I'm launching another typically Quixotic attack on yadda yadda yadda
I'd like to examine data such as "when non-property owning members of society were allowed to vote" and "when were seditious libel laws repealed" but for now I'll settle for the low hanging fruit of: "when was slavery abolished" and "when did women get the vote"
First, the issue of slavery. True, some podunk little place nobody ever heard of abolished slavery nearly a century before the US did - shoot, the cheese eating surrender monkeys abolished it TWICE before we did. And a few other places. But for right thinking people, the US provides the model.
1775 - Slavery abolished in Madeira.
1778 - Slavery declared illegal in Scotland .
1791 - (22-23 August) Uprising in the Clairiére de Bois-Calman in French West Indian colony of Saint-Domingue, led by Bouckman. This date (23 August) has been designated by UNESCO as the "International Day to Commemorate the Slave Trade and its Abolition".
1792 - (28 September) The Constituent Assembly abolishes slavery in France but not in the colonies; resolution for gradual abolition of the slave trade defeated in House of Lords.
1793 - Arrival in Saint-Domingue of Sonthonax, who abolishes slavery on the island (29 August) and organizes the election of several deputies, including a Black one, Jean-Baptiste Belley; white refugees pour into U.S. ports, fleeing the insurrection in Saint Domingue.
1794 - (4 February) In France, the National Convention adopts a decree abolishing slavery and emancipates all slaves in the French colonies; (22 March).
1802 - (2 May) Napoleon reinstates slavery and sends his soldiers to the colonies.
1804 – (1 January) the independent nation of Haiti is established by General Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Haiti, or Ayiti in Creole, was the name given to the island by the indigenous Taino-Arawak peoples, meaning "mountainous country."
1805 - the Constitution of Haiti provides that any slave arriving in Haiti is automatically both free and a citizen of the country.
1807 - (25 March) Slave Trade Abolition Bill passed in the British Parliament; Britain prohibits slave trade;
1813 – Gradual emancipation adopted in Argentina.
1814 – Gradual emancipation begins in Colombia.
1815 – At the Congress of Vienna, the British pressure Spain, Portugal, France, and the Netherlands into abolishing the slave trade, though Spain and Portugal are permitted a few years of continued slaving to replenish labor supplies; Napoleon signs the decree of 29 March, abolishing slave trade for France. In reality, it was practiced illegally during most of the 18th century.
1822 - Liberia is founded as an African Colony for freed American slaves with land purchased by the American Colonization Society.
1823 - slavery abolished in Chile.
1824 - Abolition of slavery in Central America; Britain and U.S. negotiate a treaty condemning the slave trade as piracy and establishing joint procedures for its suppression. However, the U.S. Senate makes a series of amendments to the treaty, and the British refuse to sign.
1826 - Abolition of slavery in Brazil (north of equator).
1829 - Slavery abolished in Mexico.
1831 - slavery abolished in Bolivia.
1833 - Abolition of Slavery British Empire Bill passed, with effect in the British West Indies from August 1834
1837 – Britain invites the U.S. and France to create a joint international patrol to stop slaving. The U.S. declines to participate.
1838 – Most colonial assemblies in the British West Indies have introduced legislation dismantling the apprenticeship system for former slaves. Laws against vagrancy and squatting attempt to keep the social and labor system of the plantation economies intact, with varying results; (1 August) enslaved men, women and children in British Empire became free.
1839 – (January) Nicholas Trist, U.S. Consul in Havana, recommends that the U.S. Administration dispatch a naval squadron to West Africa to patrol for slavers, warning that the British will police American vessels if the U.S. does not act
1841 – Nicholas Trist is dismissed as U.S. Consul in Havana amid allegations that he connived at, or made no effort to suppress, the illegal sale of U.S. vessels to Spanish slave traders; the Quintuple Treaty is signed, under which England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria agree to search vessels on the high seas in order to suppress the slave trade.
1842 - slavery abolished in Uruguay.
1848 - Slavery abolished in all French and Danish colonies. The provisional government of the 2nd Republic signs the final decree inspired by Schoelcher; Libreville, Gabon originally founded as a French trading post in 1843, is expanded with the settlement of freed slaves; Denmark/Norway abolishes slavery in its West-Indian colonies; emancipation by the French of their slaves.
1850 - The Fugitive Slave Law passed in the United States; California adopts a constitution forbidding slavery.
1851 – Slavery abolished in Ecuador; slave trade ended in Brazil.
1853 - Abolition in Argentina.
1854 - Abolition in Venezuela and Peru.
1857 - Dred Scott Decision holds that a Negro slave's residence in free territory does not make him free; Missouri Compromise declared unconstitutional saying that Congress had no right to prohibit slavery in the territories.
1862 – Slave trade ended in Cuba.
1863 - abolition in the Dutch colonies (Surinam, Curaç ao).
1865 - U.S. Civil War ends. Slavery finally abolished in United States territories as a result of the 13th amendment to the Constitution and the end of the Civil War.
The US does much better in women's sufferage, lagging behind gap-toothed sheep- shagging front running New Zealand by only a quarter of a century. The model for the rest of the world came in 12th in this category. Not too bad. It's kind of mind-boggling how recent all of this is...my father was born in 1913. His mother couldn't vote when he was born. That seems like the very recent past to me...
- 1893 New Zealand
- 1902 Australia1
- 1906 Finland
- 1913 Norway
- 1915 Denmark
- 1917 Canada2
- 1918 Austria, Germany, Poland, Russia
- 1919 Netherlands
- 1920 United States
Frowny Faces for Australia and that country I admire so much, Canada:
1. Australian women, with the exception of aboriginal women, won the vote in 1902. Aboriginals, male and female, did not have the right to vote until 1962.
2. Canadian women, with the exception of Canadian Indian women, won the vote in 1917. Canadian Indians, male and female, did not win the vote until 1960
But big Smiley Faces for some other places, like Kuwait which we liberated from Saddam in the 80s. In 2005 they got around to letting women vote. Way to go, Dubya's Daddy's support turned out to be SO justified. Also Smilies for Saudi Arabia - the only country with suffrage that does not allow its women to vote, but I'll bet they're kinda sorta maybe thinking about it, thanks to quiet diplomatic pressure from Condi Rice.
Two countries have no vote (male or female) at all: Brunei and the United Arab Emirates. But I'm sure the state department is going to bring about a change in that situation any day now.
