From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Tue Aug 21 2001 - 15:11:39 MDT
On Mon, Aug 20, 2001 at 07:38:34PM -0700, Lee Corbin wrote:
> quite embarrassing. But as Jerry said, in the 19th century
> America was still among the most free countries in the world.
> Only England, of any major nation, if I recall correctly,
> abolished slavery earlier. Likewise, can you tell me what
britannica.com says:
As the Enlightenment developed in Europe during the 18th century,
moral abhorrence of slavery began to spread. Societies were formed in
Britain and the United States to end the slave trade. The
[23]Anti-Slavery Society, established in Britain in 1823, succeeded in
freeing slaves in the British colonies in the Western Hemisphere by
1833. France abolished slavery in the West Indies in 1848, and slavery
was permanently ended in the United States in 1865 with the passage of
the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
And slavery didn't exist in the western European countries themselves to be
abolished, as far as _I_ recall. Slavery was in fact the peculiar institution
of the United States, at least among Enlightenment societies; Christianity had
put a severe dent in slavery in Europe a long time before, with serfdom
filling some of the void.
More:
As the Russian Empire grew and its hegemony spread, it adopted the
tendency of 19th-century imperialist powers to enforce abolition when
embarking upon colonization. Thus the conquest of the Caucasus led to
the abolition of slavery by the 1860s and the conquest in Central Asia
of the Islamic khanates of Bukhara, Samarkand, and Khiva by the 1870s.
...
Chile freed its black slaves in 1823; Mexico abolished slavery in
1829, and Peru in 1854.
Oh, but those aren't major nations, of course.
-xx- Damien X-)
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