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A common theme among most countries which derived Enlightenment ideas from Europe was the intentional non-inclusion of Enlightenment philosophies pertaining to slavery. Originally during the French Revolution, a revolution deeply inspired by Enlightenment philosophy, "France's revolutionary government had denounced slavery, but the property ...
The anti-slavery movement originated during the Age of Enlightenment, focused on ending the transatlantic slave trade. In Colonial America, a few German Quakers issued the 1688 Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery , which marked the beginning of the American abolitionist movement.
The Age of Enlightenment of the late 17th century influenced increasing support for emancipation in the 18th century. [2] In the 1770s, Black people throughout New England began sending petitions to northern legislatures demanding freedom. [3]
Both the moderate Enlightenment and a radical or revolutionary Enlightenment were reactions against the authoritarianism, irrationality, and obscurantism of the established churches. Philosophers such as Voltaire depicted organized religion as hostile to the development of reason and the progress of science and incapable of verification.
Paine's statement, "Man has no property in man", although used by him in Rights of Man to deny the right of any generation to bind future ones, has also been interpreted as an argument against slavery. [126] [127] In the book, Paine also describes his mission, among other things, as to "break the chains of slavery and oppression". [128]
While the United Kingdom did not ban slavery throughout most of the empire, including British North America till 1833, free blacks found refuge in the Canadas after the American Revolutionary War and again after the War of 1812. Refugees from slavery fled the South across the Ohio River to the North via the Underground Railroad.
While the British knew about Spanish and Portuguese slave trading, they did not implement slave labor in the Americas until the 17th century. [81] British travelers were fascinated by the dark-skinned people they found in West Africa; they developed mythologies that situated them in their view of the cosmos. [82]
However, academic John Stewart argues that due to the fact that many members of the Scottish Enlightenment were involved in supporting slavery and scientific racism (a consequence, he argues, of Scotland's disproportionate involvement in the Atlantic slave trade), "the development of eighteenth-century chemistry and the broader intellectual ...