Abolition of Slavery

The Industrial Revolution and the abolition of slavery developed simultaneously, with complicated relationships.

• Industrial Britain abolished the slave trade (1807) and then slavery itself in its empire (1833)
• The United States abolished slavery through the Civil War and the Thirteenth Amendment (1865)
• Brazil was the last major nation to abolish slavery (1888)
• Many abolitionists drew on Enlightenment principles of natural rights, but also on the religious revivals of the early nineteenth century
• Some argued that industrial wage labor was more efficient than slave labor; others argued the opposite. The Civil War in part settled this question by force.