emancipation

Being liberated, being set free from servitude or subjection of any kind. The changing role of women in social, economic, and particularly in political terms, in the 19th and 20th centuries is sometimes referred to as the ‘emancipation of women’ (see also women's movement).

In the UK, the 1829 Catholic Emancipation Act freed Roman Catholics from the civil disabilities imposed on them by English law. In 1861 the emancipation of Russian serfs was proclaimed.

In 1863 President Abraham Lincoln issued an edict freeing all slaves in the Confederate states, known as the Emancipation Proclamation; the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution declared the abolition of slavery throughout the USA.