Slavery

Slavery The issue of slavery has been touched upon often in the course of history. The institution of slavery was addressed by French intellectuals during the Enlightenment. Later, during the French Revolution, the National Assembly issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man, which declared the equality of all men. Issues were raised concerning the application of this statement to the French colonies in the West Indies, which used slaves to work the land. As they had different interests in mind, the philosophes, slave owners, and political leaders took opposing views on the interpretation of universal equality. Many of the philosophes, the leaders of the Enlightenment, were against slavery. They held that all people had a natural dignity that should be recognized. Voltaire, an 18th century philosophe, pointed out that hundreds of thousands of slaves were sacrificing their lives just so the Europeans could quell their new taste for sugar, tea and cocoa. A similar view was taken by Rousseau, who stated that he could not bear to watch his fellow human beings be changed to beasts for the service of others. Religion entered into the equation when Diderot, author of the Encyclopedia, brought up the fact that the Christian religion people, slavery, french, man, views, philosophes, enlightenment, blacks, work, slaves, slave, said, one, leaders, issue, equality, colonies, black, without, view, trade, tended, stated, similar, rights, religion, raynal, property, political, owners, out, others, ignorant, however, held, fact