The Prologue introduces the fundamental concepts of the book (antislavery, abolition, judicial forum), and Colombia’s ambiguous manumission law of 1821. Colombian leaders embraced a politics of antislavery by criticizing the Atlantic slave system and Spanish colonialism as a form of political slavery, but their efforts to speed the coming of a world with no slavery were lukewarm. They took the gradual emancipation approach, leaving most slaves in captivity, upholding the property rights of masters, and offering no citizenship to slaves and most former slaves. By contrast, some slaves and a few magistrates developed radical antislavery positions, calling for the unconditional end of slavery. However, antislavery and anti-Spanish politics had overlapping legal origins and tensions that emerged in the political exchanges and debates that transpired during litigation. In this judicial forum – a space of antislavery and abolition in a society with no freedom of the press or association – many slaves articulated their vision of a peaceful and complete end of slavery. They hoped to become law-abiding, God-fearing vassals of the king and, later on, citizens of the early republics.