History › Age of revolutions › French Revolution
Abolition of slavery
British slave-trade ban 1807; British Empire 1834; US 1865; Brazil 1888· Idea, religion or movement· Global
Well documentedSolid records, physical evidence or scientific consensus.
The movement that, over about a century, outlawed the slave trade and then slavery itself across the Atlantic world.
See it on the History map →What happened
Quakers and then mass campaigns in Britain, using petitions, boycotts of slave-grown sugar and testimony by formerly enslaved people such as Olaudah Equiano, won a ban on the British slave trade in 1807. Britain freed the enslaved in its empire in 1834, paying 20 million pounds in compensation to owners, not to the enslaved. Revolutionary France abolished slavery in 1794; Napoleon restored it, and France ended it for good in 1848. The US followed in 1865, and Brazil, the last in the Americas, in 1888.
Why it matters
It ended a legal institution found in almost every civilization, and showed that mass public campaigns for human rights could win. Forced labor, though illegal everywhere, still persists.
How we know
Parliamentary acts and debates, petitions with hundreds of thousands of signatures, memoirs by formerly enslaved people, and British compensation records, now searchable in University College London's Legacies of British Slavery database.
Still debated
Historians debate how much abolition owed to moral campaigns, to slave revolts like Haiti's, or to slavery becoming less profitable, Eric Williams' influential 1944 argument.
Inside this (1)
Connections (4)
▸Atlantic slave trade was ended by Abolition of slaveryWell documented
The connection
The trade's horrors, documented by sailors, ship surgeons and survivors like Olaudah Equiano, became abolitionists' first target. A 1788 diagram of the slave ship Brooks, packed with captive Africans, shocked the British public. Campaigners attacked the trade first, believing slavery would wither without it. Britain banned it in 1807, and its navy then patrolled West Africa.
When and how
Britain from the 1780s, with Thomas Clarkson, William Wilberforce and Equiano; the US banned imports in 1808; the last known ship reached Cuba around 1867.
How we know
Parliamentary acts and debates, the Brooks print, Clarkson's interviews with sailors, and Royal Navy records of about 1,600 slave ships seized and some 150,000 people freed.
Debates and open questions
Eric Williams argued falling profits mattered more than morality; later historians such as Seymour Drescher found the trade still profitable when banned, giving campaigns and revolts more weight.
▸French Revolution advanced the cause of Abolition of slaveryMostly agreed
The connection
Pushed by the Haitian uprising and the logic of the Rights of Man, the National Convention abolished slavery in all French colonies in February 1794, the first European power to do so. Napoleon restored it in 1802, but the precedent stood, and France abolished it again, for good, in 1848.
When and how
Paris, February 4, 1794; Napoleon's law of May 20, 1802; the 1848 decree championed by Victor Schœlcher.
How sure are we?
The texts of the 1794, 1802 and 1848 decrees, Convention debates, and records of the antislavery Society of the Friends of the Blacks, founded in 1788.
Debates and open questions
Was 1794 an act of principle or a wartime move to win Black soldiers against Britain and Spain? Historians see both motives.
▸Haitian Revolution advanced Abolition of slaveryMostly agreed
The connection
Haiti proved enslaved people could free themselves and defeat a European army. It inspired rebels from the US to Brazil and gave abolitionists an example, while frightening slaveholders into tightening control. Haiti also aided freedom elsewhere: President Alexandre Pétion armed Simón Bolívar in 1816 on condition that he free the enslaved.
When and how
The Atlantic world, 1804 to the 1830s; Haiti's 1805 constitution banned slavery; Pétion supplied Bolívar in 1815 and 1816.
How sure are we?
Cuba's 1812 Aponte rebels kept portraits of Haitian leaders, Denmark Vesey's 1822 Charleston plot reportedly sought Haitian help, and Pétion's and Bolívar's letters survive.
Debates and open questions
Did Haiti speed abolition or slow it? Fear of 'another Haiti' led some governments to tighten slavery, as during Cuba's sugar boom.
▸Abolition of slavery triumphed in the US through the American Civil WarWell documented
The connection
American abolitionists like Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison turned Northern opinion against slavery's spread, helping give rise to Lincoln's Republican Party. The war then became a war for freedom: the 1863 Emancipation Proclamation, Black Union soldiers, and the 13th Amendment (1865) ended slavery nationwide, freeing about 4 million people.
When and how
The US, 1830s to 1865: Garrison's Liberator (from 1831), Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), Lincoln's election (1860), and ratification of the 13th Amendment in December 1865.
How we know
The texts of the Emancipation Proclamation and 13th Amendment, abolitionist newspapers, and Lincoln's own letters and speeches tracing his shift toward emancipation.
Debates and open questions
Who freed the enslaved? Historians weigh Lincoln, abolitionists, Union armies, and the enslaved people who fled to Union lines and forced the issue.