The
catchphrase of this entry will be Thou shalt not judge…
It
is generally, and perhaps correctly, assumed that the American nations located
south of the United States border with Mexico are somehow inferior to the North
American aristocrats, namely, the USA and Canada. There are indeed several
important parameters, such as standard of living, etc., which testify to that
effect.
But
there are other parameters too, which are no less important from the historical
point of view, but which are not as ready to declare a hands-down winner. The
question of slavery in the Americas is one of these parameters.
It
may be worthwhile, just to put certain things in proper perspective, to remind
ourselves of the exact timeline of the abolition of slavery in the Americas.
After all, we know that slavery had been a drawback of the past, and national
emancipation from slavery had been, in each case, an act of enlightenment and
progress. Well, slavery was abolished in Lower Canada in 1803; in Haiti in
1804; throughout most Spanish colonies in America in 1811; in Chile in 1823; in
Mexico between 1810 and 1824; in the Federal Republic of Central America in
1824; in Uruguay between 1814 and 1830; in Bolivia in 1831; in Jamaica in 1834;
in Colombia (Gran Colombia/new Granada) between 1821 and 1851; in Argentina between
1813 and 1853; in Peru in 1854; in Venezuela between 1821 and 1854; and finally,
after all of the above, in the United States of America only in 1865!
For
fairness’ sake, we must point out that slavery had been abolished much earlier in
the Northern states of the United States: in Vermont in 1777, in
Massachusetts in 1783, and then in all other Northern states anywhere between
1780 and 1804, that is, long before it was abolished anywhere else in the
Americas. Thus the Abolition of 1865, concerned the Southern states,
first and foremost, not the Northern
states, but, nevertheless, it was the first time that it appeared as a Federal
Law in the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.
America
the Blessed---Thou shalt not judge…
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