Abolition of slavery

The first trace of a abolition of slavery is the series of laws enacted in 958 by Gwangjong, the fourth king of the kingdom of Koryŏ (current Korea), but the invasions which followed swept this reform. In Europe at the same time, the markets with the slaves are gradually prohibited, under the influence of the Church (see holy Bathilde).

As from the 8th century the Servage gradually replaced the Esclavage in Western Europe. Serfdom as for him had almost disappeared during its abolition under the French revolution.

The Empire of Mali would have tried to prohibit slavery at the 13th century, under Soundiata Keïta. But that was a failure.

The idea of slavery reconsiders the front of the scene with the discovery of the New World by Spain, because in Spain, the practice of slavery had never ceased there because the country remained partly under Moslem domination until 1492, Christianity thus could not gradually bring the abolition of slavery as in the rest of Europe. Charles Quint starts by authorizing it, then the interdict in 1526 in all its empire on recommendation of sound Conseil of the Indies . Little time afterwards, the June 2nd 1537, the pope Paul III' the interdict in its turn in vigorous terms in its letter Veritas ipsa, followed the May 29th of the official bubble Sublimis Deus. The Controverse of Valladolid will follow thirteen years later. That being, the New World is far from Rome, the news which arrive from there are only those that witnesses can or want give some, and it is not in addition not possible right without force to make it apply : the bubble of the pope will be superbly ignored, in spite of actions of Bartolomé de Las Put and of part of the bishop S.

In the European colonies, slavery resulting from the triangular Commerce will be however gradually prohibited, but only during the 19th century. Thereafter, the fight against slavery will be one of the arguments of the movements colonialists in Africa and will lead to the foundation of the American colony of the Liberia.

Revolts of slaves

The rebellion of the Zandj is a revolt of black slaves against the capacity of the Abbasside S between 869 and 883, in the south of the Iraq.

The Haitian Révolution took place of 1791 with 1804. The free blacks and the slaves of the French colony of Saint-Domingue rebelled under the direction of François Dominique All Saints' day Louverture then of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, both former émancipés slaves. This first anti-slavery revolution of the American continent gave rise to the first black republic, the Republic of Haiti, in 1804. Haiti then becomes the second State independent of the continent after the the United States.

Marronnage

Before abolition, in addition to the revolt, the Marronnage was another form of dispute of slavery by the slave. The Chestnuts fled of the property of their Master and left to take refuge in inaccessible places where they gathered sometimes to form organized companies capable of a civil defense against the hunters sent to their cases.

Free trade movements and associations

In the United States

As of 1770, the companies Quakers of New England are prohibited very practical slave. Slavery is abolished in 1777 in the Vermont.

However, when the American Constitution between in force the March 4th 1789, it devotes the Esclavage practiced in a great number of States, in particular of the South. One of its provisions allows to the owners slaves to calculate the number of votes starting from the equation: 1 black = 3/5 of a white!

In the years 1820, the Female Anti-slavery Society denounces the Esclavage.

In France

In France, the article “treats negros” of the Encyclopédie written in 1776 by Louis de Jaucourt condemns slavery and the draft: “This purchase of negros, to reduce them in slavery, is a trade which violates the religion, morals, the natural laws, and all the rights of the human nature. ” Brissot created the Société of the friends of the Blacks in 1788; but, in spite of the efforts of its eminent members like the Abbot Gregoire or Condorcet, it could not obtain the abolition of slavery near the Constituante. It was only the February 4th 1794 which the Convention abolishes slavery by endorsing and generalizing the unilateral decision of the civil police chief with Saint-Domingue, Leger-Happiness Sonthonax, taken the August 29th, 1793.

This abolition, certainly dictated by a humanism inherited the Lights, had also like object to rejoin the revolted slaves of Santo Domingo, vis-a-vis the double royalist threat and of English invasion. Remainder, this abolition will not be applied in all the French possessions of then, far is necessary some. Napoleon will restore it (law of the 30 floréal year X, is the May 20th 1802) under the supposed influence of the family of his wife Joséphine de Beauharnais Béké of Martinique, yielding to supplications white colonists who claimed more to be able to ensure their survival and that of their plantation by having recourse to a nonservile labor. The mixed marriages became again prohibited consequently occasion.

It should be noted that Napoleon i, of return of the isle of Elba for three months (the Hundred Days), issued an immediate abolition of slavery, more perhaps by strategy that by feeling of inanity of the re-establishment of slavery. In 1802, this one however had generated a war of independence in Saint-Domingue (see: All Saints' day Louverture and Forwarding of Santo Domingo).

Its decision will be confirmed by the treated of Paris the November 20th 1815. Nevertheless, with the Restoration, this one will remain also dead letter.

In 1834, is created the French company for the abolition of slavery chaired by Victor de Broglie.

Victor Schoelcher named in the Provisional government of 1848 Under Secretary of State to the Navy and the colonies by the minister François Arago, contributes to make adopt the decree on the abolition of slavery in the Colonies. The Décret of abolition of April 27th, signed by all the members of the government appears with the Monitor, on March 5th.

In the United Kingdom

At the same time in England, the free trade movement structure starting from 1788, in the Company for the abolition of the draft around the deputy William Wilberforce with the support of the Prime Minister William Pitt.

Abolition of slavery

The official abolition of the Treats blacks date of 1807 for the United States and England and of the Congrès of Vienna of 1815 for the other European powers. That Ci will continue in a clandestine way however and it will be necessary to await the abolition of slavery so that this traffic really ceases. Slavery was abolished in Portugal in 1869 and England in 1833. Abolition bill promulgated in 1833 does not mark the total emancipation of the slaves in the British possessions. Indeed, it is advisable to specify that the slaves must remain under the yoke of their former Masters for a certain period. It was expected that the not-rural slaves remain near their Masters until 1838 and rural slaves until 1840. Finally the complete abolition of all the slaves is issued on August 1st, 1838. Only the colony of Antigua chooses complete and immediate abolition for its slaves since 1833.

In 1821, the State of the Liberia is founded in West Africa by an american company of colonization to install released blacks there. In 1847, Liberia east one of the first independent African countries.

The Ottoman Empire in its turn abolished slavery the December 26th 1847.

In France, it will be necessary to await the Décret of abolition of the slavery of April 27th, 1848 and the interventions of the abolitionist Victor Schoelcher so that the abolition of slavery is final.

In 1854 Venezuela, with in the chair Jose Gregorio Monagas, registers in its constitution the final abolition of slavery.

In 1865 the United States promulgates the 13th amendment prohibiting slavery. The question of slavery, partly revealed by the book Uncle Tom's cabin led Abraham Lincoln to promise her abolition if he were elected. Its election thus led the States of the South to require the Secession. This one was refused to them (it would have indeed deprived the federal cases of the essence of its taxes), leading to the Civil war. The American Civil War which followed from there will be most fatal of all the history of this country.

With the Brésil abolition took place in 1888.

The Mauritania is the last country to have officially abolished slavery (in 1980).

1926 International convention on slavery
Dates of abolition of slavery

The Universal declaration of the human rights of the the United Nations of the December 10th 1948 symbolically prohibited slavery on all the Earth.

That will still not prevent this practice of perdurer. Into Mauritania, the situation only changes very slowly.

Causes more economic than ideological?

Is the end of slavery certainly a great victory of the ideology of progress and Human rights, but it is also (above all?) the consequence of the Industrial revolution and liberal capitalism triumphing. If the end of slavery had religious causes and undeniable morals (Anglo-Saxon free trade movements and philosophers of the Lumières), it was also justified by the awakening of the economic efficiency of the Salariat which makes it possible to remove the loads related on the purchase, the maintenance and the monitoring of the slaves. Indeed, slavery had maintained the illusion free work.

However of many economists of the 18th century and later, like Smith, Sismodi or Lapidus estimated that the prices of servile labor were higher than that of paid labor. Adam Smith wrote already: “The experiment of all times and all the places agrees to show that the work made by slaves is, at the end of the day, expensive of all. That which can nothing acquire into clean can have of another interest only to eat as much as possible and to work the least possible. ”

Thus, the former black slaves of the colonies (the Antilles, Guyanes, islands of the Indian Ocean) were quickly replaced by especially Indian and Chinese Asian workers of which “profitability” was larger but the more enviable situation hardly (see low Traite yellows ). In addition, technological advance and mechanization replaced human work, consequently requiring less arm. Slavery had thus become an anachronism and an economic nonsense. For as much, the abolition of slavery was not synonymous with release and equality for all: the proletarian condition induced by the liberal economy proves, particularly at the 19th century, carrying misery, Paupérisme, unemployment and exploitation.

Consequences of abolition

Economic impacts

Very often the new ones freed leave the dwellings to develop their own cultures. Stamping then involves the bankruptcy of the savings in plantation. For example the production of sugar is divided by four into Guyana between 1847 and 1851. Many growers must be reconverted into less demanding cultures in labor or cease their activity.

In spite of these epiphenomenes, the impact of abolition on the worldwide economy, then in full industrial revolution, was very limited contrary to the forecasts of the anti-abolitionists.

The slave system had involved a great delay in the technical development. This delay is particularly obvious in the United States between the States of the South and those of North at the end of the American Civil War.

Draft of Asian and the Engagisme

To replace the slaves, the growers in particular called upon “Engagé S volunteers” of Asian, Indian origin, to see local (in the Comoros). This practice degenerated very quickly into a form of exploitation, the no protest clause of the contract of the coolies was in particular not respected at the conclusion of their period of engagement and much had to remain on the spot because it had not been remunerated sufficiently to be able to pay the way return.

Colonization of Africa

The colonial powers presented the fight against slavery like one of the justifications of their penetration inside the black continent.

Memorials

Cape 110 (Martinique)
Memorial with the slavery of Zanzibar City
the House of the Slaves on the island of Gorée, with the Senegal.

Random links: