It is not "Europeans" but _capitalism_ that created the idea of bourgeois freedom (= double-edged freedom of wage labor). And it is _capitalism & slavery_ that created the idea of "Europe" & "Europeans." Try to avoid anachronism for once.
>But the Europeans then understood
>it was wrong and, by 1838, had abolished slavery in all British
>colonies.
When production based on chattel slavery & mercantilism ceased to be more profitable than production based upon free labor & Laissez Faire for British capitalism, as Eric Williams argues:
"The capitalists had first encouraged West Indian slavery and then helped to destroy it. When British capitalism depended on the West Indies, they ignored slavery or defended it. When British capitalism found the West Indian monopoly a nuisance, they destroyed West Indian slavery as the first step in the destruction of West Indian monopoly" (Williams, _Capitalism and Slavery_, Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 1994 [originally published in 1944], p. 169).
Capitalism came to outgrow chattel slavery & mercantilism which had helped it develop in its infancy. The development of forces of production broke the fetters of now antiquated relations of production.
>Already in 1807 England and the US had already
>prohibited the international slave trade.
Which helped them triumph further in economic & imperial competition with other Europeans (mainly the Spaniards & the Portuguese):
***** From 1830 to 1850 both Great Britain and the United States, by joint convention, kept on the coast of Africa at least eighty guns afloat for the suppression of the slave trade. Most of the vessels so employed were small corvettes, brigs, or schooners; steam at that time was just being introduced into the navies of the world....Repeatedly we had chased suspicious craft only to be out-sailed. At this time the traffic in slaves was very brisk; the demand in the Brazils, in Cuba, and in other Spanish West Indies was urgent, and the profit of the business so great that two or three successful ventures would enrich any one. The slavers were generally small, handy craft; fast, of course; usually schooner-rigged, and carrying flying topsails and forecourse. Many were built in England or elsewhere purposely for the business, without, of course, the knowledge of the builders, ostensibly as yachts or traders. The Spaniards and Portuguese were the principal offenders, with occasionally an English-speaking renegade. The slave depots, or barracoons, were generally located some miles up a river. Here the slaver was secure from capture and could embark his live cargo at his leisure. Keeping a sharp lookout on the coast, the dealers were able to follow the movements of the cruisers, and by means of smoke, or in other ways, signal when the coast was clear for the coming down the river and sailing of the loaded craft. Before taking in the cargoes they were always fortified with all the necessary papers and documents to show they were engaged in legitimate commerce, so it was only when caught in flagrante delicto that we could hold them.
(For the rest of the story see Wood, J. Taylor. "The Capture of a Slaver." Atlantic Monthly 86 (1900): 451-463. Electronic Text Center, University of Virginia Library )
<http://www.innercity.org/holt/chron_1790_1829.html> *****
If you want to give a little moral credit to some Europeans, why not praise Canadians, the French Jacobins, & the Latin-American Jacobin insurgents in the wars of independence?
***** As a result of the legal opinion of the colony's (Upper Canada) Chief Justice in 1818 no one seen as a slave in another jurisdiction could be returned there simply because he/she had sought freedom in Upper Canada. Whatever their status in the U.S. or elsewhere, in Upper Canada they were free long before the abolition of slavery throughout the British empire in 1833 See also 1791 under Upper Canada. (Posting on SLAVERY at LISTSERV.UH.EDU by Dr. Jeffrey L. McNairn, Department of History, York University, Toronto, Ontario)
<http://www.innercity.org/holt/chron_1790_1829.html> *****
***** The Haitian Revolution FRANKLIN W. KNIGHT
...The leftward drift of the revolution and the implacable zeal of its colonial administrators, especially the Jacobin commissioner Léger Félicité Sonthonax, to eradicate all traces of counterrevolution and royalism -- which he identified with the whites -- in Saint Domingue facilitated the ultimate victory of the blacks over the whites.[45] Sonthonax's role, however, does not detract from the brilliant military leadership and political astuteness provided by Toussaint Louverture....
...[45] Robert L. Stein, Léger Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic (Rutherford, N.J., 1985)....
<http://www.historycooperative.org/journals/ahr/105.1/ah000103.html#FOOT45> *****
***** 1810-26
During the struggle of Spain's American colonies for independence from 1810 to 1826, both the insurgents and the loyalists promised to emancipate all slaves who took part in military campaigns. Mexico, the Central American states, and Chile abolished slavery once they were independent. In 1821 the Venezuelan Congress approved a law reaffirming the abolition of the slave trade, liberating all slaves who had fought with the victorious armies, and establishing a system that immediately manumitted all children of slaves, while gradually freeing their parents. The last Venezuelan slaves were freed in 1854. In Argentina the process began in 1813 and ended with the ratification of the 1853 constitution by the city of Buenos Aires in 1861. ("Blacks in Latin America," Microsoft Encarta 98 Encyclopedia.)
<http://www.innercity.org/holt/chron_1790_1829.html> *****
Yoshie