1873 | Human Rights, Social Justice
Human Rights, Social Justice
Zanzibar's public slave markets close June 5 by order of the sultan Barghash Sayyid, who acts under British government pressure to prohibit the export of slaves (see Livingstone, 1871; Berlin Conference, 1884).
Puerto Rico's Spanish colonial government abolishes slavery (see 1870); Chinese, Corsican, German, Irish, Italian, Lebanese, and Scottish emigrants have made their way to the island and intermarried with the existing population, leaving only about 5 percent of the population pure African.
Divorced women in Britain gain the right to claim custody of their children.
A Japanese law enacted in May gives women the right to divorce (see 1870). Another law provides that a woman without a husband or son may be a koshu (head of household) on a temporary basis until she marries a man who will adopt her family name (a muku-iri) or until her daughter marries such a man (see 1878).
Susan B. Anthony goes on trial at Canandaigua, New York, June 18 for voting in last year's election. The judge refuses to let her testify in her own defense, saying that women are not competent to do so, and he directs the jury to find her guilty. Fined $100 plus costs, Anthony announces, "I shall never pay a penny of this unjust claim," and she never will.
Social reformer Sarah Moore Grimké dies at Hyde Park, outside Boston, December 23 at age 81.