Act for the Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Colonies

Impact

Great Britain's Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 openly proclaimed the beginning of the end of the Western world's activities in slavery, a denouement that was ultimately fulfilled throughout the developed and colonized world. The quest for the passage of the abolition act brought together various reformers—who perhaps would have never united otherwise—under a common cause and established a progressive context in which persons wishing to improve the lot of the downtrodden could operate. The act itself was the drawing of a battle line as to what was socially, economically, and racially tolerable—an assertion that the removal of enslavement and the awarding of freedom could be effected by law and should be protected in law. As slavery was closely tied to racism, the one being both cause and effect of the other, slavery's defeat ensured the evolution of intolerance to racism as well as associated poverty and inequality. The act's success relied not just upon parliamentary approval but furthermore upon reconciliation between all in society, and without such understanding, full social freedom can never be achieved. The greatest legacy of the act may be its serving as a historical inspiration to all those seeking to rid the world of oppression and to banish injustices from modern society. One piece of legal change in 1833 redefined how all human beings should think about, allow, and preserve liberty, teaching that all human life has a value that money cannot buy.