Today marks the eighth installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org titled The Heroes of Progress. This bi-weekly column provides a short introduction to heroes who have made an extraordinary contribution to the wellbeing of humanity. You can find the 7th part of this series here.

Our eighth Hero of Progress is William Wilberforce, a leading 18^th century British abolitionist and politician. Wilberforce’s efforts helped to ban the slave trade in 1807 and abolish slavery in the British Empire in 1833, thus freeing millions of formerly enslaved people.

Wilberforce was born on August 24, 1759, in Kingston upon Hull, England. His father was a wealthy merchant and, at the age of 17, Wilberforce began studying at Cambridge University. The death of his grandfather and uncle left Wilberforce independently wealthy and, while at Cambridge, he lived a relatively carefree life. He was well-known within the university’s social scene and became friends with William Pitt the Younger, who later became Prime Minister.

After graduating in 1780, Wilberforce decided to seek political office and, at the age of 21, he became the Member of Parliament for Hull. He was independent of any political party, stating he was a “no party man.” In his first four years in parliament, Wilberforce admitted he “did nothing to any purpose. My own distinction was my own darling object.” Similar to his university days, Wilberforce was known in many social circles and was fond of drinking and gambling.

In 1785, Wilberforce travelled to Europe with his sister and mother for a vacation. During his time abroad, he read Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul. This book had a profound impact on Wilberforce’s life. He embraced evangelical Christianity, lost interest in card games and drinking, began to get up early to read the Bible, and decided to commit his future life to work in the service of God.

Thereafter his political views were guided by his faith and his desire to promote Christian ethics. And so began his lifelong concern with social reform.

In 1786, Wilberforce began to play an active role in the abolitionist movement. In 1787, he wrote in his journal that God had set before him the objective of suppressing the slave trade. A group of evangelical abolitionists known as the Clapham Sect soon acknowledged Wilberforce as their leader.

In 1789, he introduced 12 different resolutions against the slave trade to the British Parliament’s House of Commons. Even though he was often supported by Pitt and famous Member of Parliament and philosopher Edmund Burke, Wilberforce’s measures failed to gain majority support. Wilberforce remained resilient and introduced anti-slavery bills in 1791, 1792, 1793, 1797, 1798, 1799, 1804 and 1805. All were defeated.

After the death of Pitt in 1806, Wilberforce tried once more, but this time, rather than calling for an outright ban of slavery, Wilberforce strategically pushed a bill that would make it illegal for slave owners to trade slaves with the French colonies. The bill passed and this smaller step worked to undermine and weaken the power of slave ship owners, thus making it easier for Wilberforce to pass more significant legislation in the future.

In 1807, Wilberforce managed to pass the Slave Trade Act through both Houses of Parliament. However, the 1807 act only banned slave trading and many slaves continued to be held in bondage.

For the remainder of his life, Wilberforce campaigned for the rights of slaves and, despite failing health, he remained integral to the abolitionist movement. In 1825, Wilberforce declined a peerage and resigned his seat due to health reasons.

On 26 July 1833, the Whig government under the leadership of Earl Grey introduced a Bill for the Abolition of Slavery and formally acknowledged Wilberforce in the process. The bill would outlaw slavery in most parts of the British Empire. After hearing of the happy news, Wilberforce died just 3 days later on July 29, 1833.

Wilberforce’s work was integral to the outlawing of slavery throughout the British Empire, the global hegemon of the day. Thereafter, British ships and Royal marines proceeded to extinguish slavery throughout much of the world. For the first time in human history, the suffering of millions was alleviated and dignity of every human being affirmed. It is for this reason William Wilberforce is our eighth Hero of Progress.

You can read about other Centers of Progress in our book.

Today marks the twenty-third installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org called Centers of Progress. Where does progress happen? The story of civilization is in many ways the story of the city. It is the city that has helped to create and define the modern world. This bi-weekly column will give a short overview of urban centers that were the sites of pivotal advances in culture, economics, politics, technology, etc.

Our twenty-third Center of Progress is London during the late 18th and early 19th century, when the city played host to debates on the nature of human rights that would change the world. Today, we take the norm that no person can buy or sell another human being for granted, but it took humanity a long time to arrive at that norm. Slavery was accepted and rarely questioned for millennia throughout the world, but today slavery is illegal in all countries. Legal battles fought in London and legislative actions taken in London helped to end the global slave trade and bring about the dramatic change in attitudes about slavery—an invaluable victory for human freedom.

Today, London is a city that needs no introduction. It is well-known as one of the world’s foremost global cities as well as the capital and most populous city in the United Kingdom. London is recognized as a center of commerce, finance, the arts, education and research, and is among the globe’s most popular tourist destinations. It is home to Buckingham Palace, the iconic clock tower Big Ben, the British Museum, and Europe’s tallest Ferris wheel—the London Eye. It also houses four different UNESCO World Heritage Sites: Westminster Abbey, the medieval Tower of London, Kew Gardens, and Maritime Greenwich.

Evidence suggests that the site of present-day London has been inhabited since at least the Bronze Age. However, the site’s importance began when Romans founded a port settlement there in 43 AD. It was known as Londinium. Londinium soon became a regional trade hub, major road nexus, and the capital city of Roman Britain during most of the time that Romans ruled the province of Britannia. Once the Romans left Britain, Anglo-Saxons gained rule in London and the city became the capital of the eventual Kingdom of England. After the Norman conquest in 1066, William the Conqueror became the English king and it was during his rule that London was first linked to attempts to limit slavery.

In different parts of the world, slavery had long been subject to sporadic criticism, various limits and even brief bans. For example, Emperor Wang Mang banned slavery in China in 9 AD. It was reinstated soon afterward. In the 7th century, the Frankish Queen Balthild, herself a former slave, helped enact reforms that prevented the trade of Christian slaves. In the 740s, Pope Zachary banned the sale of Christian slaves to Muslims. And in 873, Pope John VIII similarly called the enslavement of Christians sinful and advocated for the slaves’ release.

But the early attempt to restrict slavery that would have the most lasting impact occurred in London. According to the Domesday Book, an extensive survey of England and parts of Wales completed in the 1080s, around 10 percent of people in the area were slaves. In 1080, William the Conqueror banned the sale of slaves to non-Christians. In 1102, the ecclesiastical Council of London banned the slave trade within England, decreeing “Let no one dare hereafter to engage in the infamous business … of selling men like animals.”

Within a generation, slavery had all but vanished in England. It was replaced by serfdom. Unlike slaves, serfs could at least own property. Also, they were not at risk of separation from their families. Alas, they could not move, since they were perpetually confined to the land they worked.  A feudal lord could sell that land, thus changing whom the serf served, but serfs themselves were not sold.

Since time immemorial, every major civilization practiced some form of slavery for most of history. Slavery has existed since at least 3500 BC, when the ancient Sumerians practiced it. Improvements in seafaring led to globalization of the slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade, for example, lasted from the 16th to the 19th centuries, and involved the transport of millions of sub-Saharan Africans across the ocean to live in bondage.

While the first foreign slave-traders in sub-Saharan Africa were Arab—Saudi Arabia, in fact, did not outlaw slavery until 1962—Europeans were soon prominent participants in the maritime slave trade, transporting roughly 11 million slaves out of Africa. The first and the worst offender was Portugal, which transported around 5 million slaves from the African slave markets mainly to its colony of Brazil.

Britain transported the second-highest number of enslaved Africans (2.6 million) to its various colonies. At least 300,000 African slaves were shipped to Britain’s North American colonies that would later become the United States. However, the near-total absence of slavery within Britain itself, which had persisted since the reforms of William the Conqueror, would prove critical to turning British hearts and minds against the institution.

As is widely known, the African slaves were treated as chattel rather than as people, and the conditions of the slave ships were horrific, with many enslaved people not surviving the journey. Most of those who made it through the voyage then lived the nightmare of forced, grueling agricultural labor on New World plantations. Slaves on the Caribbean and Brazilian plantations endured the worst conditions and suffered the highest fatality rates.

An enslaved Barbadian teenager, Jonathan Strong, was brought to London by his slave-master, who in 1765 beat Strong with a pistol and left him for dead in the street. Strong, bleeding and left mostly blind by the attack, ended up at a medical clinic for the poor held in Mincing Lane. There, as he received treatment for his wounds, Strong made an impression on the physician’s visiting brother—Granville Sharp (1735–1813).

Sharp, who was born in Durham but had lived in London since the age of fifteen, was forever changed by the encounter. He and his brother took Strong to a hospital and paid for the latter’s months-long treatment there. But not long after becoming well enough to leave the hospital, Strong was recaptured by his former enslaver, who attempted to sell Strong to a Jamaican plantation.

Sharp successfully defended Strong’s freedom, defeating Strong’s former slave-master in court—but only on a technicality. Tragically, Strong’s health was permanently damaged from the pistol attack and he passed away at the age of 25 in 1770. Sharp devoted himself to bring about a definitive legal ruling on the question of whether a man could be compelled to leave Britain and enter slavery, and his efforts earned him a reputation as an Enlightenment thinker and anti-slavery campaigner. He was not alone. The abolition movement in Britain was growing.

In 1769, another slaver from the colonies attempted to bring an enslaved man, James Somerset, to London. In 1771, Somerset escaped. In less than two months, Somerset was captured and arrangements were made to sell him again into slavery in Jamaica. Three Londoners applied for Somerset to receive a hearing, and their petition was granted. Many concerned Britons sent money to launch a legal defense for Somerset, but several lawyers volunteered to do the case pro bono. Sharp advised Somerset’s lawyers extensively.

One barrister, William Davy, famously cited in Somerset’s defense an alleged 1569 case in which a cartwright attempted to bring a slave to England from Russia. In that case, it was resolved that England’s air was “too pure” for a slave to breathe and that anyone in England was therefore free. Or, as the London-born jurist Sir William Blackstone (1723–1780) had once put it, “The spirit of liberty is so deeply ingrained in our constitution that a slave, the moment he lands in England, is free.”

Somerset won his case. The ruling stated that, while in Britain, Somerset was free. Furthermore, he could not be forced to depart the country. The ruling was a turning point.

Regardless of William the Conqueror’s original motivations behind limiting slavery, by the time of the Somerset judgment, the absence of slavery in Britain had become a matter of British pride. It was also a moral issue among several Enlightenment thinkers, members of the clergy—including Anglican cleric John Newton (1725–1807), the writer of the well-loved hymn “Amazing Grace”—and the general public.

By 1807, thanks to mounting public pressure and the work of tireless reformers such as William Wilberforce (1759–1833) in Britain’s London-based parliament in Westminster, Britain banned the international slave trade with the Slave Trade Act. When diplomatic efforts to pressure Paris and Vienna to sign similar legislation proved futile, public support for the use of force rose.

Decision-makers in London ordered the British Navy to form the West Africa Squadron in 1808 to blockade West Africa and stop the movement of slave-transporting ships across the Atlantic Ocean. By the 1850s, the West Africa Squadron consisted of approximately 25 ships, two thousand British men and a thousand additional crew members who were recruited locally, mainly from what is now Liberia. The British naval officers were paid a reward for each slave that they freed, but the main incentive was humanitarian—by that point, anti-slavery efforts were hugely popular in Britain. As the poet Alfred Tennyson (1809–1892) put it, “This spirit of chivalry… we see it in acts of heroism by land and sea, in fights against the slave trade.”

Between 1808 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron successfully hunted down at least 1,600 slave ships and freed around 150,000 African slaves. Spain and Portugal attempted to continue the slave trade, often purchasing slaves from African sellers. In the mid-18th century, King Tegbesu of Dahomey in present-day Benin drew the equivalent of around 250,000 pounds annually—the greatest part of his income—selling slaves captured in battle to Europeans. His successor to the throne declared in 1840 in response to British pressures to stop selling slaves, “The slave trade is the ruling principle of my people. It is the source and the glory of their wealth… the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.” His acceptance of slavery demonstrates how deeply the practice was still ingrained at the time, across the globe.

The British Navy eventually blockaded Brazil as well and succeeded in halting the Brazilian slave trade in 1852. But the effects of the abolition movement that started in London did not stop there. The movement saw a revival in the 1860s, when David Livingstone, the Scottish physician and prominent member of the London Missionary Society, published reports describing the Arab slave trade in Africa that too moved the British public. In the 1870s the British Navy again devoted resources to stopping the slave trade—this time by traders based in Zanzibar. Thanks in part to efforts launched in London, the number of countries with legal slavery plummeted throughout the 19th century.

While the lawmakers of London during the 18th and 19th centuries were far from perfect, their anti-slavery zeal helped to change the world for the better. As the Irish historian William Lecky (1838–1903) put it, “The unweary, unostentatious, and inglorious crusade of England against slavery may probably be regarded as among the three or four perfectly virtuous pages comprised in the history of nations.”

It was in London that British abolitionists organized, won court and legislative victories, launched naval ships with the mission of emancipating slaves, and ultimately helped to alter moral norms that had persisted since the dawn of civilization. For its critical role in ending the slave trade and de-normalizing the institution of slavery, London is justly our twenty-third Center of Progress.

Today marks the 48th installment in a series of articles by HumanProgress.org titled Heroes of Progress. This bi-weekly column provides a short introduction to heroes who have made an extraordinary contribution to the well-being of humanity. You can find the 47th part of this series here.

This week our hero is Frederick Douglass – the abolitionist and social reformer, who is widely considered to be one of the foremost human rights leaders of the 19th century. As a former slave who became a consultant to the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln and, later, President Andrew Johnson, Douglass helped to convince both presidents of the necessity of equal rights for black Americans.

Douglass’s relentless advocacy for equality under the law helped to shift public opinion in the United States against slavery, and his influence in the creation and ratification of the “Reconstruction Amendments” (a series of constitutional amendments that ensured equal freedom and voting rights for black Americans) led to a better and more prosperous future for millions of people.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey (later changed to Douglass) was born a slave around 1818 in Talbot County, Maryland. As was common with slaves, the exact year and date of Douglass’s birth is unknown. Douglass later chose to celebrate his birthday on February 14th, based on his memory of his enslaved mother, who called him her “little valentine.” Douglass was separated from his mother when he was an infant and only saw her a few times before her death in 1825.

Until the age of 6, Douglass was raised by his grandmother, who was also a slave. In 1824, Douglass was moved to a plantation where Aaron Anthony, a white man whom Douglass suspected might be his father, worked as an overseer. Throughout his early life, Douglass was transferred between many different plantations. After Anthony’s death in 1826, Douglass was given to Thomas Auld, who sent him to serve his brother, Hugh Auld, in Baltimore.

When Douglass was 12, Hugh Auld’s wife, Sophia, began teaching Douglass the alphabet. Sophia made sure that Douglass was properly fed, clothed and slept in a comfortable bed. However, over time, Hugh Auld was successful in convincing his wife that slaves should not be educated. Education, he thought, would encourage slaves to desire freedom. Before long, Douglas’s lessons stopped.

Despite that setback, Douglass continued to secretly teach himself how to read and write. He found a variety of newspapers, pamphlets, books and political materials that helped him with his education and development of personal views on freedom and human rights. A couple of years later, Douglass moved to another plantation. He began hosting a weekly Sunday school, where he taught other slaves basic literacy. The plantation owner did not mind Douglass’s Sunday school, but other plantation owners became increasingly agitated at the idea of slaves being educated. One Sunday, armed with clubs, the neighboring plantation owners burst in on the gathering and disbanded it.

In 1833, Douglass was sent to work for Edward Covey, a poor and brutal farmer with a reputation for harshly beating slaves. Covey would often beat Douglass. After the whippings became more intense, Douglass, aged just 16 at the time, fought back. Douglass won and Covey never attempted to beat him again. Douglass saw the fight as a life-changing event and he introduced the tale in his autobiography thusly “you have seen how a man was made a slave; you shall see how a slave was made a man.”

Later in 1833, Douglass was transferred to work in a shipyard in Baltimore. He attempted to escape from slavery in 1833 and 1836. In 1837, Douglass met and fell in love with Anna Murray, a free black woman living in Baltimore. On September 3, 1838, Murray gave Douglass a sailor’s uniform, train tickets and identification papers from a free black seaman. Douglass successfully escaped from Maryland by taking a train and a steamboat north to New York City.

After eleven days in New York, Frederick and Anna married and resettled in New Bedford Massachusetts, which had a large free black community. Initially, the couple adopted the name Johnson. Later, they changed it to Douglass in an effort to elude slave hunters, who were after Frederick.

In 1839, Douglass became a licensed preacher, which helped him hone his public speaking skills. He also started to attend meetings and protests organized by abolitionist groups. In 1841, Douglass was invited to speak at an antislavery convention in Nantucket, Massachusetts. The speech went so well that Douglass was invited to work as an agent and speaker for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society.

In 1843, Douglass went on a six-month speaking tour with the American Anti-Slavery Society across the Eastern and Mid-Western United States. During the tour, the group was often met with violent protests. Many skeptics doubted that Douglass’s story was real, arguing that a former slave could not be such an articulate orator.

That criticism led Douglass to write an autobiography in 1845, titled Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. The book became an immediate bestseller and was quickly translated and published across Europe. Throughout his life, Douglass published three versions of his autobiography.

Many of Douglass’s friends feared that his newfound fame would attract attention from slave hunters acting on behalf of his former master Thomas Auld. To escape potential problems, Douglass left the United States on a two-year speaking tour of Great Britain and Ireland on August 16, 1845.

During his time in Ireland and Great Britain, Douglass was amazed by the lack of racial discrimination. He later noted that he found himself “regarded and treated at every turn with the kindness and deference paid to white people” and that he was seen not “as a color, but as a man.”

Douglass’s speaking tour was an enormous success. Many of his new friends and supporters tried to encourage him to stay in England. With his wife still in Massachusetts and more than three million black Americans still in bondage, Douglass was adamant on returning home. Before he left the British Isles, his supporters raised enough money for Douglass to buy his freedom.

In 1847, Douglass returned to the United States and immediately bought his freedom. He also began his own anti-slavery newspaper titled the North Star. In 1848, Douglass became involved in the early feminist movement and was the only African American to attend the Seneca Falls Convention, which was the first women’s rights gathering in the United States.  Douglass also became an early advocate for school desegregation, arguing that the facilities for black children were vastly inferior to those for whites.

During the U.S. Civil War (1861-65), Douglass became an advisor to the U.S. President Abraham Lincoln. Douglass convinced the President that because the goal of the Civil War was to end slavery, African Americans ought to be able to fight in the war. Douglass also urged the President to issue the Emancipation Proclamation, which declared that slaves in Confederate territory would be free if they escaped to Union-controlled territory. Moreover, Douglass advised President Lincoln and, later, President Johnson, to push for a series of amendments to the U.S. Constitution that would protect the rights of black Americans.

In 1865, the 13th Amendment, which outlawed slavery, was ratified In 1868, the 14th Amendment provided citizenship and equal rights to black Americans. In 1870, the 15th Amendment prohibited federal and state governments from denying a citizen the right to vote based on race. Together, these three amendments are dubbed the “Reconstruction Amendments.”

Throughout the rest of his life, Douglass remained dedicated to equality for all. In 1870, he started his last newspaper the New National Era. In 1872, Douglass became the first black American to be nominated for Vice President of the United States on the Equal Rights Party ticket. In 1874, he was appointed as the U.S. Marshall for the District of Columbia. Throughout the 1880s, Douglass travelled the world and spoke on human rights and racial equality. At the 1888 Republican National Convention, Douglass became the first African American to receive a vote for President of the United States. From 1889 to 1891, Douglass was the consul-general to Haiti.

On February 20, 1895 Douglass died of a heart attack. He was 77 years old. Posthumously, Douglass has received dozens of awards and honors. To this day, many schools, parks, scholarships and statues are named or erected in his honor.

Douglass’s work helped shift the U.S. public opinion against slavery, and his influence helped to bring about the ratification of the Reconstruction Amendments, which for the first time provided rights to millions of African Americans. For these reasons, Frederick Douglass is our 48th Hero of Progress.