The Athenian lawgiver Solon abolishes debt slavery and frees all Athenian citizens who had formerly been enslaved.
A false translation
The Law of the Twelve Tables (Latin: Leges Duodecim Tabularum or Duodecim Tabulae) was the legislation that stood at the foundation of Roman law. The Tables consolidated earlier traditions into an enduring set of laws.
A law passed in Ancient Rome that abolished the contractual form of Nexum, or debt bondage.
269 to 232 BCE - The Edicts of AshokaThe emperor cries out for the "welfare of the whole world" and abolishes the slave trade in the Maurya Empire.
Measures to eliminate the landowning aristocracy include the abolition of slavery and the establishment of a free peasantry who owed taxes and labor to the state. They also discouraged serfdom. The dynasty was overthrown in 206 BC and many of its laws were overturned.
Wang Mang, first and only emperor of the Xin Dynasty, usurped the Chinese throne and instituted a series of sweeping reforms, including the abolition of slavery and radical land reform from 9–12 A.D
622 - The Constitution of MedinaMuhammad's practical diplomacy
The Papacy commands under penalty of sin that all Christians who hold other Christians as slaves must set them free.
Doge Pietro IV Candiano reconvenes the popular assembly and had it approve of a law prohibiting the slave trade in the Italian city-state.
1050 - The development of Canon LawThe invention of the Individual
1166 - The Assize of ClarendonThe formation of 'Common Law'
1215 - Magna CartaA document worth more than its actual contents
The Sachsenspiegel, the most influential German code of law from the Middle Ages, condemns slavery as a violation of man's likeness to God.
1222 - The Golden Bull - HungaryOne of the first examples of constitutional limits being placed on the powers of a European monarch
The Liber Paradisus (Heaven Book) is a law text of the Commune of Bologna which proclaimed the abolition of slavery and the release of serfs, becoming the first city in the world to abolish slavery.
1264 - The Statute of Kalisz, PolandThe General Charter of Jewish Liberties known as the Statute of Kalisz, granted Jews unprecedented legal rights in Europe, including exclusive jurisdiction over Jewish matters to Jewish courts, and established a separate tribunal for other criminal matters involving Christians and Jews.
Edward I passes Quia Emptores, breaking any indenture to an estate, on the sale or transfer of the estate, a statute that prevented tenants from alienating their lands to others by subinfeudation.
By effectively ending the practice of subinfeudation, Quia Emptores hastened the end of feudalism in England, which had already been on the decline for quite some time. Direct feudal obligations were increasingly being replaced by cash rents and outright sales of land which gave rise to the practice of livery and maintenance or bastard feudalism, the retention and control by the nobility of land, money, soldiers and servants via direct salaries, land sales and rent payments.
"France signifies freedom", that any slave setting foot on French ground should be freed.
However some limited cases of slavery continued until the 17th century in some harbours in Provence, and until the 18th century in some of France's overseas territories. Most aspects of serfdom are also eliminated.
1347 - The Statutes of Casimir the Great of Poland issued in Wiślica to emancipate all non-free people
1368 - The Great Ming Code - Da Ming lü 大明律
The Hongwu Emperor abolished all forms of slavery, but it continued
across China. Later, a decree to limit the number of slaves per
household and a severe tax from slave owners was imposed.One of the most important law codes in Chinese history, The Great Ming Code represents a break with the past, following the alien-ruled Yuan (Mongol) dynasty, and the flourishing of culture under the Ming, the last great Han-ruled dynasty. It was also a model for the Qing code, which followed it, and is a fundamental source for understanding Chinese society and culture.
The Code regulated all the perceived major aspects of social affairs, aiming at the harmony of political, economic, military, familial, ritual, international, and legal relations in the empire and cosmic relations in the universe. The all-encompassing nature of the Code makes it an encyclopedic document, providing rich materials on Ming history. Because of the pervasiveness of legal proceedings in the culture generally, the Code has relevance far beyond the specialized realm of Chinese legal studies. The basic value system and social norms that the Code imposed became so thoroughly ingrained in Chinese society that the Manchus, who conquered China and established the Qing dynasty, chose to continue the Code in force with only minor changes.
1463 - Sultan Mehmed II's firman grants freedom to Bosnian Franciscans after the Ottoman conquest of BosniaThe Ahdname of Milodraž stated:
"I, the Sultan Khan the Conqueror, hereby declare the whole world that, the Bosnian Franciscans granted with this sultanate firman are under my protection. And I command that:
No one shall disturb or give harm to these people and their churches! They shall live in peace in my state. These people who have become emigrants, shall have security and liberty. They may return to their monasteries which are located in the borders of my state. No one from my empire notable, viziers, clerks or my maids will break their honour or give any harm to them!
No one shall insult, put in danger or attack these lives, properties, and churches of these people! Also, what and those these people have brought from their own countries have the same rights...
1505 - Nihil novi nisi commune consensu - constitutional measure adopted by the Polish SejmNihil novi nisi commune consensu ("Nothing new without the common consent") was a major component of the evolution of the Polish parliament (Sejm)
The Leyes de Burgos was the first codified set of laws governing the behavior of Spaniards in the Americas, particularly with regard to the indigenous people of the Americas .
Decree of Charles V of Spain and the importation of African slaves to the Americas, in a monopoly intended to discourage enslavement of Native Americans.
1525 - The Twelve ArticlesThe Twelve Articles were part of the peasants' demands of the Swabian League during the German Peasants' War of 1525. They are considered the first draft of human rights and civil liberties in continental Europe. The gatherings in the process of drafting them are considered to be the first constituent assembly on German soil.
1529 - The Statutes of LithuaniaThe main purpose of the First Statute was to standardise and collect various tribal and customary laws in order to codify them as a single document.
This encyclical strengthened the decree of Charles V of Spain in 1530 prohibiting the enslavement of Indians.
1550 - The Valladolid Debate The Valladolid debate was the first moral debate in European history to discuss the rights and treatment of a colonized people by colonizers.
1573 - The Warsaw ConfederationSigned on 28 January 1573 by the Polish national assembly, was the first European act granting religious freedoms.
In England, the end of serfdom began with the Peasants' Revolt in 1381 (see below). It had largely died out in England by 1500 as a personal status and was fully ended when Elizabeth I freed the last remaining serfs in 1574.
1650–1662:
Jesuit priest António Vieira fights for the human rights of the
indigenous population of Brazil and obtains royal decrees against their
enslavement.
“Can
there be a greater want of understanding, or greater error in judgment
between men and men than for me to think that I must be your master
because I was born farther away from the sun, and you must be my slave
because you were born nearer to it?”
1689 - The Bill of Rights
"All the main principles of the Bill of Rights are still in force today, and the Bill of Rights continues to be cited in legal cases in the UK and in Commonwealth countries. It has a primary place in a wider national historical narrative of documents which established the rights of Parliament and set out universal civil liberties, starting with Magna Carta in 1215. It also has international significance, as it was a model for the US Bill of Rights 1789, and its influence can be seen in other documents which establish rights of human beings, such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights."
1689 - Two Treatises of Government by John Locke
According to Locke there are three natural rights:
Life: everyone is entitled to live.
Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right.
Estate: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights.
1723 - Slaves become serfs in Russia
Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs.
1723 - 1730 The Yongzheng Emperor of the Qing Dynasty frees all slaves
The Yongzheng emancipation seeks to free all slaves to strengthen the autocratic ruler through a kind of social leveling that creates an undifferentiated class of free subjects under the throne.
1751 - Georgia, the last province in the British colonisation of North America, introduces black slavery.
Despite having banned slavery in 1735, the only one of the thirteen colonies to have done so.
1772 - Lord Mansfield and the Somerset v Stewart case
In Britain, until 1807, except for statutes facilitating and taxing the international slave trade, there was virtually no legislative intervention in relation to slaves as property, and accordingly the common law had something of a "free hand".
1775-76 The pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas Paine
1689 - The Bill of Rights "All the main principles of the Bill of Rights are still in force today, and the Bill of Rights continues to be cited in legal cases in the UK and in Commonwealth countries. It has a primary place in a wider national historical narrative of documents which established the rights of Parliament and set out universal civil liberties, starting with Magna Carta in 1215. It also has international significance, as it was a model for the US Bill of Rights 1789, and its influence can be seen in other documents which establish rights of human beings, such as the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights and the European Convention on Human Rights."
1689 - Two Treatises of Government by John LockeAccording to Locke there are three natural rights:
Life: everyone is entitled to live.
Liberty: everyone is entitled to do anything they want to so long as it doesn't conflict with the first right.
Estate: everyone is entitled to own all they create or gain through gift or trade so long as it doesn't conflict with the first two rights.
Slavery remained a major institution in Russia until 1723, when Peter the Great converted the household slaves into house serfs.
The Yongzheng emancipation seeks to free all slaves to strengthen the autocratic ruler through a kind of social leveling that creates an undifferentiated class of free subjects under the throne.
Despite having banned slavery in 1735, the only one of the thirteen colonies to have done so.
In Britain, until 1807, except for statutes facilitating and taxing the international slave trade, there was virtually no legislative intervention in relation to slaves as property, and accordingly the common law had something of a "free hand".
1775-76 The pamphlet Common Sense by Thomas PaineThe pamphlet Common Sense written by Thomas Paine in 1775–76 advocated independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Written in clear and persuasive prose, Paine marshalled moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution, and became an immediate sensation.
It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. As of 2006, it remains the all-time best selling American title, and is still in print today.
Common Sense made public a persuasive and impassioned case for independence, which before the pamphlet had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration. He connected independence with common dissenting Protestant beliefs as a means to present a distinctly American political identity, structuring Common Sense as if it were a sermon. Historian Gordon S. Wood described Common Sense as:
"the most incendiary and popular pamphlet of the entire revolutionary era".
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.This has been called "one of the best-known sentences in the English language", containing "the most potent and consequential words in American history". The passage came to represent a moral standard to which the United States should strive. This view was notably promoted by Lincoln, who considered the Declaration to be the foundation of his political philosophy and argued that it is a statement of principles through which the United States Constitution should be interpreted.
Also known as The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, an abolitionist group, formed on 22 May 1787, by twelve men who gathered together at a printing shop in London.
This was a British Act of Parliament that placed limitations of the number of people that British slave ships could transport, related to tonnage. It was the first British legislation passed to regulate slave shipping.
The Société des amis des Noirs or Amis des noirs was a group of French men and women, who were abolitionists. They opposed slavery, which was institutionalized in the French colonies of the Caribbean and North America, and the African slave trade.
The "Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen" by France's National Constituent Assembly is a key document in the history of human civil rights.
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