Look it up in any encyclopaedia: what was the first free country in the Americas? The answer is always the same: the United States. But the United States declared its independence when it was a nation with 650,000 slaves that remained slaves for another century, and their constitution originally held that a black slave counted as only three-fifths of a citizen.
And if you consult any encyclopaedia to find out what was the first country to abolish slavery, the response will always be the same: England. Not true: the first country to abolish slavery was not England but Haiti, which is still paying penance for that sin.
