Abolitionism

For other uses, see Abolitionism (disambiguation).

"Anti-slavery" and "Emancipationist" redirect here. For the British NGO, see Anti-Slavery International. For pardoned convicts in colonial Australia, see Emancipist.

Photograph of a slave boy in the Sultanate of Zanzibar. 'An Arab master's punishment for a slight offence.' c. 1890. From at least the 1860s onwards, photography was a powerful weapon in the abolitionist arsenal.

Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the political movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around the world. It gained momentum in the western world in the late 18th and 19th centuries.

The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, though it was later used in its colonies. The first country to abolish and punish slavery for indigenous people was Spain with the New Laws in 1542.

Under the actions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, chattel slavery was abolished across Japan since 1590, though other forms of forced labor were used during World War II. The first and only country to self-liberate from slavery was 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 until the Slavery Abolition Act 1833. In the