The never-ending end of slavery

Globally, the legal abolition of slavery took almost 200 years. Yes, the December 1865 passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution marked one critical date in this process. However, other key moments must be considered. These include:

• The 1794 French law that made France the first modern empire to outlaw slavery.
• The 1838 full emancipation of formerly enslaved people in the British Caribbean.
• The much more recent 1981 banning of legal slavery in Mauritania, a West African nation. Mauritania was the last country in the world to end slavery.

The path to freedom differed in each society. In all places, newly freed people did not achieve immediate equality with other groups.

Abolition and the Haitian Revolution

In 1791 France was experiencing a revolution. French citizens had risen up to end the monarchy. A monarchy is a form of government where a King or Queen is the ruler.

In 1791, there was also a major revolt of enslaved people in the French Caribbean colony of Saint Domingue. Colonialism is when one country takes control over another place. The colonizer then takes advantage of its people and resources.

This successful revolt led to the creation of the independent Republic of Haiti in 1804. It was the first place in the modern world where slaves ended slavery. However, Western nations, such as Britain, France, and the United States, punished this rebelliousness by keeping Haiti isolated. The leaders of these countries feared that enslaved people would be inspired by the example of Haiti and rise up in their own territories. As a result, Haiti was cut off from international trade that would have promoted the development of its economy. Haitians were forced to struggle to survive. Many lived in extreme poverty. Formerly enslaved Haitians had won their freedom, but they had not gained respect from the rest of the world. Haiti was even invaded and occupied by the United States in 1915.

Abolition with compensation in the British Caribbean

Abolition in the British empire, and especially its Caribbean colonies, was not the result of war. It was a peaceful process in which British Christians — both Black and white — placed pressure on their government. They managed to convince the British public that ending slavery was the right thing to do. In 1833 the British Parliament passed a law abolishing slavery in Britain’s colonies.

The British government paid former enslavers for the loss of their “property.” However, no such payment was considered for freed people, despite the years of free labor they had provided. They now had to fend for themselves, with almost no resources. In most British colonies, land and jobs were scarce. As a result, most of the formerly enslaved still had to work on plantations. They now earned wages, but planters paid them barely enough to survive. And unlike Haiti, where both slavery and foreign, colonial control were overthrown, these societies remained under British colonial authority well into the 1900s.

Abolition, government aid, and violence in the U.S.

When the U.S. Civil War was begun in 1861, it was not with the intention of ending slavery. Yet, abolition was one result of the war. The process of abolition began when enslaved people freed themselves by running away during the chaos of war. The war was between the northern and southern states. The northern states who were against slavery were referred to as the Union. The southern states that were in favor of keeping slavery were called the Confederates.

Northern Union forces also purposefully weakened the Confederacy by encouraging enslaved people to run away. Full legal freedom did not come until months after the war ended. In December 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment was added to the Constitution. It banned slavery within the United States and its territories.

During the postwar Reconstruction period, federal forces provided some protection to newly freed people against the racial hatred that continued in the South. For example, federal officials built schools for freed people. They helped them understand paid labor contracts and guarded their voting rights. This federal assistance was limited, but it was exceptional in comparison with other former slave societies. In those other places, freed people received no assistance whatsoever.

However, with the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and the beginning of the “Jim Crow” period, things got much worse for the formerly enslaved. Local southern governments introduced laws to limit Black American freedom and control their labor. Wages for Black Americans remained very low. Many Black Americans were jailed for the smallest reasons and then sent to prison labor camps.

White society kept Black Americans under near constant watch. Police, employers, and the general population all participated in this system. Methods of controlling Black Americans also took more violent forms. Murder and killings carried out by mobs in public were commonly used to create fear and ensure submission. A mob is a large crowd of people, and sometimes is wild and uncontrolled and intent on causing trouble or violence.

State and local governments in the American South purposefully denied Black Americans access to voting rights and public office. As a result, Black Americans had little political power to bring about change.

Later African abolition

Abolition also occurred in other areas of the world. On the African continent, slavery had become more common during the era of the Atlantic slave trade. It had then expanded in the 1800s to serve plantation economies mostly growing tropical goods to serve European demand. Here, abolition came mostly as the result of outside forces. European companies and the leaders of European colonies on the African continent concluded that enslaving Africans on their own soil would be too difficult and expensive. They realized that it would be more profitable to simply rely on low-wage workers. So, under European colonial authority, slavery was outlawed in their African colonies. However, slavery remained a common practice in many areas. Even after its independence from France in 1960, the African nation Mauritania did not fully outlaw slavery until 1981. No matter when slavery was officially ended in African countries, those who were freed continued to be marginalized by other Africans. Marginalizing a group is when they are pushed to the edges of society. They are not allowed to be a part of it.

Common patterns

For the formerly enslaved, freedom simply meant the legal end of slavery. It was a necessary first step toward inclusion in their various societies. However, freedom did not come with automatic acceptance or equality. Newly freed people did not gain the rights available to the other members of their communities. They entered freedom with nothing, and usually struggled just to survive.

In truth, post-abolition societies often placed new restrictions on the formerly enslaved. New laws were passed to maintain control over their labor. Government officials watched for the slightest reason to jail them, and government-approved violence was a common tool for limiting their freedom. In many places, life didn’t change that much for formerly enslaved people.

The formerly enslaved and their descendants had to keep on fighting for equality long after the legal abolition of slavery. In many parts of the world, that fight continues today.