Slavery and Abolition
From the taken-for-granted institution of antiquity to modern anti-trafficking — how humanity came to call slavery a crime.
Each star is a thinker or work; solid lines draw the constellation of a school, dashed threads the passage of ideas between eras.
Select any point on the timeline to read about it.
All entries by era
Slavery and Abolition 400 BCE – 2030 CE
From the taken-for-granted institution of antiquity to modern anti-trafficking — how humanity came to call slavery a crime.
- 350 BCE
Aristotle, Politics. Aristotle defends slavery as natural, holding that some people are by nature suited only to be 'living tools' for others. His argument lends philosophical respectability to an institution that antiquity took for granted, and it will be quoted by defenders of slavery for two thousand years.
- 100 CE
Roman law & the Stoics. Roman jurists concede that slavery is an institution of the law of nations 'contrary to nature', since by nature all are born free, while Stoics like Seneca urge masters to treat slaves as fellow human beings. The institution stands, but the seed of its later condemnation is planted.
- 1537 CE
Pope Paul III, Sublimis Deus. As the Atlantic trade begins, the papal bull Sublimis Deus declares the indigenous peoples of the Americas to be rational human beings who must not be enslaved or robbed of their property. Widely ignored in practice, it nonetheless voices an early institutional challenge to the new slaveries.
- 1688 CE
The Germantown Quaker Petition. Pennsylvania Quakers issue the first known collective protest against slavery in the American colonies, arguing it violates the Golden Rule of doing to others as you would have done to you. It marks the birth of an organised abolitionist conscience within a religious community.
- 1772 CE
Somerset v Stewart. Lord Mansfield rules that slavery is 'so odious' that it can exist only by positive law, and thus an enslaved man cannot be forcibly removed from England. Though narrow in scope, the decision electrifies the movement and becomes a landmark in the legal case against slavery.
- 1791 CE
The Haitian Revolution. Enslaved people in Saint-Domingue rise in the only successful slave revolution in history, founding independent Haiti in 1804. It proves that abolition is not merely a gift of reformers but a freedom the enslaved could win themselves — a shock felt throughout the slaveholding Atlantic.
- 1807 CE
Wilberforce & the Slave Trade Act. After a two-decade campaign led by William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, Britain outlaws the Atlantic slave trade and soon deploys its navy to suppress it. Abolition moves from moral argument to state policy and international enforcement across the seas.
- 1833 CE
Slavery Abolition Act. Britain abolishes slavery itself across most of its empire, freeing some 800,000 people — though it compensates slaveholders, not the enslaved, and imposes years of unpaid 'apprenticeship'. Emancipation is won, but its compromised terms foreshadow the long struggle over what freedom would mean.
- 1865 CE
U.S. Thirteenth Amendment. After a civil war and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery throughout the United States. Yet its exception for punishment of crime, and the coming era of segregation, show that formal abolition and real freedom are not the same thing.
- 1948 CE
UDHR, Article 4. The Universal Declaration proclaims that 'no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms'. What antiquity took for granted is now, in principle, a universal wrong condemned by the whole community of nations.
- 2000 CE
The Palermo Protocol & modern slavery. The UN's Palermo Protocol and later laws confront human trafficking, forced labour and debt bondage — the modern slaveries that persist despite universal prohibition. Estimates put tens of millions still in bondage today, keeping abolition an unfinished cause rather than a closed chapter.
The milestones
c. 350 BCE
Aristotle, Politics
The 'natural slave'
Aristotle defends slavery as natural, holding that some people are by nature suited only to be 'living tools' for others. His argument lends philosophical respectability to an institution that antiquity took for granted, and it will be quoted by defenders of slavery for two thousand years.
c. 100 CE
Roman law & the Stoics
Slavery 'against nature'
Roman jurists concede that slavery is an institution of the law of nations 'contrary to nature', since by nature all are born free, while Stoics like Seneca urge masters to treat slaves as fellow human beings. The institution stands, but the seed of its later condemnation is planted.
1537
Pope Paul III, Sublimis Deus
The enslaved as fully human
As the Atlantic trade begins, the papal bull Sublimis Deus declares the indigenous peoples of the Americas to be rational human beings who must not be enslaved or robbed of their property. Widely ignored in practice, it nonetheless voices an early institutional challenge to the new slaveries.
1688
The Germantown Quaker Petition
The first organised protest
Pennsylvania Quakers issue the first known collective protest against slavery in the American colonies, arguing it violates the Golden Rule of doing to others as you would have done to you. It marks the birth of an organised abolitionist conscience within a religious community.
1772
Somerset v Stewart
No slavery on English soil
Lord Mansfield rules that slavery is 'so odious' that it can exist only by positive law, and thus an enslaved man cannot be forcibly removed from England. Though narrow in scope, the decision electrifies the movement and becomes a landmark in the legal case against slavery.
1791 →
The Haitian Revolution
Freedom seized from below
Enslaved people in Saint-Domingue rise in the only successful slave revolution in history, founding independent Haiti in 1804. It proves that abolition is not merely a gift of reformers but a freedom the enslaved could win themselves — a shock felt throughout the slaveholding Atlantic.
1807
Wilberforce & the Slave Trade Act
Abolishing the trade
After a two-decade campaign led by William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect, Britain outlaws the Atlantic slave trade and soon deploys its navy to suppress it. Abolition moves from moral argument to state policy and international enforcement across the seas.
1833
Slavery Abolition Act
Emancipation across an empire
Britain abolishes slavery itself across most of its empire, freeing some 800,000 people — though it compensates slaveholders, not the enslaved, and imposes years of unpaid 'apprenticeship'. Emancipation is won, but its compromised terms foreshadow the long struggle over what freedom would mean.
1865
U.S. Thirteenth Amendment
Abolition in the Constitution
After a civil war and Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation, the Thirteenth Amendment abolishes slavery throughout the United States. Yet its exception for punishment of crime, and the coming era of segregation, show that formal abolition and real freedom are not the same thing.
1948
UDHR, Article 4
A universal prohibition
The Universal Declaration proclaims that 'no one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms'. What antiquity took for granted is now, in principle, a universal wrong condemned by the whole community of nations.
2000 →
The Palermo Protocol & modern slavery
Fighting slavery's hidden forms
The UN's Palermo Protocol and later laws confront human trafficking, forced labour and debt bondage — the modern slaveries that persist despite universal prohibition. Estimates put tens of millions still in bondage today, keeping abolition an unfinished cause rather than a closed chapter.