Berlin General Act invokes suppression of slavery while advancing colonial control

The law freed children born to enslaved mothers after its enactment and some older people, while placing others in a patronato system of coerced labor. It was a limited step shaped by abolitionist...

Brazil’s Free Womb Law declared children born to enslaved women after the law’s passage legally free, while requiring them to remain with enslavers or state institutions for years. It was a gradualist...

Spain’s law abolished slavery in Puerto Rico, with transitional service obligations and compensation for enslavers. Enslaved people and abolitionists had campaigned for freedom, while the law sought...

The law formally ended slavery but required formerly enslaved people to remain under patronato, a labor regime that preserved coercive control. Resistance and pressure led to its early termination...

European governments opened a conference to regulate their territorial and commercial competition in Africa. No African state or community was represented as an equal participant. The conference’s...

The Spanish government brought legal slavery in Cuba to an end after a gradual transition that had included an apprenticeship-like regime. The delay reflected the political power of plantation...

Brazil’s Lei Áurea formally abolished slavery, making it the last country in the Americas to do so. The law followed sustained resistance by enslaved people, mass escapes, abolitionist mobilization,...

The Brussels General Act created measures for suppressing African slave trading, including controls on arms and movement in designated regions. It was shaped by African resistance and anti-slavery...

Organized by Trinidadian lawyer Henry Sylvester Williams, this meeting brought activists from Africa, the Caribbean, Britain, and the United States into a shared political forum. It challenged...

The congress debated racial equality and imperial power in an era when colonial rule was presented as a civilizing mission. Du Bois and other Black intellectuals used the international meeting to...