Abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical religious groups condemned it as un-Christian. Though antislavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, they had little immediate effec...
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Abolitionism was a movement to end the slave trade and emancipate slaves in western Europe and the Americas. The slave system aroused little protest until the 18th century, when rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment criticized it for violating the rights of man, and Quaker and other evangelical religious groups condemned it as un-Christian. Though antislavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, they had little immediate effect on the centers of slavery themselves — the West Indies, South America, and the Southern United States. The importation of African slaves was banned in the British colonies in 1807, and in the United States in 1808. In the British West Indies, slavery was abolished in 1827 and in the French possessions 15 years later.
In Britain, William Wilberforce had taken on the cause of abolition in 1787 after the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, in which he led the Parliamentary campaign to abolish the slave trade in the...
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