The real causes of the abolition of slavery are essentially economic, in no way philanthropic as expressed by the slave-owning countries

Slavery began with the discovery of America by Christopher Columbus in 1492. But it was at the beginning of the 16th century, on the initiative of the Portuguese, that the slave trade took off and trade was born. triangular. It is so called because it covers three continents. European countries charter ships that go to Africa. There, the Europeans exchanged goods for African slaves whom they captured. The captives are taken to the American continent and to the West Indies where they are sold to European slavers, owners of cotton fields or sugar cane. The slave system made it possible to accumulate enormous profits for the benefit of the colonists and the colonialist metropolis, the economic interests at stake were important and enormous.

For more than three centuries, the triangular trade, also called the slave trade, ravaged the African continent. Tens of millions of Africans were captured during this period. Several million of them died as a result of this capture, most often during their transport to the American continent. On the African continent for 1 black captured 10 were killed. The trip, which lasted several months, was carried out in abominable and inhuman sanitary conditions. The triangular trade marks the beginning of colonization. It profoundly changed the face of the world.

On the plantation the working conditions were inhuman: the slave works like an animal from morning to evening and every day, he is constantly exhausted, has no interest in the work he does, by resistance he sabotages the work, he is undernourished, revolts of slaves are numerous.

Regarding the treatment inflicted on slaves in the French colonies, the Black Code (1685) defined the corporal punishment to which slaves were exposed.

They vary according to the seriousness of the act declared reprehensible: the whip or rods (soft sticks), branding on the shoulder with a fleur-de-lis with a hot iron, the two ears cut off, the hock cut off, the penalty of death (hanging, stake or wheel).

The real reasons for the abolition of slavery are in the new economic conditions of the 19th century. These are :

-The manufacture of sugar from beets – The industrial revolution – The low productivity of slave labor

-Making sugar from beets

In the 15th century, the beet was present throughout Europe. In 1801, the first industrial sugar factory was built. Beet sugar is competing with cane sugar. Mastery of beet refining

sugar (creation of factories for the production of beet sugar) removed any need for slavery in the sugar cane fields from the beginning of the 19th century. The slavers were forced to consider the liberation of blacks who were becoming less and less profitable compared to the production of beet sugar. The introduction of factories for the processing of sugar cane will make this servile labor superfluous and expensive.

-The industrial revolution- The low productivity of bonded labor

-The industrial Revolutionwill be the replacement of a society based on agriculture by a society based on industry; As early as the 1820s, economists denounced slavery as an unprofitable, costly system that hindered industrialization and capitalism. The criteria of profitability and productivity will be at the forefront. We will highlight the low productivity of slave labor: the slave works like an animal from morning to evening and every day, as a result, he is constantly exhausted, undernourished, has no interest in the work he realizes, by resistance he sabotages the work, the revolts of slaves are numerous