 actually a former French colony, Haiti, as a result of the Revolution of 1791–1804. The British abolitionist movement began in the late 18th century, and the 1772 Somersett case established that slavery did not exist in English law. In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal throughout the British Empire, though existing slaves in British colonies were not liberated. Vermont was the first state in America to abolish slavery in 1777, followed by the rest of the northern United States. By 1808 the United States outlawed the international slave trade and importation of slaves but did not ban slavery outright until 1865.


In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish the enslavement of the Roma in Wallachia and Moldavia between 1843 and 1855, and to emancipate the serfs in Russia in 1861. The United States would pass the 13th Amendment in December 1865 after having just fought a bloody Civil War, ending slavery "except as a punishment for crime". In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to 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.


After centuries of struggle, slavery was eventually declared illegal at the global level in 1948 under the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mauritania was the last country to officially abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981.[1] Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in almost all countries, as well as being against international law, but human trafficking for labour and for sexual bondage continues to affect tens of millions of adults and children.

France[edit]

Early abolition in metropolitan France[edit]

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.[2][3]


In 1315, Louis X, king of France, published a decree proclaiming that "France signifies freedom" and that any slave setting foot on French soil should be freed. This prompted subsequent governments to circumscribe slavery in the overseas colonies.[4]


Some cases of African slaves freed by setting foot on French soil were recorded such as the example of a Norman slave merchant who tried to sell slaves in Bordeaux 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.[5][6] Born into slavery in Saint Domingue, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas became free when his father brought him to France in 1776.

The Emancipator (1819–20): founded in 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.

Jonesboro, Tennessee

(1821–39): an abolitionist newspaper published and edited by Benjamin Lundy. In 1829 it employed William Lloyd Garrison, who would go on to create The Liberator.

Genius of Universal Emancipation

(1831–65): a weekly newspaper founded by William Lloyd Garrison.

The Liberator

(1833–50): different from The Emancipator above. Published in New York and later Boston.

The Emancipator

(1836–38): an anti-slavery magazine for children produced by the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).

The Slave's Friend

(1836–37): newspaper published in Ohio for and owned by the Anti-Slavery Society.

The Philanthropist

(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.

The Liberty Bell, by Friends of Freedom

(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.

National Anti-Slavery Standard

(1845): a pamphlet by Lysander Spooner advocating the view that the U.S. Constitution prohibited slavery.

The Unconstitutionality of Slavery

(1845–1861): a newspaper published in New Lisbon and Salem, Columbiana County, Ohio, and distributed locally and across the mid-west, primarily to Quakers.

The Anti-Slavery Bugle

(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).

The National Era

(1847–51): an anti-slavery American newspaper published by the escaped slave, author, and abolitionist, Frederick Douglass.

North Star

which effectively achieved abolition due to slave revolt (1792–1804), struggled to overcome racial or anti-revolutionary prejudice in the international financial and diplomatic scene, and exchanged unequal prosperity for relative poverty.

Haiti

in 1861 failed to allay rural and industrial unrest, which played a part in fomenting the revolutions of 1917.

Russia's emancipation of its serfs

The United States achieved freedom for its slaves in 1865 with the ratification of the on 6 December of that year but faced ongoing slavery-associated racial issues (Jim Crow system, civil-rights struggles, penal labor in the United States).

13th Amendment

deported most of its blackbirded Pacific Islander labour-force in 1901–1906.

Queensland

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 compensation/redemption, land-redistribution and citizenship can prove intractable. For example:

American abolitionist constitutionalism[edit]

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.[84] 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.[85]


Radical abolitionist constitutionalism calls for the idea of dignity and the use of jurisprudence to address social inequalities.[86]


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.[84] 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 can convey an abolitionist vision of the freedom advocated for by black people in the public sphere beyond emancipation.[87]


Section one of the Fourteenth Amendment was used by many abolitionist lawyers and activists throughout the North to advance the case against slavery.[85]


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.[86]


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, the wage system, and policing. This is tied to a belief that white supremacy is woven into the fabric of legal state institutions.[84]


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.[86] Historically, slavery abolitionists have had to use the public meaning of Constitutional terms in order in their fight against slavery.[85] Constitutional abolitionists are generally in favour of incremental changes that follow the principles of the Reconstructive Amendments.[84]


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.[84]

other movements to address perceived social ills, such as the Prison abolition movement

Abolitionism (disambiguation)

various organisations referred to by this name

Anti-Slavery Society (disambiguation)

Compensated emancipation

History of slavery

List of abolitionist forerunners

a lobby group representing slave owners

London Society of West India Planters and Merchants

, in Puerto Rico

Monumento a la abolición de la esclavitud

Representation of slavery in European art

Slavery in the British and French Caribbean

Timeline of abolition of slavery and serfdom

(2005). William Pitt the Younger. HarperPerennial. ISBN 978-0-00-714720-5.

Hague, William

summaries, lesson plans, documents and illustrations for schools; focus on United States

The Abolitionist Seminar

summaries and documents; focus on United States

American Abolitionism

Twentieth Century Solutions of the Abolition of Slavery

Elijah Parish Lovejoy: A Martyr on the Altar of American Liberty

Brycchan Carey's pages listing British abolitionists

on blackhistory4schools.com

Teaching resources about Slavery and Abolition

The National Archives (UK)

"The Abolition of the Slave Trade"

. Produced by Sheffield City Council's Libraries and Archives (UK)

Towards Liberty: Slavery, the Slave Trade, Abolition and Emancipation

The slavery debate

John Brown Museum

American Abolitionism

comprehensive list of abolitionists and anti-slavery activists and organizations in the United States

American Abolitionists

Archived 6 April 2007 at the Wayback Machine by Right Honourable Lord Archer of Sandwell

History of the British abolitionist movement

lecture by James Walvin at Gresham College, 5 March 2007 (available for video and audio download)

"Slavery – The emancipation movement in Britain"

at Scholastic.com

Escape to Freedom

"Black Canada and the Journey to Freedom"

1807 Commemorated

The Action Group

US Department of State

Trafficking in Persons Report 2008

in Cincinnati, Ohio

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center

Horace Seldon's collection and summary of research of William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator original copies at the Boston Public Library, Boston, Massachusetts.

The Liberator Files

a collection of more than 800 speeches by antebellum blacks and approximately 1,000 editorials from the period.

University of Detroit Mercy Black Abolitionist Archive

Archived 7 April 2011 at the Wayback Machine

Abolitionist movement

Raymond James Krohn, , Encyclopedia of Civil Liberties in the United States

"Abolitionist Movement"