When does slavery end?  That is not a simple question.  Slavery was “abolished” several times:

• 1807 – Britain passes Abolition of the Slave Trade Act, outlawing British Atlantic slave trade.
• 1808 the Migration or Importation Clause (Article I, section 9) of the US Constitution (ratified in 1787) allowed Congress to end the importation of slaves from Africa in 1808.
• 1811 – Spain abolishes slavery, including in its colonies, though Cuba rejects ban and continues to deal in slaves.
• 1813 – Sweden bans slave trading
• 1814 – Netherlands bans slave trading
• 1817 – France bans slave trading
• 1833 – Britain passes Abolition of Slavery Act, ordering gradual abolition of slavery in all British colonies.
• 1819 – Portugal abolishes slave trade north of the equator
• 1819 – Britain places a naval squadron off the West African coast to enforce the ban on slave trading
• 1846 – Denmark emancipates all slaves in Danish West Indies
• 1848 – France abolishes slavery
• 1851 – Brazil abolishes slave trading
• 1858 – Portugal abolishes slavery
• 1861 – Netherlands abolishes slavery in Dutch Caribbean colonies
• 1865 – 13th Amendment of U.S. Constitution bans slavery
• 1888 – Brazil abolishes slavery
• 1926 – League of Nations adopts Slavery Convention abolishing slavery
• 1948 – United Nations General Assembly adopts Universal Declaration of Human Rights, including article stating “No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.”
• Penal labor other forms of involuntary service continue today.

While literally everyone believed that slavery was a pernicious and undesirable industry, eliminating it was politically complicated.  There were numerous arguments in favor of perpetuating the system:

• Slaves are essential to certain industries.  Before mechanization, industries like farming, mining, sugar refining, and cotton processing depended upon on slave labor to make them economically viable.  The counter-argument to this is that the use of slave labor creates a hardship on businesses that don’t use slaves (Jefferson’s argument in removed clause from Declaration of Independence). 
• Slavery was generally accepted in some societies.  It has been a part of society for millennia. Slavery is often used as punishment for criminal behavior. 
• Abolishing slavery threated the hierarchy of society.  This was particularly true in the USA and a large part of the enactment of Jim Crow laws.  Since the Romans, aristocrats have maintained power through the holding of slaves and the wealth they produce. 
• Free men can sometimes be convinced to willingly become slaves.  Most of the early settlers to America came as indentured servants and even today, men enter military service and give up their freedom for patriotic and economic reasons.  This are very different from chattel slavery but still involuntary servitude.  Living in slavery is sometimes better than starving.
• Slavery is a form of warfare.  While never on the same scale as the 18^th Century trans-Atlantic slave trade, the capture of slaves as been a tactic in warfare for thousands of years.  Armies would plunder neighboring cities and countries and bring back slaves (as opposed to slaughtering all the defeated peoples).  Kings would then claim that their gods had given them victory over an inferior people thus justifying the inevitable losses of life and wealth in war.  This was how empires grew from the time of the Pharaohs until well into the 20^th Century.

We often give the British credit for abolishing slavery.  After all, they formally ended slavery IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND, and WALES (but not in India or other parts of the empire) in 1833.  They also used the Royal Navy to interdict slave traders but their textile industry profited from slavery in America and they actively “transported” people to Ireland and Australia well into the 20^th Century. 

One day, soon, we can hope that the final vestiges of slavery will be eradicated but that day has not yet come.

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