Slavery In The 18th Century

The enslavement of people of African descent was a part of the Atlantic slave trade. Slaves would be shipped from Africa to the Americas and work mainly in cotton, tobacco, or sugar plantations for free. Then, the goods were sent to Europe. Millions of people were enslaved, as it was a very successful business where capitalism was established. However, it was abolished, first by Denmark in 1802, then by Britain in 1807 and the other European countries followed the movement during the century (Wade 2015, 100-101). Slavery was abolished later. We can wonder why something considered as successful was abolished. As Peter Wade said, “the causes of abolition are complex” as they depend of different factors such as economic and politics factors and also, moral factors. (Wade 2015, 101)

Different moral grounds changed the conception of enslavement, especially in the 18th century in Europe. It was the Enlightenment. Even though most philosophers and writers did not agree on the subject of slavery, some raised their voices to denounce it. Indeed, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, in The Social

It managed to arise the reality and change the vision of slavery based on moral grounds. And if people think that slavery is immoral they are going to want to change the current situation.

The abolition of slavery is also due to political and economic reasons. Indeed, slavery was based on free-wage labor and “it began to seem unsuitable for increasingly capitalist economies.” This is why after slavery was abolished workers were earning a wage (Wade 2015, 101). Moreover, in the United States, states from the North were beginning to become industrialized which posed a threat to the South as their slave based economy

struggled to compete with northern levels of economic production. Thus, it was challenging