Abolition of slavery in the world

For most of humanity's history, slavery has been well regarded by the world, being the world's economic engine for much of history. Talking about abolition at the global level is somewhat complicated, since it was a long process It did not happen at the same time or at the same level in everyone at the same time. To know this long period in this lesson from a TEACHER we must offer a summary of the abolition of slavery in the world.

The history of abolitionism has been so different over the centuries and between states that it is difficult to speak of an origin on it, but most studies place the French King Louis X in 1315 as the first person to try to abolish slavery.

Louis X wrote a decree proclaiming that every slave who set foot in France became a free person, there are cases of African slaves who were freed according to the decree. Slavers are said to have started trading with slaves in overseas French areas for, thus, not having to free the slaves since the decree only spoke of France continental.

Two centuries later the spanish king Carlos V followed the example of the French monarch, creating the New Laws, which sought the end of slavery in the Spanish American possessions. But these laws they were not accepted by the most important viceroyalties and finally this abolition never took place.

At the end of the 17th century the Catholic Church He made his first moves to outlaw slavery, condemning the Atlantic slave trade which had become commonplace. No state changed anything about this, this being already a time when the Vatican had much less relevance and importance than centuries before.

Although, as we have seen by the end of the 18th century, certain abolitionist movements had already appeared, all of them were short-lived and none were of great importance. At the end of this century, the first movements that really changed world thinking about slavery appeared.

One of the first movements was the British one, taking place in UK the call Somersett case in 1772, according to which a slave was freed proving that according to English law slavery could not exist, thus causing a large number of cases where slaves were freed.

On the other hand in USA, which had just become independent, in the Northern territories slavery began to be abolished in many territories. Within a few years, the vast majority of the North American states had abolished slavery, as el concept of freedom of the American Constitution collided with the existence of people who were not free. In this other lesson we will discover a summary of the history of slavery in the United States.

Another nation that joined in the abolition of slavery around this time was France, which after finishing its revolutionary movement in 1794, abolished slavery throughout its empire. But the arrival of Napoleon changed this, since the French leader considered that it was impossible to dominate an empire if there was no slavery in his colonies. Two years after Napoleon's decision, the French colony of Haiti became independent, being one of its first measures as its own state to abolish slavery and serving as an example for the following States that will seek abolition.

The independence of Haiti influenced the northern United States and the United Kingdom, so the former abolished slavery in 1804 and both nations in 1807 banned international trade in slaves.

To continue with this lesson on the abolition of slavery in the world we must talk about the appearance of the abolition since, although the first permanent ones were those of Haiti and the north of the United States, soon after the movement that would end with abolition worldwide.

• The first nation to follow in the footsteps of the northern states was Great Britain, who in 1833 created the law to abolish slavery, being the only one exception India that he would still hold slavery. After that, the British pressured the rest of the nations to follow their example.
• Years later the french They returned to the thought that had been born during the French Revolution, annulling slavery in all its colonies, both Asian and African, the latter being important in the later cast of africa.
• On USA the states of the North and South fought a tough civil war, being one of the factors that caused the slavery of the south against some northern states that had abolished it for years. The Northern states victory led to the thirteenth amendment of the United States, which abolished slavery throughout the United States.
• The role of these countries caused many nations to follow their example and eventually in 1948 slavery was outlawed in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The last nation to abolish slavery was Mauritania in 1981.
• On the other hand, in the case of Spain the abolition of continental slavery took place in 1837, excluding the Spanish overseas possessions due to the pressure exerted by the nobles of Cuba and Puerto Rico. After years of struggle, Puerto Rican slavery was abolished in 1873 and Cuban in 1880.