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95-722: The first International Congress was held in London at the suggestion of Joseph Sturge and on the initiative of the American Peace Society in 1843. The host was the London Peace Society . 294 British, 37 American and 6 Continental delegates attended. Elihu Burritt organized the Congress of 1848, the first after the French Revolution of February 1848 . It was chaired by Auguste Visschers ,

190-649: A Belgian lawyer and philanthropist. The participants met at Brussels in September of that year. Among the delegates were Cobden , Thierry , Girardin , and Bastiat . The congress adopted resolutions urging limitation of armaments and the placing of a ban upon foreign loans for war purposes. One year after Brussels, the Peace Congress met in Paris from 22 to 24 August 1849, with Victor Hugo as president The proceedings were published by Charles Gilpin . Among

285-541: A child, he filed a freedom suit , on the grounds that he could not be held as a slave in Great Britain . In the case of Knight v. Wedderburn (1778), Wedderburn said that Knight owed him "perpetual servitude". The Court of Session of Scotland ruled against him, saying that chattel slavery was not recognized under the law of Scotland , and slaves could seek court protection to leave a master or avoid being forcibly removed from Scotland to be returned to slavery in

380-671: A farmer in Elberton, Gloucestershire , and his wife Mary Marshall, who belonged to the Religious Society of Friends (commonly known as Quakers). His brothers included John Sturge, who became a manufacturer in Birmingham , and Edmund Sturge . The abolitionist and pacifist Sophia Sturge (1795–1845) was his sister, and Charles Gilpin was a nephew. After a year at school in Thornbury , Sturge boarded for three years at

475-735: A speech to the House of Lords , Brougham acknowledged Sturge's central role at that time in rousing British anti-slavery opinion. In 1834 Sturge sailed to the West Indies to study apprenticeship as defined by the British Emancipation Act of 1833 . He intended to open it to criticism as an intermediate stage en route to emancipation. He travelled throughout the West Indies and talked directly to apprentices, proprietors (planters), and others directly involved. Upon his return to Great Britain, he published Narrative of Events since

570-605: A writ of habeas corpus . As a result, Lord Mansfield , Chief Justice of the Court of the King's Bench , had to judge whether Somersett's abduction was lawful or not under English Common Law . No legislation had ever been passed to establish slavery in England. The case received national attention, and five advocates supported the action on behalf of Somersett. In his judgement of 22 June 1772, Mansfield declared: The state of slavery

665-481: Is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged. Although the exact legal implications of the judgement are unclear when analysed by lawyers, the judgement was generally taken at the time to have determined that slavery did not exist under English common law and was thus prohibited in England. The decision did not apply to the British overseas territories; by then, for example,

760-622: Is legal. As the Empire of Japan annexed Asian countries, from the late 19th century onwards, archaic institutions including slavery were abolished in those countries. During the 20th century, the League of Nations founded a number of commissions, Temporary Slavery Commission (1924–1926), Committee of Experts on Slavery (1932) and the Advisory Committee of Experts on Slavery (1934–1939), which conducted international investigations of

855-416: Is of such a nature that it is incapable of being introduced on any reasons, moral or political, but only by positive law, which preserves its force long after the reasons, occasions, and time itself from whence it was created, is erased from memory. It is so odious, that nothing can be suffered to support it, but positive law. Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case

950-744: The Book of Negroes , to establish which slaves were free after the war. In 1783, an anti-slavery movement began among the British public to end slavery throughout the British Empire. After the formation of the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787, William Wilberforce led the cause of abolition through the parliamentary campaign. Thomas Clarkson became the group's most prominent researcher, gathering vast amounts of data on

1045-683: The Act Against Slavery of 1793 was passed by the Assembly under the auspices of John Graves Simcoe . It was the first legislation against slavery in the British Empire . Under its provisions no new slaves could be imported, slaves already in the province would remain enslaved until death, and children born to female slaves would be slaves but must be freed at the age of 25. The last slaves in Canada gained their freedom when slavery

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1140-476: The American Peace Society in 1841, intended to propagate the ideas of William Jay. A preliminary meeting was held in London in 1842, and the decision was taken that the Peace Congress should follow directly on from the second Anti-Slavery Convention. Sturge ended up organising both, after the death of Nun Morgan Harry (1800–1842). The Peace Congress took place 22–24 June 1843, and formally was

1235-581: The American Revolution , there were few significant initiatives in the American colonies that led to the abolitionist movement. Some Quakers were active. Benjamin Kent was the lawyer who took on most of the cases of slaves suing their masters for personal illegal enslavement. He was the first lawyer to successfully establish a slave's freedom. In addition, Brigadier General Samuel Birch created

1330-672: The British Empire . In 1837, keen to act independently of the consensus in the Anti-Slavery Society , Sturge founded the Central Negro Emancipation Committee. More significantly, in 1839, one year after abolition in the British dominions, Sturge led a small group who founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society to put an end to slavery worldwide. It continues today as Anti-Slavery International . The Society's first major activity

1425-547: The Caribbean island of Montserrat , Olveston , and Elberton to demonstrate that slavery was unnecessary. As a result of Sturge's single-minded campaign, in which he publicised details of the brutality of apprenticeship to shame the British Government, a major row broke out amongst abolitionists. The more radical element were pitted against the government. Although both had the same ends in sight, Sturge and

1520-615: The English Civil Wars of the mid-seventeenth century, sectarian radicals challenged slavery and other threats to personal freedom. Their ideas influenced many antislavery thinkers in the eighteenth century. In addition to English colonists importing slaves to the North American colonies, by the 18th century, traders began to import slaves from Africa, India and East Asia (where they were trading) to London and Edinburgh to work as personal servants. Men who migrated to

1615-585: The Louisiana Territory to the United States. The French governments initially refused to recognize Haïti. It forced the nation to pay a substantial amount of reparations (which it could ill afford) for losses during the revolution and did not recognize its government until 1825. France was a signatory to the first multilateral treaty for the suppression of the slave trade, the Treaty for

1710-667: The Revolution of 1791–1804 . The British abolitionist movement began in the late 18th century, and the 1772 Somersett case established that slavery did not exist in English law. In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal throughout the British Empire, though existing slaves in British colonies were not liberated until the Slavery Abolition Act in 1833 . In the United States , Pennsylvania and Vermont were

1805-740: The United Provinces of the River Plate in 1813, Colombia and Venezuela in 1821, but without abolishing slavery completely. While Chile abolished slavery in 1823, Argentina did so with the signing of the Argentine Constitution of 1853 . Peru abolished slavery in 1854. Colombia abolished slavery in 1851. Slavery was abolished in Uruguay during the Guerra Grande , by both the government of Fructuoso Rivera and

1900-608: The government in exile of Manuel Oribe . Throughout the growth of slavery in the American South, Nova Scotia became a destination for black refugees leaving Southern Colonies and United States. While many blacks who arrived in Nova Scotia during the American Revolution were free, others were not. Black slaves also arrived in Nova Scotia as the property of White American Loyalists. In 1772, prior to

1995-650: The overseas colonies . Some cases of African slaves freed by setting foot on French soil were recorded such as the example of a Norman slave merchant who tried to sell slaves in Bordeaux in 1571. He was arrested and his slaves were freed according to a declaration of the Parlement of Guyenne which stated that slavery was intolerable in France, although it is a misconception that there were 'no slaves in France'; thousands of African slaves were present in France during

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2090-779: The 18th century. Born into slavery in Saint Domingue , Thomas-Alexandre Dumas became free when his father brought him to France in 1776. As in other New World colonies, the French relied on the Atlantic slave trade for labour for their sugar cane plantations in their Caribbean colonies; the French West Indies . In addition, French colonists in Louisiane in North America held slaves, particularly in

2185-583: The American Revolution, Britain determined that slavery could not exist in the British Isles followed by the Knight v. Wedderburn decision in Scotland in 1778. This decision, in turn, influenced the colony of Nova Scotia. In 1788, abolitionist James Drummond MacGregor from Pictou published the first anti-slavery literature in Canada and began purchasing slaves' freedom and chastising his colleagues in

2280-536: The American colonies had established slavery by positive laws. Somersett's case became a significant part of the common law of slavery in the English-speaking world and it helped launch the movement to abolish slavery. After reading about Somersett's Case, Joseph Knight , an enslaved African who had been purchased by his master John Wedderburn in Jamaica and brought to Scotland, left him. Married and with

2375-483: The Baptists, with mainly Nonconformist support, led a successful popular movement for immediate and full emancipation. As a consequence, the British Government moved the date for full emancipation forward to 1 August 1838. They abolished the 12-year intermediary apprenticeship scheme. For many English Nonconformists and African-Caribbean people, 1 August 1838, became recognised as the true date of abolition of slavery in

2470-481: The British movement to abolish slavery. Though anti-slavery sentiments were widespread by the late 18th century, many colonies and emerging nations continued to use slave labour : Dutch , French , British , Spanish , and Portuguese territories in the West Indies, South America, and the Southern United States. After the American Revolution established the United States, many Loyalists who fled

2565-701: The Catholic faith, implying that Africans were human beings endowed with a soul, a fact French law did not admit until then. It resulted in a far higher percentage of Black people being free in 1830 (13.2% in Louisiana compared to 0.8% in Mississippi ). They were on average exceptionally literate, with a significant number of them owning businesses, properties, and even slaves. Other free people of colour, such as Julien Raimond , spoke out against slavery. The Code Noir also forbade interracial marriages, but it

2660-752: The Destruction of the Indies , contributed to Spanish passage of colonial legislation known as the New Laws of 1542 , which abolished native slavery for the first time in European colonial history. It ultimately led to the Valladolid debate , the first European debate about the rights of colonized people. During the early 19th century, slavery expanded rapidly in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States, while at

2755-505: The First of August 1834. In it he cited an African-Caribbean witness, to whom he referred as "James Williams" to protect him from reprisals. The original statement was signed by two free African-Caribbeans and six apprentices, and was authenticated by an English Baptist minister Thomas Price of Hackney , who wrote the introduction. Following another trip and further study, Sturge published The West Indies in 1837 . Both books highlighted

2850-658: The French abolished slavery in most of French West Africa . The French also attempted to abolish Tuareg slavery following the Kaocen Revolt . In the region of the Sahel, slavery has long persisted. Passed on 10 May 2001, the Taubira law officially acknowledges slavery and the Atlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity . 10 May was chosen as the day dedicated to recognition of the crime of slavery. James Oglethorpe

2945-630: The French in the decisive Battle of Vertières finally led to independence and the creation of present Haiti in 1804. The convention, the first elected Assembly of the First Republic (1792–1804), on 4 February 1794, under the leadership of Maximilien Robespierre , abolished slavery in law in France and its colonies. Abbé Grégoire and the Society of the Friends of the Blacks were part of

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3040-630: The House of Lords. Biographer William Hague considers the unfinished abolition of the slave trade to be Pitt's greatest failure. The Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on 25 March 1807, making the slave trade illegal throughout the British Empire. Britain used its influence to coerce other countries to agree to treaties to end their slave trade and allow the Royal Navy to seize their slave ships . Britain enforced

3135-624: The Laws (1748) and Denis Diderot in the Encyclopédie . In 1788, Jacques Pierre Brissot founded the Society of the Friends of the Blacks ( Société des Amis des Noirs ) to work for the abolition of slavery. After the Revolution, on 4 April 1792, France granted free people of colour full citizenship. The slave revolt, in the largest Caribbean French colony of Saint-Domingue in 1791,

3230-440: The North American colonies often took their East Indian slaves or servants with them, as East Indians have been documented in colonial records. Some of the first freedom suits , court cases in the British Isles to challenge the legality of slavery, took place in Scotland in 1755 and 1769. The cases were Montgomery v. Sheddan (1755) and Spens v. Dalrymple (1769). Each of the slaves had been baptized in Scotland and challenged

3325-478: The Northern United States immigrated to the British province of Quebec, bringing an English majority population as well as many slaves, leading the province to ban the institution in 1793 (see Slavery in Canada ). In the U.S., Northern states, beginning with Pennsylvania in 1780, passed legislation during the next two decades abolishing slavery, sometimes by gradual emancipation . Vermont, which

3420-432: The Presbyterian church who owned slaves. In 1790 John Burbidge freed his slaves. Led by Richard John Uniacke , in 1787, 1789 and again on 11 January 1808, the Nova Scotian legislature refused to legalize slavery. Two chief justices, Thomas Andrew Lumisden Strange (1790–1796) and Sampson Salter Blowers (1797–1832) were instrumental in freeing slaves from their owners in Nova Scotia. They were held in high regard in

3515-593: The Quaker Sidcot School . He then farmed with his father, and on his own account. Of pacifist views, he refused in 1813 to serve in the militia. Failing at first to earn a living as a corn factor , at Bewdley from 1814, Sturge moved to Birmingham in 1822. There he became an importer of grain. Successful in business, with his brother Charles, he built up the company. The Sturges as a family became investors in railways and docks. Joseph from 1831 ceased to be an active partner, leaving operations to Charles, and concentrated on causes and public life. As an abolitionist , he

3610-407: The Rights of Man that slavery was abolished. During the French Revolutionary Wars , French slave-owners joined the counter-revolution en masse and, through the Whitehall Accord , they threatened to move the French Caribbean colonies under British control, as Great Britain still allowed slavery. Fearing secession from these islands, successfully lobbied by planters and concerned about revenues from

3705-513: The South around New Orleans , where they established sugarcane plantations. Louis XIV 's Code Noir regulated the slave trade and institution in the colonies. It gave unparalleled rights to slaves. It included the right to marry, gather publicly or take Sundays off. Although the Code Noir authorized and codified cruel corporal punishment against slaves under certain conditions, it forbade slave owners to torture them or to separate families. It also demanded enslaved Africans receive instruction in

3800-492: The Suppression of the African Slave Trade (1841), but the king, Louis Philippe I , declined to ratify it. On 27 April 1848, under the Second Republic (1848–1852), the decree-law written by Victor Schœlcher abolished slavery in the remaining colonies. The state bought the slaves from the colons (white colonists; Békés in Creole ), and then freed them. At about the same time, France started colonizing Africa and gained possession of much of West Africa by 1900. In 1905,

3895-484: The United States outlawed the international slave trade in 1807, after which Britain led efforts to block slave ships . Britain abolished slavery throughout its empire by the Slavery Abolition Act 1833 (with the notable exception of India ), the French colonies re-abolished it in 1848 and the U.S. abolished slavery in 1865 with the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution . The last known form of enforced servitude of adults ( villeinage ) had disappeared in England by

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3990-471: The United States, and many Nonconformists . In 1841 Sturge travelled in the United States with the poet John Greenleaf Whittier to examine the slavery question there. On his return he published A Visit to the United States in 1841 (1842). On the same visit (22 May), he saw William Jay who was interested in forwarding the peace agenda, by international arbitration. The Peace Congress of June 1843 held in London resulted from proposal made by Sturge to

4085-409: The West Indies, and influenced by the slaveholder family of his wife , Napoleon Bonaparte decided to re-establish slavery after becoming First Consul . He promulgated the law of 20 May 1802 and sent military governors and troops to the colonies to impose it. On 10 May 1802, Colonel Delgrès launched a rebellion in Guadeloupe against Napoleon's representative, General Richepanse . The rebellion

4180-411: The abolition of the trade because the act made trading slaves within British territories illegal. However, the act repealed the Amelioration Act 1798 which attempted to improve conditions for slaves. The end of the slave trade did not end slavery as a whole. Slavery was still a common practice. In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement revived to campaign against the institution of slavery itself. In 1823

4275-409: The abolitionist movement, which had laid important groundwork in building anti-slavery sentiment in the metropole . The first article of the law stated that "Slavery was abolished" in the French colonies, while the second article stated that "slave-owners would be indemnified" with financial compensation for the value of their slaves. The French constitution passed in 1795 included in the declaration of

4370-411: The beginning of the 17th century. In 1569 a court considered the case of Cartwright, who had bought a slave from Russia. The court ruled English law could not recognize slavery, as it was never established officially. This ruling was overshadowed by later developments; It was upheld in 1700 by the Lord Chief Justice John Holt when he ruled that a slave became free as soon as he arrived in England. During

4465-447: The city held a civic ceremony to formally rededicate the statue. Randal Brew, the Lord Mayor of Birmingham , unveiled an interpretation board giving details of Sturge's life. On the same day, a blue plaque (historic marker) was unveiled at the site of his home in Wheeleys Road, Edgbaston. Abolitionist Abolitionism , or the abolitionist movement , is the movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved individuals around

4560-405: The colonies. But at the same time, legally mandated, hereditary slavery of Scots persons in Scotland had existed from 1606 and continued until 1799, when colliers and salters were emancipated by an act of the Parliament of Great Britain ( 39 Geo. 3 . c. 56). Skilled workers, they were restricted to a place and could be sold with the works. A prior law enacted in 1775 ( 15 Geo. 3 . c. 28)

4655-441: The colony. By the end of the War of 1812 and the arrival of the Black Refugees, there were few slaves left in Nova Scotia. The Slave Trade Act outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire in 1807 and the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 outlawed slavery altogether. With slaves escaping to New York and New England, legislation for gradual emancipation was passed in Upper Canada (1793) and Lower Canada (1803). In Upper Canada,

4750-457: The cruelty and injustice of the system of indentured apprenticeship. They reported on the abuse of apprentices, and the way the treadmill was used in prisons, and by 1840 changes had been made. While in Jamaica, Sturge worked with the Baptist chapels to found Free Villages , to create homes for freed slaves when they achieved full emancipation. They planned the communities to be outside the control of planters. He bought two plantations on

4845-514: The damage caused by the Royal Navy and French Navy gunboats , in attacks during the Crimean War. On this trip Sturge bought Robert Wilhelm Ekman 's painting Sunday Morning in a Farmhouse , which was shown in the exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts in 1858. The painting was brought back to Finland in 1960. Sturge married, first, in 1834, Eliza Cropper, sister of John Cropper . After her death, in 1846 he married Hannah Dickinson , daughter of Barnard Dickinson and his wife Ann Darby, who

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4940-434: The enslavement of the Roma in Wallachia and Moldavia between 1843 and 1855, and to emancipate the serfs in Russia in 1861 . The United States would pass the 13th Amendment in December 1865 after having just fought a bloody Civil War , ending slavery "except as a punishment for crime". In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery , except for the United States where slavery as punishment

5035-437: The first Anti-Slavery Society was wound up. In 1839, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society was formed by Joseph Sturge , which attempted to outlaw slavery worldwide and also to pressure the government to help enforce the suppression of the slave trade by declaring slave traders to be pirates. The world's oldest international human rights organization, it continues today as Anti-Slavery International . Thomas Clarkson

5130-416: The first Anti-Slavery Society, the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery Throughout the British Dominions , was founded. Many of its members had previously campaigned against the slave trade. On 28 August 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act was passed. It purchased the slaves from their masters and paved the way for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire by 1838, after which

5225-549: The first emancipation proclamation of the modern world (Decree of 16 Pluviôse An II). The Convention sent them to safeguard the allegiance of the population to revolutionary France. The proclamation resulted in crucial military strategy as it gradually brought most of the black troops into the French fold and kept the colony under the French flag for most of the conflict. The connection with France lasted until blacks and free people of colour formed L'armée indigène in 1802 to resist Napoleon 's Expédition de Saint-Domingue . Victory over

5320-403: The first states to abolish slavery, Vermont in 1777 and Pennsylvania in 1780 (Vermont did not join the Union until 1791). By 1804, the rest of the northern states had abolished slavery but it remained legal in southern states. By 1808, the United States outlawed the importation of slaves but did not ban slavery —except as a punishment— until 1865. In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish

5415-563: The institution of slavery and created international treaties, such as the 1926 Slavery Convention , to eradicate the institution worldwide. After centuries of struggle, slavery was eventually declared illegal at the global level in 1948 under the United Nations ' Universal Declaration of Human Rights . By this time, the Arab world was the only region in the world where chattel slavery was still legal. Slavery in Saudi Arabia , slavery in Yemen and slavery in Dubai were abolished in 1962–1963, with slavery in Oman following in 1970. Mauritania

5510-408: The island of Jamaica and the conditions of its enslaved workers. He visited it several times and witnessed firsthand the horrors of slavery , as well as the abuses under an apprenticeship system designed to control the labour of all former slaves above the age of six for 12 years. He worked for emancipation and abolition with African-Caribbean and English Baptists . In 1838, after full emancipation

5605-568: The king, her son Chlothar III , was only five years old. At some unknown date during her rule, she abolished the trade of slaves, although not slavery. Moreover, her (and contemporaneous Saint Eligius ') favorite charity was to buy and free slaves, especially children. Slavery started to dwindle and would be superseded by serfdom . In 1315, Louis X , king of France, published a decree proclaiming that "France signifies freedom" and that any slave setting foot on French soil should be freed. This prompted subsequent governments to circumscribe slavery in

5700-431: The late 1830s, he published two books about the apprenticeship system in Jamaica, which helped persuade the British Parliament to adopt an earlier full emancipation date. In Jamaica, Sturge also helped found Free Villages with the Baptists , to provide living quarters for freed slaves; one was named Sturge Town in his memory. Born on 2 August 1793, Joseph Sturge was the fourth child in the family of 12 of Joseph Sturge,

5795-495: The legality of slavery. They set the precedent of legal procedure in British courts that would later lead to successful outcomes for the plaintiffs. In these cases, deaths of the plaintiff and defendant, respectively, brought an end before court decisions. African slaves were not bought or sold in London but were brought by masters from other areas. Together with people from other nations, especially non-Christian, Africans were considered foreigners, not able to be English subjects. At

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5890-428: The natives. Las Casas for 20 years worked to get African slaves imported to replace natives; African slavery was everywhere and no one talked of ridding the New World of it, though France had abolished slavery in France itself and there was talk in other countries about doing the same. However, Las Casas had a late change of heart, and became an advocate for the Africans in the colonies. His book, A Short Account of

5985-472: The newly formed Metropolitan Police , on 4 July 1839. After Schofield read the Riot Act , Sturge held the police were responsible for the escalation of violence that led to the Bull Ring Riots, 1838 . In addition to his other commitments, Sturge joined the Anti-Corn Law League early in its existence. During 1842 he began a campaign for "complete suffrage", and had the support of the Christian Chartist pastor Arthur George O'Neill in Birmingham. His movement

6080-425: The pacifists were unable to raise their voices. Joseph Sturge Joseph Sturge (2 August 1793 – 14 May 1859) was an English Quaker , abolitionist and activist. He founded the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (now Anti-Slavery International ). He worked throughout his life in Radical political actions supporting pacifism , working-class rights, and the universal emancipation of slaves . In

6175-460: The poll: Richard Spooner [Cons] 2095, William Scholefield [Lib] 1735 and Sturge [Chartist] 346. In 1847 he stood once more, for Leeds , in the general election . There he was identified as "Bainesite" — a follower of Edward Baines — and was campaigning for schooling, with no state involvement, a divisive position in the British and Foreign School Society . Sturge took up the cause of peace and arbitration being pioneered by Henry Richard . He

6270-480: The principalities emancipated all of the 250,000 enslaved Roma people. Bartolomé de las Casas was a 16th-century Spanish Dominican priest, the first resident Bishop of Chiapas (Central America, today Mexico). As a settler in the New World he witnessed and opposed the poor treatment and virtual slavery of the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists, under the encomienda system. He advocated before King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor on behalf of rights for

6365-447: The responsibility of the London Peace Society . The resolution of the Congress mentioned Jay's ideas positively, but laid more weight on those of William Ladd , who had died in 1841, proposing international institutions to keep the peace. Sturge was critical of the role of William Scholefield , the Mayor of Birmingham , in the suppression of a chartist meeting in the Bull Ring, Birmingham . Schofield had arrived with 60 officers of

6460-429: The same time the new republics of mainland Spanish America became committed to the gradual abolition of slavery. During the Spanish American wars for independence (1810–1826), slavery was abolished in most of Latin America, though it continued until 1873 in Puerto Rico , 1886 in Cuba, and 1888 in Brazil (where it was abolished by the Lei Áurea , the "Golden Law"). Chile declared freedom of wombs in 1811, followed by

6555-426: The speakers were many of the chief philosophers and politicians of the time, including Frederic Bastiat , Charles Gilpin , Richard Cobden and Henry Richard William Wells Brown was invited to speak against slavery. Hugo introduced the concept of the United States of Europe . Through the next decades, more congresses were convened in various cities: The series was interrupted by an interval of wars during which

6650-443: The start of 1803. However, Denmark would not abolish slavery in the Danish West Indies until 1848. Haiti (then Saint-Domingue) formally declared independence from France in 1804 and became the first nation in the Western Hemisphere to permanently eliminate slavery in the modern era, following the 1804 Haitian revolution . The northern states in the U.S. all abolished slavery by 1804. The United Kingdom (then including Ireland) and

6745-444: The time, England had no naturalization procedure. The African slaves' legal status was unclear until 1772 and Somersett's Case , when the fugitive slave James Somersett forced a decision by the courts. Somersett had escaped, and his master, Charles Steuart, had him captured and imprisoned on board a ship, intending to ship him to Jamaica to be resold into slavery. While in London, Somersett had been baptized ; three godparents issued

6840-429: The trade. One aspect of abolitionism during this period was the effective use of images such as the famous Josiah Wedgwood " Am I Not A Man and a Brother? " anti-slavery medallion of 1787. Clarkson described the medallion as "promoting the cause of justice, humanity and freedom". The 1792 Slave Trade Bill passed the House of Commons mangled and mutilated by the modifications and amendments of Pitt , it lay for years, in

6935-501: The union (see Missouri compromise ). In 1787, the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed in London. Revolutionary France abolished slavery throughout its empire through the Law of 4 February 1794 , but Napoleon restored it in 1802 as part of a program to ensure sovereignty over its colonies. On March 16, 1792, Denmark became the first country to issue a decree to abolish their transatlantic slave trade from

7030-402: The world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies . Under the actions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi , chattel slavery has been abolished across Japan since 1590, though other forms of forced labour were used during World War II . The first and only country to self-liberate from slavery was a former French colony, Haiti , as a result of

7125-763: The year, before the industrial conflicts of the Plug Riots had hardened his attitude and he began to see Sturge's broadly middle class support as a threat to his leadership position. Following a dispute over redrafting the People's Charter as a legislative bill, in December 1842 with William Sharman Crawford MP, Sturge walked out of a joint CSU-Chartist delegate conference in Birmingham. Crawford introduced their reform bill to "a small and bored House" in May 1843. The bill

7220-619: Was abolished in the entire British Empire by the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. In his book The Struggle For Equality , historian James M. McPherson defines an abolitionist "as one who before the Civil War had agitated for the immediate, unconditional, and total abolition of slavery in the United States". He does not include antislavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln or the Republican Party, which called for

7315-504: Was allied in 1831 with George Stephen in pressing Parliament for immediate legislation against slavery. The Reform Act 1832 , in his view, failed to address poverty, and he worked for radical electoral reform. Sturge was appointed an alderman in 1835. He opposed the building of the Birmingham Town Hall , to be used for performances, because of a conscientious objection to religious oratorios . He became interested in

7410-402: Was also high, and people are less productive when not allowed to choose the type of work they prefer, are illiterate, and are forced to live and work in miserable and unhealthy conditions. The free labour markets and international free trade that Smith preferred would also result in different prices and allocations that Smith believed would be more efficient and productive for consumers. Prior to

7505-701: Was among the first to articulate the Enlightenment case against slavery, banning it in the Province of Georgia on humanitarian grounds, and arguing against it in Parliament. Soon after Oglethorpe's death in 1785, Sharp and More united with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect . The Somersett case in 1772, in which a fugitive slave was freed with the judgement that slavery did not exist under English common law , helped launch

7600-536: Was authorised, Sturge laid the foundation stone to the "Emancipation School Rooms" in Birmingham. Attending were United Baptist Sunday School and Baptist ministers of the city. In 1839 his work was honoured by a marble monument in a Baptist mission chapel in Falmouth , Jamaica. It was dedicated to "the Emancipated Sons of Africa". After legislation for the abolition of slavery in the British dominions

7695-580: Was based squarely on the middle classes. He envisaged a platform that could unite the League and the Chartist movement . The League would have nothing to do with it. Sturge had a measure of further Chartist and nonconformist support, but by the end of the year the Chartist leaders William Lovett and Feargus O'Connor had swung against him. O'Connor had supported Sturge's Complete Suffrage Union earlier in

7790-525: Was buried in the graveyard at the Friends Meeting House, in Birmingham, England. Rather than a grand public funeral, the family sought a modest event in keeping with their Quaker beliefs; but the mourning procession from the late Sturge's home included forty carriages of friends and family, led by the mayor, Sir John Ratcliff. The Joseph Sturge memorial by sculptor John Thomas was unveiled on 4 June 1862 at Five Ways . On 24 March 2007,

7885-505: Was enacted in 1833, slave-owning planters in the West Indies lobbied to postpone freedom for adults for twelve years in a form of indenture. Enslaved children under the age of six were emancipated by the new law on 1 August 1834, but older children and adults had to serve a period of bonded labour or "apprenticeship". Sturge led a campaign against this delaying mechanism. He was supported by William Allen , Lord Brougham , and others. In

7980-463: Was excluded from the thirteen colonies, existed as an independent state from 1777 to 1791. Vermont abolished adult slavery in 1777. In other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans and African Americans. During the following decades, the abolitionist movement grew in northern states, and Congress heavily regulated the expansion of Slave or Free States in new territories admitted to

8075-516: Was granddaughter of Abraham Darby III ; and they had five children, one being the peace campaigner Sophia Sturge (1849–1936). Fellow Quaker Stephen Henry Hobhouse wrote a biography in 1919 titled Joseph Sturge, his life and work . Joseph Sturge was a cousin of whaling shipowner, industrialist and philanthropist Thomas Sturge . Sturge died suddenly at his home on Wheeley's Road, in Edgbaston , Birmingham , on 14 May 1859 of heart disease. He

8170-667: Was instrumental in the founding of the Morning Star in 1855 as a newspaper through which to promote the Peace Society and his other social ideas. In 1854 Sturge and two other Quakers, Robert Charleton and Henry Pease , travelled to Saint Petersburg to see Tzar Nicholas I , trying to prevent the outbreak of the Crimean War . In 1856 Sturge and Thomas Harvey visited the Grand Duchy of Finland to investigate

8265-540: Was intended to end what the act referred to as "a state of slavery and bondage", but that was ineffective, necessitating the 1799 act. In the 1776 book The Wealth of Nations , Adam Smith argued for the abolition of slavery on economic grounds. Smith pointed out that slavery incurred security, housing, and food costs that the use of free labour would not, and opined that free workers would be more productive because they would have personal economic incentives to work harder. The death rate (and thus repurchase cost) of slaves

8360-446: Was lost by 101 to 32. In the years 1842–7 Sturge ran three times for Parliament, on his "complete suffrage" platform, without success. In August 1842 he was parliamentary candidate for Nottingham , in a by-election. He was defeated by John Walter , the proprietor of The Times . In Nottingham he visited a Sunday School run by Samuel Fox . The idea of teaching not only scripture, but also basic skills such as reading and writing,

8455-510: Was often ignored in French colonial society and the mulattoes became an intermediate caste between whites and blacks, while in the British colonies mulattoes and blacks were considered equal and discriminated against equally. During the Age of Enlightenment , many philosophers wrote pamphlets against slavery and its moral and economical justifications, including Montesquieu in The Spirit of

8550-560: Was repressed, and slavery was re-established. The news of the Law of 4 February 1794 that abolished slavery in France and its colonies and the revolution led by Colonel Delgrès sparked another wave of rebellion in Saint-Domingue. From 1802 Napoleon sent more than 20,000 troops to the island, two-thirds died, mostly from yellow fever. Seeing the failure of the Saint-Domingue expedition , in 1803 Napoleon decided to sell

8645-446: Was taken up by Sturge, who opened a similar school around 1845. In that year he started an Adult School movement, in Birmingham, and took steps in 1847 to spread Sunday (First-Day) Schools among Quakers. Sturge then contested Birmingham in 1844 as a Chartist candidate, in a by-election caused by the death of Joshua Scholefield . He was strongly supported at the election hustings , split the liberal vote, but ultimately came bottom of

8740-555: Was the beginning of what became the Haitian Revolution led by formerly enslaved people like Georges Biassou , Toussaint L'Ouverture , and Jean-Jacques Dessalines . The rebellion swept through the north of the colony, and with it came freedom to thousands of enslaved blacks, but also violence and death. In 1793, French Civil Commissioners in St. Domingue and abolitionists, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax and Étienne Polverel , issued

8835-567: Was the key speaker at the World Anti-Slavery Convention it held in London in 1840. In the principalities of Wallachia and Moldavia , the government held slavery of the Roma (often referred to as Gypsies) as legal at the beginning of the 19th century. The progressive pro-European and anti-Ottoman movement, which gradually gained power in the two principalities, also worked to abolish that slavery. Between 1843 and 1855,

8930-492: Was the last country to officially abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981. Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in almost all countries, as well as being against international law , but human trafficking for labour and for sexual bondage continues to affect tens of millions of adults and children. Balthild of Chelles , herself a former slave, queen consort of Neustria and Burgundy by marriage to Clovis II , became regent in 657 since

9025-551: Was to organise the World's Anti-Slavery Convention . It was held at the Freemasons' Hall, London , from 12 June 1840. Others were held in 1843 ( Brussels ) and 1849 ( Paris ). It attracted delegates from Europe, North America, South Africa and Caribbean countries, as well as the British dominions of Australia and Ireland. It included African-Caribbean delegates from Haiti and Jamaica (then representing Britain), women activists from

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