The historiography of the legal abolition of slavery in Euro-America is so vast that it has a history of its own. The main ideologues, ideas, strategies, networks, and debates have been studied extensively. By contrast, research on African legal abolitions is a narrow field focused primarily on European anti-slavery activities. The passing of anti-slavery laws in Africa needs closer examination. This Session explores the legal abolition of slavery in Africa by recentering the analysis around African legal concepts, actors, procedures, and strategies. When, why, and how did African rulers, politicians, intellectuals, legal and religious specialists, activists, free commoners and enslaved persons begin to mobilize against slavery? What normative ideas did they develop to challenge what had been a legitimate institution in the legal traditions and moral values of their societies? How did different groups of Africans relate to European antislavery interventionism in various African societies and locations?

Although many African rulers resisted abolitionism, some abolished slavery in their polities before colonial occupation. Examples of abolitionist legislation passed by independent African rulers in the nineteenth century are discussed in the presentations on Tunis by Montana, Zanzibar by Liebst, and Abyssinia by Meckelburg. The relevant literature often downplays their actions as mere posturing. But European abolitions, too, had other agendas beyond a humanitarian drive to emancipate enslaved Africans. As shown by Odijie in the case of Fante in the Gold Coast (today's Ghana) and by Meckelburg in relation to Emperor Haile Selassie's anti-slavery actions, these agendas were often exposed and challenged by African intellectual and political elites. Following decolonization, all African independent countries abolished slavery in their legislations. This happened also because many Africans had struggled against slavery before, during, and after the colonial period. This Session investigates their fights and aspirations. Moreover, the development of abolitionism in Africa happened in contexts marked by legal pluralism. Abolition laws, indigenous and colonial, were not necessarily applied, or perceived as just, by everyone everywhere. Codified state law co-existed with legal norms and institutions transmitted and regulated orally. In some parts of Africa pro-slavery ideologies lingered on into the twenty-first century. Local anti-slavery NGOs seek to put pressure on governments to enforce and expand anti-slavery laws today. The Session discusses the transformations of African legal apparatuses from pro-slavery to anti-slavery. Four presentations develop a close analysis of the legal and political rationales developed in particular African societies. The discussant briefly contextualizes these case studies in the broader framework of Africa's sub-regional histories of slavery and abolition and raises general questions for debate.