When we think about abolition, the story is often contained within national borders that is, mainly the United States. We think of core moments like the Civil War, and emancipation in 1863. In that telling, abolition appears as a largely domestic moral reckoning, resolved within the boundaries of a single nation-state. Yet over the past several decades, historians have fundamentally challenged this framework.
In this video we will explore key questions like: Was abolition primarily the result of moral conviction, or did shifting economic systems make slavery less profitable? To what extent did enslaved resistance, through rebellion, flight, and everyday acts of defiance, force imperial governments to act? And did abolition truly dismantle systems of coercion, or did it transform slavery into new forms of labor exploitation and racial hierarchy? By reframing abolition as a global process, historians reveal how it reshaped the modern world.