Just as the great Atlantic empires collapsed as a result of the myriad revolutionary movements of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the slave system that had in many ways built and sustained their economies came under increasing attack. Reformers throughout the Atlantic World, not to mention slaves themselves, challenged the legitimacy of the slave trade and slavery on ethical, religious, and philosophical grounds. Yet despite the successes of the Haitian Revolution, or perhaps because of it, many forces operated against abolition, due in great part to the demands for slave labor made by those who stood to benefit from the highly profitable plantation system.
How was the rise of abolitionist sentiment, which brought about the end of the Atlantic slave trade, both tied to the revolutionary changes sweeping the Atlantic World in the eighteenth century and the culmination of these movements?
Why do attitudes toward and ideas about slavery change in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries?
On what grounds were arguments against slavery put forth?
Who voiced opposition to, or took action against, slavery and the slave trade? Why?
How did slaves themselves act to resist enslavement?
Why did the theoretical end of the slave trade and abolition of slavery throughout the Atlantic World take significant time to realize in practice? What forces acted against abolition?
What are legacies of the Atlantic slave trade?
