5 Facts About Emancipation Proclamation

On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln issued the famous Emancipation Proclamation, which, he argued, freed the slaves in the Confederacy. Today, Americans and others celebrate Lincoln's proclamation as one of the major highlights of the modern world. Chattel slavery was finally abolished in arguably the last industrialized country on earth. The truth, however, was a bit more complicated than the celebratory narrative that schoolchildren are familiar with. Slavery in the Confederacy and the broader United States was part of a global network that used unpaid, coercive work to accomplish tasks that needed to be done.