## Introduction  
Starting in the eighteenth century and throughout the nineteenth century, legislation banned the slave trade from Africa, and then gradually abolished slavery in the Americas. Through insurrections and massive flights, enslaved men and women, as well as black abolitionists who joined anti-slavery organizations, were protagonists in the movement for the legal abolition and ending of slavery in the Americas and Africa. By the end of the nineteenth century, European powers largely utilized the end of the Atlantic slave trade and the consequent abolition of slavery in the Americas to justify the scramble for Africa that divided the continent among European powers. As European colonization evolved, slavery was banned in various parts of Africa; and yet in some parts of the continent, colonial powers introduced slavery-like labour regimes, which included not only forced labour for long hours under strict surveillance, but also physical punishments.