In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish the enslavement of the Roma in Wallachia and Moldavia, and to emancipate the serfs in Russia. Slavery was declared illegal in 1948 under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mauritania was the last country to abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981. Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in almost all countries, as well as being against international law, but a high rate of human trafficking for labor and for sexual bondage continues to affect tens of millions of adults and children. Read more: Abolitionism. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism.On 16 April 1862, Abraham Lincoln signed the District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act, abolishing slavery in Washington D. C. Meanwhile, the Union suddenly found themselves dealing with a steady stream of escaped slaves from the South rushing to Union lines. In response, Congress passed the Confiscation Acts, which essentially declared escaped slaves from the South to be confiscated war property, and thus did not have to returned to their masters in the Confederacy. Although the initial act did not mention emancipation, the second Confiscation act, passed on July 17, 1862, stated that escaped or liberated slaves belonging to anyone who participated in or supported the rebellion "shall be deemed captives of war, and shall be forever free of their servitude, and not again held as slaves." Later on, Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation was an executive order of the U.S. government issued on 1 January 1863, changing the legal status of 3 million slaves in designated areas of the Confederacy from "slave" to "free". Slaves were legally freed by the Proclamation and became actually free by escaping to federal lines, or by advances of federal troops. Many served the federal army as teamsters, cooks, laundresses, and laborers, as well as scouts, spies, and guides. Confederate General Robert Lee once said "The chief source of information to the enemy is through our negroes." Plantation owners, realizing the emancipation would destroy their economic system, sometimes moved their slaves as far as possible out of reach of the Union army. By "Juneteenth" (19 June 1865, in Texas), the Union Army controlled all of the Confederacy and liberated all its slaves. The owners were never compensated, nor were freed slaves compensated by former owners. Read more: Abolitionism. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism.
