Remembering the Abolition of the Slave Trade

In 1791, slaves on a Caribbean island revolted. Their rebellion was a spark that ignited a movement to abolish slavery. The United Nations designated the date of that event, August 23, as International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition.

When the slaves rebelled on the Caribbean island of Hispañola in 1791, they set in motion a movement to abolish slavery. They won their freedom from slavery, the island’s independence from colonial rule and, ultimately, the abolition of the slave trade. Today Hispañola is the location of Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The uprising that began August 23, 1791, became an insurgency that weakened the French colonial overlords. Brutal plantation owners were already fighting the universal ideals of liberty, equality and fraternity introduced by the French Revolution that began in 1789.

The International Day for the Remembrance of the Slave Trade and Its Abolition was established by the United Nations to be observed on August 23 to remind the world of the history and consequences of slavery.

This double photo, meant for use in a stereoscope, an early 3-D image viewer, documents U.S. anti-slavery history. It shows African-American “freedmen” next to a canal in Richmond, Virginia, during the U.S. Civil War in 1865. The Civil War was fought over the secession of Southern slaveholding states and resulted in the abolition of slavery in the United States.