A short one about the reasons why slavery was eventually abolished - the humanitarian vs. economic reason - after about 20-30 million Africans were taken from their land up to about 1850. A lot of them died along the way, either while marching in chains for hundreds of days or rotting in their own feces on a ship. The lucky ones went anywhere other than America.

Abolition of Slavery

I believe the abolition of slavery resulted from an ideological shift in western nations, and that it was jointly influenced by humanitarian and Marxist perspectives. Philosophically, the Enlightenment examined human value in totally new and intellectual ways, the church was about to experience major reformations, and the industrial revolution was underway.  As well, the concept of individual freedom was becoming endemic in western society. This all leads to a humanitarian argument for the abolition of slavery.

In a capitalist economy, slaves do not contribute to either the GDP or the spending power of a nation, and this is a major disincentive for utilising slavery as governmental policy. After all, much profit was made by the slave traders, but as a black market, none of it was accountable for the relevant governments. Of course the United States was slower to reach the same goal, but I believe the abolition of slavery there can also be attributed to economic reasons. Remembering that the US was settled by mostly Puritan, illiterate, conservative farmers, ideological changes took longer to occur. However, they also received pressure from western Europe on ideological grounds, and once the economic value proved less than slavery was worth, it was also abolished.

In this way, I think the two seemingly opposite theories need to converge in order to produce the abolition of slavery.

 

 

Copyright Johanna Voerman Khisa, 2002-03. Reprinting or reposting without permission is prohibited.