And while it is often believed that the Emancipation Proclamation, which Lincoln signed in 1863, immediately freed all enslaved people, in reality it applied only to the Confederate states in rebellion and specifically excluded areas under Union control.

Far more significant for enslaved people was the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865 at the end of the Civil War, which legally abolished slavery in the United States and freed more than four million African Americans.

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