The year 1833 was a watershed in the history of humankind owing to the passage of the far-reaching Slavery Abolition Act by the British parliament, a decree that abolished slavery throughout the British Empire. Great Britain was the world’s foremost superpower at that time, a nation of great international authority with a history of slave trading and keeping, and the Slavery Abolition Act was the first legal ruling by a national government to ban slavery within its colonies. It therefore set a precedent for all other imperialistic countries to follow, setting forth into law the concept that freedom is a natural right of all human beings.