Senate approves Venezuela’s abolition law

On 10 December 1852 the Caracas provincial deputation issued an agreement asking Congress to pass a law abolishing slavery. The appeal came after decades of gradual manumission that freed relatively...

A document dated 21 December 1852 set out the distribution of 50,000 pesos from the national budget to provincial manumission funds. It put public money behind gradual emancipation, but the archive...

A circular dated 30 April 1853 reminded governors that the law barred bringing enslaved people into Venezuela, including as personal servants. Its publication in the Gaceta de Venezuela on 29 May...

On 10 March 1854 President José Gregorio Monagas addressed Congress during debate over abolition. He urged passage of a just law while insisting that abolition not violate slaveholders’ property...

The House approved an abolition decree by a large majority after years of petitions and debate. Arguments centered on ending slavery while compensating enslavers for their alleged property losses. The...

President José Gregorio Monagas signed the law, which stated that slavery was abolished forever in Venezuela and freed manumisos from compulsory service. It also barred the importation of enslaved...

The law was publicly promulgated in Caracas amid official ceremony and popular attendance. Contemporary accounts emphasized national leaders and republican symbols. A decolonial account also asks...

The day after promulgation, women newly freed by law continued their customary work carrying employers’ carpets to church. A crowd seized and tore the carpets, shouting “¡Abajo las alfombras!” The...

Five days after public promulgation of the 1854 abolition law, President José Gregorio Monagas issued regulations for its administration. The system required abolition boards to register formerly...

The 1856 law formally recognized as national debt the assessed value of people freed under the 1854 abolition law and its regulations. It set out claim review, registration, interest, and payment...