Abolition of slavery timeline

Proclamation of the Abolition of Slavery in the French Colonies 1849, by Francois Auguste Biard. France abolished slavery in 1315 under Louis X of France, however some limited cases of slavery continued till the 17th century in some of France's Mediterranean harbours in Provence, as well as till the 18th century in some of France's overseas territories. Versailles Palace

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Related Common law Indentured servant Unfree labour Fugitive slaves laws Great Dismal Swamp maroons List of slaves owners Slave narrative films songs Slave name Slave catcher Slave patrol Slave Route Project Treatment in U.S. breeding court cases Washington Jefferson Adams Lincoln 40 acres Freedmen's Bureau bit Wage slavery Emancipation Day

The abolition of slavery occurred at different times in different countries. It frequently occurred sequentially in more than one stage - for example, as abolition of the trade in slaves in a specific country, and then as abolition of slavery throughout empires. Each step was usually the result of a separate law or action. This timeline shows abolition laws or actions listed chronologically.

This article also covers the abolition of serfdom.

Although slavery is now abolished de jure in all countries, some practices akin to it continue today in many places throughout the world.

Ancient times

• 3rd century BC: Ashoka abolishes slave trade and encourages people to treat slaves well but does not abolish slavery itself in the Maurya Empire, covering the majority of India, which was under his rule.^[1]
• 221–206 BC: The Qin Dynasty's measures to eliminate the landowning aristocracy include the abolition of slavery and the establishment of a free peasantry who owed taxes and labor to the state. They also discouraged serfdom.^[2] The dynasty was overthrown in 206 BC and many of its laws were overturned.
• 9–12 A.D.: Wang Mang, first and only emperor of the Xin Dynasty, usurped the Chinese throne and instituted a series of sweeping reforms, including the abolition of slavery and radical land reform from 9–12 A.D.^[3][4]

Medieval timeline

N.B.: Many of the listed reforms were reversed over succeeding centuries.

• ~500: Slavery (or at least slave trading) ends for a time in Ireland,^[5] but resumes by the ninth century.^[6]
• (610–632)" Muhammed, in Arabia with Islamic views on slavery first developed out of the slavery practices of pre-Islamic Arabia,^[7] and were at times radically different, depending on social-political factors such as the Arab slave trade.The Quran provides for emancipation of only muslim slaves as a means of religious atonement for sins.^[8] One of the five pillars of Islam, zakāt, is meant to encourage Muslims to donate money to free slaves and bonded laborers in countries where slaves and bonded laborers may exist, in the hope that over time there will be no slaves left in that country.^[9] Qu'ran still establishes slavery as part of the natural order, in chapter 16.
• 873: Pope John VIII commanded under penalty of sin that all Christians who hold other Christians as slaves must set them free. ^[10]
• 960: Doge of Venice Pietro IV Candiano reconvened the popular assembly and had it approve of a law prohibiting the slave trade in the Italian city-state the Republic of Venice.
• 1080 William the Conqueror, Duke of Normandy and French conqueror of England, prohibits the sale of any persons to heathens (non-Christians) as slaves.
• 1102: Trade in slaves and serfdom is condemned by the church in London: Council of London (1102).
• 1117: Slavery abolished in Iceland^[11] (reintroduced as Vistarband from 1490 to 1894 in various forms).
• 1214: The Statute of the Town of Korčula (today in Croatia) abolishes slavery.^[12]
• 1215: Magna Carta signed. Clause 30, commonly known as Habeas Corpus, would form the basis of a law against slavery in English common law.
• ~1220: The Sachsenspiegel, the most influential German code of law from the Middle Ages, condemns slavery as a violation of man's likeness to God.^[13]
• 1256: The Liber Paradisus is promulgated. The Comune di Bologna abolishes slavery and serfdom and releases all the serfs in its territories.
• 1274: Landslov (Land's Law) in Norway mentions only former slaves, which indicates that slavery was abolished in Norway
• 1290: Edward I of England passes Quia Emptores, breaking any indenture to an estate, on the sale or transfer of the estate.
• 1315: Louis X, King of France, publishes a decree abolishing slavery and proclaiming that "France signifies freedom" and that any slave setting foot on French ground should be freed.^[14] However some limited cases of slavery continued till the 17th century in some of France's Mediterranean harbours in Provence, as well as till the 18th century in some of France's overseas territories.^[15]
• 1335: Sweden (including Finland at the time) makes slavery illegal. An abolition of slaves setting foot on Swedish ground does not occur until 1813^[16] (in the 18th and 19th Centuries, slavery would be practiced in the Swedish-ruled Caribbean island of Saint Barthélemy).
• 1347: Non-free people were emancipated in Poland under the Statutes of Casimir the Great issued in Wiślica.^[17]
• 1368: China's Hongwu Emperor establishes the Ming dynasty and would abolish all forms of slavery.^[3] However, slavery continued in the Ming dynasty. Later Ming rulers, as a way of limiting slavery in the absence of a prohibition, passed a decree that limited the number of slaves that could be held per household and extracted a severe tax from slave owners.^[18]
• 1416: Republic of Ragusa (modern day Dubrovnik, Croatia) abolished slavery and slave trading
• 1435: In Sicut Dudum, Pope Eugene IV banned enslavement of Christians in the Canary Islands on pain of excommunication.^[19] However the non-Christian indigenous Guanches could be and were enslaved during the Spanish conquest.^[15]

Modern timeline

1500–1700 (Early Modern)

• 1537: Pope Paul III forbids slavery of the indigenous peoples of the Americas as well as of any other new population that would be discovered, indicating their right to freedom and property (Sublimis Deus).^[20]
• 1542: Spain enacted the New Laws, abolishing slavery of Native Americans in 1542, but replaced it with other systems of forced labor such as repartimiento. Slavery of Black Africans was not abolished.^[15]
• 1569: An English court case involving Cartwright, who had brought a slave from Russia, is said on the basis of a summary written more than a century later, to have ruled slavery illegal in England, but appears to have been more about the nature of legally acceptable punishment than slavery per se, and certainly did not soon become a recognized precedent for outlawing slavery as slaves continued to be bought and sold in Liverpool and London markets without legal hindrance into the 18th century. See the article "Slavery at common law".
• 1588: The Third Statute of Lithuania abolishes slavery.^[21]
• 1595: A law is passed in Portugal banning the selling and buying of Chinese slaves.^[22]
• 1590: Toyotomi Hideyoshi bans slavery in Japan.^[23] However, it continued as a punishment for criminals.
• 19 February 1624: The King of Portugal forbids the enslavement of Chinese of either sex.^[24][25]
• 1683: The Spanish Crown legally abolishes the slavery of indigenous Mapuche prisoners of war in Chile.^[26]

1701–1799

• 1706: In the case of Smith v. Browne & Cooper, Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of England, rules that "as soon as a Negro comes into England, he becomes free. One may be a villein in England, but not a slave."^[27][28]
• 1723: Russia abolishes outright slavery but retains serfdom.^[29]
• 1723–1730: China's Yongzheng emancipation sought to free all slaves to strengthen the autocratic ruler through a kind of social leveling that created an undifferentiated class of free subjects under the throne. Although these new regulations freed the vast majority of slaves, wealthy families continued to use slave labor into the twentieth century.^[18]
• 1733–1750 The Province of Georgia in America is established without slavery in sharp contrast to neighboring Carolina. In 1738, James Oglethorpe warns against changing that policy, which would "occasion the misery of thousands in Africa."^[30]
• 1761, 12 February: Portugal abolishes slavery^[31] in mainland Portugal and in Portuguese possessions in India through a decree by the Marquis of Pombal.
• 1772: Somersett's case held that no slave could be forcibly removed from Britain. This case was generally taken at the time to have decided that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law in England and Wales, and emancipated the remaining ten to fourteen thousand slaves or possible slaves in England and Wales, who were mostly domestic servants.^[32]
• 1774: Laws of the Marquis of Pombal, prime minister of King José I, prohibiting the transport of black slaves to Portugal and the liberation of the children of slaves born in Portugal.
• 1775–83: Britain's rebellious North American Colonies ban or suspend the Atlantic slave trade.^[33]
• 1775: Pennsylvania Abolition Society formed in Philadelphia, the first abolition society within the territory that is now the United States of America.
• 1777: Slavery abolished in Madeira, Portugal.^[34]
• 1777: Constitution of the Vermont Republic partially banned slavery,^[34] freeing men over 21 and women older than 18 at the time of its passage.^[35] The ban was not strongly enforced.^[36]
• 1778: Joseph Knight was successful in arguing that Scots law could not support the status of slavery.^[37]
• 1780: Pennsylvania passes An Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, freeing future children of slaves. Those born prior to the Act remain enslaved for life. The Act becomes a model for other Northern states. Last slaves freed 1847.^[38]
• 1783: Russia abolishes slavery in Crimean Khanate.^[39]
• 1783: Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court rules slavery unconstitutional, a decision based on the 1780 Massachusetts constitution. All slaves are immediately freed.^[40]
• 1783: Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor issued an order abolishing slavery in Bukovina on 19 June 1783 in Czernowitz.^[41]
• 1783: New Hampshire begins a gradual abolition of slavery.
• 1784: Connecticut begins a gradual aboliton of slavery, freeing future children of slaves, and later all slaves.^[42]
• 1784: Rhode Island begins a gradual abolition of slavery.
• 1787: The United States in Congress Assembled passed the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, outlawing any new slavery in the Northwest Territories.
• 1787: Sierra Leone founded by Britain as colony for emancipated slaves.^[43]
• 1787: Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade founded in Britain.^[34]
• 1788: Sir William Dolben's Act regulating the conditions on British slave ships enacted.
• 1792: Denmark–Norway declares transatlantic slave trade illegal after 1803 (though slavery continues in Danish colonies to 1848).^[44]
• 1793 (August): French commissioner Leger-Felicite Sonthonax abolishes slavery in northern Saint-Domingue (Haiti). His colleague Etienne Polverel does the same in the rest of the colony in October.
• 1793: Upper Canada (Ontario) abolishes import of slaves by Act Against Slavery.
• 1794: France abolishes slavery in all its possessions. (However, slavery is restored by Napoleon in 1802.)^[45]
• 1794: The United States bans American ships from the trade and prohibits export by foreign ships in the Slave Trade Act.^[33]
• 1798: Slavery is abolished in Malta, while the islands were under French occupation.^[46]
• 1799: New York State passes gradual emancipation act freeing future children of slaves, and all slaves in 1827.^[47]
• 1799: The Colliers (Scotland) Act 1799 ends the legal slavery of Scottish coal miners that had been established in 1606.^[48]

1800–1849

• 1800: The United States bans its citizens' investment and employment in the international slave trade in an additional Slave Trade Act.
• 1802: The First Consul Napoleon re-introduces slavery in French colonies growing sugarcane.^[31]
• 1802: Ohio writes a state constitution that abolishes slavery.
• 1803: Denmark–Norway: abolition of transatlantic slave trade takes effect 1 January 1803.
• 1804: New Jersey begins a gradual abolition of slavery, freeing future children of slaves.^[42] Those born prior to the Act remain enslaved for life. The process later becomes complete with the ratification of the 13th Amendment in 1865.
• 1804: Haiti declares independence and abolishes slavery.^[34]
• 1805: Great Britain: A bill for abolition passes in House of Commons but is rejected in the House of Lords.
• 1806: In a message to Congress, US President Thomas Jefferson calls for criminalizing the international slave trade, asking Congress to "withdraw the citizens of the United States from all further participation in those violations of human rights … which the morality, the reputation, and the best of our country have long been eager to proscribe."
• 1807, 2 March: The US makes international slave trade a felony in Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves; this act takes effect on 1 January 1808.^[49]
• 1807, 25 March: Abolition of the Slave Trade Act abolishes slave trading in British Empire. Captains fined £120 per slave transported.
• 1807, 22 July: The constitution of the Duchy of Warsaw abolishes serfdom.^[50]
• 1807: The British begin patrols of African coast to arrest slaving vessels. The West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy) is established to suppress slave trading; by 1865, nearly 150,000 people freed by anti-slavery operations.^[51]
• 1807, November 11: Abolition of serfdom in Prussia through the Stein-Hardenberg Reforms.^[50]
• 1807: In Michigan Territory, Judge Augustus Woodward denies the return of two slaves owned by a man in Windsor, Upper Canada (present day Ontario). Woodward declares that any man "coming into this Territory is by law of the land a freeman."^[52]
• 1808: The US makes it a crime to import or export slaves.^[53]
• 1810: In Mexico, Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla declares slavery abolished. In the following years, during the Mexican War of Independence, gradually comprehensive steps will end slavery in the new country.
• 1811: Slave trading made a felony in the British Empire, punishable by transportation for British subjects and foreigners.
• 1811: Spain abolishes slavery at home and in all colonies except Cuba,^[31] Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo.
• 1811: The First National Congress of Chile approves a proposal drafted by Manuel de Salas that declares the Freedom of wombs, which sets free the sons of slaves born on Chilean territory, no matter the conditions of the parents; it prohibited the slave trade and recognized as freedmen those who, passing in transit through Chilean territory, stayed there for six months.
• 1813: Mexico abolishes slavery in the documents Sentimientos de la Nación, by insurgent leader José María Morelos y Pavón.
• 1813: In Argentina, the Law of Wombs was passed on 2 February, by the Assembly of Year XIII. The law stated that those born after 31 January 1813 would be granted freedom when contracting matrimony, or on their 16th birthday for women and 20th for men, and upon their manumission would be given land and tools to work it. Slavery finally ends in 1853.^[54]
• 1814: Uruguay, before its independence, declares all those born of slaves in their territories are free from that day forward.
• 1814: The Netherlands outlaws slave trade.
• 1815: British pay Portugal £750,000 to cease their trade north of the Equator.^[55]
• 1815: At the Congress of Vienna, Europe's powers declare their opposition to slavery.^[56]
• 1816: Serfdom abolished in the Governorate of Estonia of the Russian Empire.
• 1817: Serfdom abolished in the Governorate of Courland of the Russian Empire.
• 1817: Spain paid £400,000 by British to cease trade to Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo.^[55]
• 1817: New York State sets a date of 4 July 1827 to free all its ex-slaves from indenture.^[57]
• 1818: Treaty between Britain and Spain to abolish slave trade.^[58]
• 1818: Treaty between Britain and Portugal to abolish slave trade.^[58]
• 1818: France abolishes slave trading.
• 1818: Treaty between Britain and the Netherlands taking additional measures to enforce the 1814 ban on slave trading.^[58]
• 1819: Serfdom abolished in the Governorate of Livonia of the Russian Empire.
• 1819: Upper Canada: Attorney-General John Robinson declares all black residents of Canada free.
• 1819: The Kingdom of Hawaii abolished the ancient Hawaiian kapu system during the ʻAi Noa and with it the distinction between the kauwā slave class and the makaʻāinana (commoners).^[59]
• 1820: Mexico formally abolishes slavery with the Plan of Iguala, proposed by Agustín de Iturbide and ratified the following year by him and the Viceroy, Juan O'Donojú.
• 1820: Compromise of 1820 in US prohibits slavery north of a line (36°30′).
• 1820: In Polly v. Lasselle, Indiana supreme court orders almost all slaves in the state to be freed.
• 1821: Gran Colombia (Ecuador, Colombia, Venezuela, Panama) declares free the sons and daughters born to slave mothers, sets up program for compensated emancipation^[60]
• 1822: The Colony of Santo Domingo had just gained its independence from Spain as the Republic of Spanish Haiti, when it was occupied by Haiti ordered by president Jean Pierre Boyer, whom immediately abolished slavery in the eastern part of Hispaniola.
• 1822: Liberia founded by American Colonization Society (USA) as a colony for emancipated slaves.
• 1822: Greece revolts against the Ottoman Empire and abolishes slavery while gaining independence.
• 1823: Chile abolishes slavery.^[34]
• 1823: Anti-Slavery Society founded in Britain.
• 1824: Mexico's new constitution (1824 Constitution of Mexico) effectively frees existing slaves.
• 1824: The Federal Republic of Central America abolishes slavery.
• 1825: Uruguay declares independence from Brazil and prohibits the traffic of slaves from foreign countries.

Illustration from the book: The Black Man's Lament, Or, How to Make Sugar by Amelia Opie. (London, 1826)

• 1827: Treaty between Britain and Sweden to abolish slave trade.^[58]
• 1827: New York State abolishes last vestiges of slavery. Children born between 1799 and 1827 are indentured until age 25 (females) or age 28 (males).^[61]
• 1828: The Illinois Supreme Court in Phoebe v. Jay rules that indentured servants in Illinois cannot be treated as chattel and bequeathing them by will is illegal. ^[62]
• 1829: Last slaves are freed in Mexico. First black president of Mexico gets elected Vicente Guerrero^[34]
• 1830: Mexican president Anastasio Bustamante orders the abolition of slavery to be implemented also in Mexican Texas. To circumvent the law, Anglo colonists convert their slaves into "indentured servants for life".^[63]
• 1830: The first Constitution of Uruguay declares the abolition of slavery.
• 1831: Bolivia abolishes slavery.^[34]
• 1831: Brazil adopts the Law of 7 November 1831, declaring the maritime slave trade abolished, prohibiting any form of importation of slaves, and granting freedom to slaves should they be illegally imported into Brazil. In spite of its adoption, the law was seldom enforced prior to 1850, when Brazil, under British pressure, adopted additional legislation to criminalize the importation of slaves.
• 1834: The British Slavery Abolition Act comes into force, abolishing slavery throughout most of the British Empire. Legally frees 700,000 in West Indies, 20,000 in Mauritius, and 40,000 in South Africa. The exceptions, territories controlled by the East India Company and Ceylon, were liberated in 1843 when they became part of the British Empire.^[64]
• 1835: Serbia, an autonomous princedom vassal to the Ottoman Empire grants freedom to all foreign slaves that enter within its borders.^[65] Since First Serbian Uprising slavery did not exist in Serbia.
• 1835: Treaty between Britain and France to abolish slave trade.^[58]
• 1835: Treaty between Britain and Denmark to abolish slave trade.^[58]
• 1836: Portugal abolishes transatlantic slave trade.
• 1836: Republic of Texas is established. Slavery is made legal again.
• 1836, December: Viscount Sá da Bandeira, prime minister, prohibits the import and export of slaves from the Portuguese colonies south of the Equator.
• 1838, 1 August: Enslaved men, women, and children in the British Empire finally became fully free after a period of forced apprenticeship following the passing of the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833.
• 1839: British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society founded as a successor to the Anti-Slavery Society. (The British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society exists today as Anti-Slavery International.)
• 1839: Indian indenture system made illegal in the territories controlled by the East India Company (reversed in 1842).
• 1840: Treaty between Britain and Venezuela to abolish slave trade;^[58] the first World Anti-Slavery Convention meets in London.
• 1841: Quintuple Treaty is signed; Britain, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria agree to suppress slave trade.^[34]
• 1842: Treaty between Britain and Portugal to extend the enforcement of the ban on slave trade to Portuguese ships sailing south of the Equator.
• 1843: East India Company becomes increasingly controlled by Britain and abolishes slavery in the territories controlled by the company, through the Indian Slavery Act, 1843, Act V.
• 1843: Treaty between Britain and Uruguay to suppress slave trade.^[58]
• 1843: Treaty between Britain and Mexico to suppress slave trade.^[58]
• 1843: Treaty between Britain and Chile to suppress slave trade.^[58]
• 1843: Treaty between Britain and Bolivia to abolish slave trade.^[58]
• 1845: 36 British Royal Navy ships are assigned to the Anti-Slavery Squadron, making it one of the largest fleets in the world.

An anti-slavery map with an unusual perspective centered on West Africa, which is in the light, and contrasting the U. S. and Europe in the dark. By Julius Rubens Ames, 1847

• 1845: The Illinois Supreme Court in Jarrot v. Jarrot frees the last indentured ex-slaves in Illinois who were born after the Northwest Ordinance.^[62]
• 1846: Persuaded by Britain, the Bey of Tunisia outlawed the slave trade; the policy was reversed temporarily by his successor.^[66]
• 1847: The Ottoman Empire abolishes slave trade from Africa.^[67]
• 1847: The last slaves in the Swedish colony Saint Barthelemy are freed.^[68]
• 1847: Indentured ex-slaves freed in Pennsylvania, thus freeing the last remaining ex-slaves, those born before 1780 (fewer than 100 in 1840 Census).^[69]
• 1848: In Austria, the reforms spurred by the Kraków Uprising of 1846 and the Spring of Nations in 1848 resulted in the abolishment of serfdom in 1848.^[70][71][72]
• 1848: Slavery abolished in all French and Danish colonies.^[34][68]
• 1848: France founds Gabon for settlement of emancipated slaves.
• 1848: Treaty between Britain and Muscat to suppress slave trade.^[58]
• 1849: Treaty between Britain and Persian Gulf states to suppress slave trade.^[58]
• 1849: Harriet Tubman escapes from Slavery in Dorchester County, Maryland.

1850–1899

• 1850: In the United States, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 requires the return of escaped slaves to their owners.
• 1850: Brazil adopts the Eusébio de Queiróz Act (Law 581 of 4 September 1850), criminalizing the maritime slave trade as piracy, and imposing other criminal sanctions on the importation of slaves (already prohibited in law since 1831).
• 1851: Taiping Heavenly Kingdom abolishes slavery along with opium, gambling, tobacco, alcohol, polygamy, prostitution and foot binding.^[73][74][75]
• 1851: New Granada (Colombia) abolishes slavery.^[60]
• 1852: The Kingdom of Hawaii second adopted constitution made slavery officially illegal.^[76]
• 1853: Argentina abolishes slavery when promulgating the 1853 Constitution.^[77]
• 1854: Peru abolishes slavery.^[34]
• 1854: Venezuela abolishes slavery.^[34][60]
• 1855: Principality of Moldavia (now part of Romania) abolishes slavery.
• 1856: Principality of Wallachia (now part of Romania) abolishes slavery.
• 1859: Trans-Atlantic slave trade completely ends
• 1860: Indenture system abolished within British controlled territories of the British Raj
• 1861: Russia frees its serfs in the Emancipation reform of 1861.^[78]
• 1861: April 12: a four-year-long Civil War was begun between the United States and a Confederacy of breakaway slave states.
• 1862: Treaty between United States and Britain for the suppression of the slave trade (African Slave Trade Treaty Act).^[58]
• 1862: Cuba abolishes slave trade.^[34]
• 1863: Slavery abolished in Dutch colonies Surinam (33,000 freed) and the Antilles (12,000 freed).^[79]
• 1863: Slavery abolished in the Dutch colony of Indonesia.

Medical examination photo of Gordon showing his scourged back, widely distributed by Abolitionists to expose the brutality of slavery.

• 1863: In the United States, Abraham Lincoln issues the presidential order the Emancipation Proclamation declaring slaves in Confederate-controlled areas to be freed. Most slaves in "border states" are freed by state action; separate law freed the slaves in Washington, D.C.
• 1864: Following the serfdom emancipation reform of 1861 of Western Krai and the January Uprising of 1863–1864, a serfdom reform was introduced in Russian-controlled Congress Poland^[80]
• 1865: December: US abolishes slavery with the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution; about 40,000 remaining slaves are affected.^[81]
• 1866: Slavery abolished in Indian Territory (now Oklahoma).^[82]
• 1869: February 27: Portugal: King Louis I signs a decree of the government, chaired by the Marquis Sá da Bandeira, abolishing slavery in all Portuguese territories. Accordingly, all slaves in the Portuguese colonies in Africa were set free, resulting in the total termination of slavery across the Portuguese Empire.
• 1871: Brazil: Rio Branco Law (Law of Free Birth) declares free the sons and daughters born to slave mothers after 28 September 1871.^[83]
• 1873: Slavery abolished in the Spanish colony of Puerto Rico: March 22.
• 1873: Treaty between Britain and Zanzibar and Madagascar to suppress slave trade.^[58]
• 1874: Britain abolishes slavery in the Gold Coast (now Ghana), following its annexation in 1874.^[84]
• 1877: Egypt abolishes slavery in August.
• 1879: After spending 5 centuries as an Ottoman province the newly restored principality of Bulgaria abolished slavery with its new constitution declaring that any slave arriving on its territory is freed at once.
• 1882: Ottoman firman abolishes all forms of slavery, white or black.^[85]
• 1884: France abolished slavery in its then Protectorate of Cambodia.
• 1885: Brazil passes Sexagenarians Law (Saraiva-Cotegipe Act), freeing all slaves over the age of 60, and creating other measures for the gradual abolition of slavery, such as a Manumissions Fund administered by the State.
• 1886: Slavery abolished in Cuba.^[34]
• 1888: May 13: Brazil enacts the Golden Law, decreeing the total abolition of slavery with immediate effect, without indemnities to slave owners, but the financial aid to the freed men and women planned by the monarchy never took place due to a military coup that established a Republic in the country.^[86]
• 1890: Brussels Conference Act – a collection of anti-slavery measures to put an end to the slave trade on land and sea, especially in the Congo Basin, the Ottoman Empire, and the East African coast.
• 1894: Korea officially abolishes slavery, but it survives in practice until 1930.^[87]
• 1896: France abolishes slavery in its then colony of Madagascar.
• 1897: Zanzibar abolishes slavery^[88] following its becoming a British protectorate.
• 1899: France abolishes slavery in Ndzuwani.

1900–present

• 1902: The Ethiopian Empire abolishes slavery (although it was legally and officially abolished by Emperor Haile Selassie in 1942).
• 1906: China formally abolishes slavery effective 31 January 1910, when all adult slaves were converted into hired labourers and the young were freed upon reaching age 25.^[29]
• 1912: Siam (Thailand) formally abolishes all slavery. The act of selling a person into slavery was abolished in 1897, but slavery itself was not outlawed at that time.^[89]
• 1922: Morocco abolishes slavery.^[90]
• 1923: Afghanistan abolishes slavery.^[91]
• 1924: Iraq abolishes slavery.
• 1924: League of Nations appoints a Temporary Slavery Commission.
• 1926: Nepal abolishes slavery.
• 1926: September 25: Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery bound all signatories to end slavery.
• 1928: Iran abolishes slavery.^[92]
• 1928: Domestic slavery practised by local African elites abolished in Sierra Leone.^[93] Although established as a place for freed slaves, a study found practices of domestic slavery still widespread in rural areas in the 1970s.
• 1935: Italian General Emilio De Bono proclaims slavery to be abolished in the Ethiopian Empire.^[94]
• 1936: Britain abolishes slavery in Northern Nigeria.^[95]
• 1946: Fritz Sauckel, Nazi official responsible for procuring forced labor in occupied Europe during World War II, is convicted of crimes against humanity and hanged.
• 1948: UN Article 4 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights declares slavery to be contrary to human rights.^[96]
• 1952: Qatar abolishes slavery.
• 1958: Bhutan abolishes slavery.
• 1960: Niger abolishes slavery (although it was not made illegal until 2003).^[97]
• 1962: Saudi Arabia abolishes slavery.
• 1962: Yemen abolishes slavery.
• 1964: The United Arab Emirates abolishes slavery.
• 1970: Oman abolishes slavery.
• 1981: Mauritania abolishes slavery.^{[98][99][100]}
• 2003: Niger makes slavery a crime.^[97]
• 2007: Mauritania makes slavery a crime.^[101]
• 2009: UK, section 71 of the Coroners and Justice Act 2009.^[102]
• 2015: UK, Modern Slavery Act 2015.

Although slavery is now abolished de jure in all countries,^[103][104] de facto practices akin to it continue today in many places throughout the world.^{[105][106][107][108]}

See also

• Abolitionism
• History of slavery
• List of abolitionist forerunners (by Thomas Clarkson)
• Slave Trade Acts
• Sexual slavery
• Slavery at common law
• Slavery in modern Africa
• Timeline of the African-American Civil Rights Movement

References

Further reading

• Bales, Kevin. "Disposable People" (University of California Press, 2012)
• Campbell, Gwyn. The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia (Frank Cass, 2004)
• Drescher, Seymour. Abolition: A History of Slavery and Antislavery (Cambridge University Press, 2009)
• Finkelman, Paul, and Joseph Miller, eds. Macmillan Encyclopedia of World Slavery (2 vol 1998)
• Gordon, M. Slavery in the Arab World (1989)
• Hinks, Peter, and John McKivigan, eds. Encyclopedia of Antislavery and Abolition (2 vol. 2007) 795pp; ISBN 978-0-313-33142-8
• Lovejoy, Paul. Transformations in Slavery: A History of Slavery in Africa (Cambridge UP, 1983)
• Morgan, Kenneth. Slavery and the British Empire: From Africa to America (2008)
• Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. The Historical Encyclopedia of World Slavery (1997)
• Rodriguez, Junius P., ed. Encyclopedia of Emancipation and Abolition in the Transatlantic World (2007)

External links

• Timeline – What happened before 1807? The Royal Naval Museum
• Timeline – What happened after 1807? The Royal Naval Museum
• Slavery and Abolition
• American Abolitionists and Antislavery Activists, comprehensive list of abolitionist and anti-slavery activists and organizations in the United States, including US and international anti-slavery timelines.