Abolition of Slavery

[Online Professor]

• 1813 Sweden, a nation that never authorized slave traffic, consents to ban the African slave trade.
• 1814 The king of the Netherlands officially terminates Dutch participation in the African slave trade. At the Congress of Vienna, the assembled powers proclaim that the slave trade should be abolished as soon as possible but do not stipulate an actual effective date for abolition.
• 1820 The government of Spain abolishes the slave trade south of the Equator—but it continues in Cuba until 1888.
• 1833 The Factory Act in Britain establishes a working day in textile manufacture, provides for government inspection of working conditions, bans the employment of children under age 9, and limits the workday of children between 13 and 18 years of age to 12 hours.
• 1834 The Abolition Act abolishes slavery throughout the British Empire, including British colonies in North America. The bill emancipates slaves in all British colonies and appropriates nearly $100 million in today’s money to compensate slave owners for their losses.
• 1840 The new British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society calls the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London to mobilize reformers and assist post-emancipation efforts throughout the world. A group of U.S. abolitionists attends, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, as well as several male supporters, leave the meeting in protest when women are excluded from seating on the convention floor.
• 1845 The British Navy assigns 36 ships to its Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world.
• 1848 The government of France abolishes slavery in all French colonies.
• 1850 The government of Brazil ends the country’s participation in the slave trade and declares slave traffic to be a form of piracy.
• 1861 Alexander II emancipates all Russian serfs, numbering about 50 million. His decree begins the Great Reform in Russia and earns him the title “Czar Liberator.”
• 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issues The Emancipation Proclamation, freeing all U.S. slaves in states that had seceded from the Union, except for those in Confederate areas already controlled by the Union army.
• 1863 The government of the Netherlands takes official action to abolish slavery in all Dutch colonies.