Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery and liberate enslaved people around the world. The first country to fully outlaw slavery was France in 1315, but it was later used in its colonies. Under the actions of Toyotomi Hideyoshi, chattel slavery has been abolished across Japan since 1590, though other forms were used during World War II. Vermont was the first American colony to abolish slavery in 1777, followed very quickly by other American colonies. Vermont's legislation also gave African-American males the right to vote. The first and only country to self-liberate from slavery was actually a former French colony, Haiti, as a result of the Revolution of 1791–1804. The British abolitionist movement began in the late 18th century, and the 1772 Somersett case established that slavery did not exist in English law. In 1807, the slave trade was made illegal throughout the British Empire. In 1808 the United States outlawed the international slave trade and importation of slaves but did not ban slavery outright until 1865. In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish the enslavement of the Roma in Wallachia and Moldavia between 1843 and 1855, and to emancipate the serfs in Russia in 1861. The United States would pass the 13th Amendment in December 1865 after having just fought a bloody Civil War in order to end slavery "except as a punishment for crime". In 1888, Brazil became the last country in the Americas to outlaw slavery. After centuries of struggle, slavery was eventually declared illegal at the global level in 1948 under the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mauritania was the last country to officially abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981. Today, child and adult slavery and forced labour are illegal in almost all countries, as well as being against international law, but human trafficking for labour and for sexual bondage continues to affect tens of millions of adults and children. Source: Wikipedia (en)