abolitionism

( 1783–1888) 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 centres of slavery themselves—the West Indies, South America, and the southern U.S. In 1807 the importation of African slaves was banned in the U.S. and the British colonies. Slavery was abolished in the British West Indies by 1838 and in the French possessions 10 years later. In the 11 Southern states of the U.S., however, slavery was a social and economic institution. American abolitionism laboured under the handicap that it threatened the harmony of North and South in the Union, and it also ran counter to the U.S. Constitution, which left the question of slavery to the individual states. The abolitionist movement in the North was led by agitators such as William Lloyd Garrison, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, writers such as John Greenleaf Whittier, former slaves such as Frederick Douglass, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. The election of Abraham Lincoln, who opposed the spread of slavery to the West, marked a turning point in the movement. Convinced that their way of life was threatened, the Southern states seceded from the Union ( secession), which led to the American Civil War. In 1863 Lincoln (who had never been an abolitionist) issued the Emancipation Proclamation, which freed slaves held in the Confederate states; the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (1865) prohibited slavery throughout the country. Slavery was abolished in Latin America by 1888. In some parts of Africa and in much of the Islamic world, it persisted as a legal institution well into the 20th century.For more information on abolitionism, visit Britannica.com.