History glossary
Abolition
the movement to end slavery or another legal institution.
- Category
- Reform movement
What it means
Abolition usually refers to campaigns to end slavery and the slave trade. Abolitionists used petitions, speeches, books, direct action, law, war, and moral arguments to challenge systems that treated people as property.
Related terms
Stories using this term
Nazi Germany
From Weimar collapse to WWII, Nazi Germany imposed totalitarian rule, expansion, and genocide.
The American Revolution and Early Republic
From colonial tensions to independence, this traces the birth and early struggles of the United States of America.
The American Civil War and the Abolition of Slavery
The American Civil War determined the survival of the Union and led to the abolition of slavery, fundamentally reshaping the United States.
Feudalism and Medieval Society
From the estates of Charlemagne's empire to the flowering of Gothic cathedrals, this story explores how feudal hierarchies, manorial agriculture, and Church authority shaped the lives of kings, knights, and peasants alike.
The Rise of Adolf Hitler
From the ashes of World War I to the Night of the Long Knives, this story traces the political rise of Adolf Hitler and the collapse of the Weimar Republic.
The Collapse of the Soviet Union
From Gorbachev’s reforms to the lowering of the Soviet flag over the Kremlin, this story traces the rapid unravelling of the USSR and the end of the Cold War.
The Mongol Empire
From scattered steppe tribes to the largest contiguous empire in history, the Mongols reshaped Eurasia through conquest, terror, and trade.
The French Revolution
From royal debt and social inequality to republic, terror, and Napoleon, the French Revolution dismantled the old order and produced the political ideas of citizenship, rights, and nationalism that defined the modern world.
