Slavery existed for thousands of years before Columbus went on his famous cruise.

https://greatawakening.win/p/13zNB0mLV2/

It was originally a punishment for a crime. Later, it became a method of bringing in conquered peoples into the society that conquered them.

When White Europeans came to North America, they discovered that the American Indians had slaves. Later, the American Indians would also buy black slaves.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_slave_ownership

Slavery existed in Europe. Portugal was the #1 slave trading country, with the largest shipment of black slaves from Africa to the Portugese colony of Brazil.

Black people were also involved in slavery. Black African tribal kings would capture their enemies and sell them to slave traders. Today, there are more slaves in Africa than ever existed at the height of the slave trade.

So, who began the process of ending slavery?

The American founding fathers, that's who.

When the American colonists declared independence from Great Britain, they also began to end the system of slavery.

Jefferson's original draft of the Declaration of Independence included this passage:

He [the king] has waged cruel war against human nature itself, violating its most sacred rights of life and liberty in the persons of a distant people who never offended him, captivating & carrying them into slavery in another hemisphere or to incur miserable death in their transportation thither. This piratical warfare, the opprobrium of infidel powers, is the warfare of the Christian King of Great Britain. Determined to keep open a market where Men should be bought & sold, he has prostituted his negative for suppressing every legislative attempt to prohibit or restrain this execrable commerce. And that this assemblage of horrors might want no fact of distinguished die, he is now exciting those very people to rise in arms among us, and to purchase that liberty of which he has deprived them, by murdering the people on whom he has obtruded them: thus paying off former crimes committed against the Liberties of one people, with crimes which he urges them to commit against the lives of another.

This clause was removed by the committee for the final draft.

Following 1776, many American States began to outlaw slavery, with Vermont in 1777. This was the turning point, as the Atlantic slave trade reached its peak during the 1780's.

1792 - Denmark outlaws slave trade to its West Indies colonies, effective in 1803.

1807 - Britain outlaws Atlantic slave trade.

1808 - United States passes law banning slave trade.

1811 - Spain abolishes slavery.

1813 - Sweden bans slave trade.

1814 - Netherlands bans slave trade.

1817 - France bans slave trade.

Once the slave trades were banned by multiple countries, they would eventually abolish slavery altogether in the next few decades.

https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-slavery-idUSL1561464920070322

So, it was the American founding fathers who set the light afire to end slavery.

The problem they had at the time was, they wanted to end it (Jefferson tried several times), but they didn't know what it would look like. How would the slaves avoid being captured and sent somewhere else? How would they live with no real skills?

Still, they knew it was wrong, was an institution that existed for thousands of years before they were born, and wanted to end it, eventually.

Remember, it was illegal to free slaves, where slavery existed. So, what do you do? Free your slaves and go to prison yourself?

Washington freed his slaves upon his death, as part of his will. Virginia allowed that at the time, but then changed the law. Jefferson wanted to do the same, but it was illegal by the time he died.

Bottom line: Slavery existed for thousands of years, and was generally accepted as normal for most of that time. This was likely because it originated as a method of punishing criminals (which is why the 13 Amendment still allows slavery for punishment of a crime). Later, it became less about that and more about conquering other people, and bringing these new people into the winning society.

Eventually, it became nothing more than a brutal exploitation of other people (just how the globlist psychopaths today think). This rationale for slavery was hotly contested, and ending it became a real idea in society.

Ultimately, the American founding fathers started the political process that eventually ended slavery as an accepted practice.

Now class, it is time for recess!