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. Although it was not the first rule banning slavery within the British colonial context— as such a law was passed in the British colony of Upper Canada in 1793– the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833 was a major political turning point in British and global history that arose as a result of a lengthy process of protest and legal progress. The abolition act evolved from earlier British law such as the Slave Trade Act of 1807 and was the fruition of campaigns by persons and groups who began opposing the institution of enslavement in earlier decades. Central to the opposition were associations like the Religious Society of Friends, known as the Quakers, who vigorously sought antislavery support from the late eighteenth century onward, such as through the publication of journals outlining the immorality of slavery. It is in this context, the 1833 turning point came about.