Slavery existed all over the ancient world including Greek and Roman civilizations, native American cultures, Islam, Viking raiders, African tribes, etc. Philosophers Aristotle and Plato had no objection. They taught that it was natural, that some people groups were pretty much born to be slaves of their (superior) civilization.
Spain began to enslave the native people of the Canary Islands in the 1430's. "When word of this reached Pope Eugene IV, he immediately issued a bull . . . under threat of excommunication he gave everyone involved fifteen days to "restore to their earlier liberty all and each persons of either sex . . .these people are to be totally and perpetually free . . ." (from Rodney Stark, Victory of Reason). But this and the next two warnings by popes were ignored while Spain, as well as other European nations, kept it up.
Governments, plantation owners in the new world, merchants who profited from the trade, all of these constituted a formidable stronghold for the institution. When Wilberforce and his abolitionist friends started their campaign, slavery had never been outlawed.
Somehow, they thought it could be done. How? They had a moral argument. That's tomorrow's post.
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