Why didn't it occur to people in the 1800s that slavery was wrong?

Eceryone else was doing it sowhy shouldn't we?

It did. Profit was more important.

It did. Haiti got rid of it in 1804 when they became independent. The UK abolished it in their empire in 1833. It would be nice to know why we ever thought it was okay.

Maybe it started with a person deeply in-debt but with no money, so they performed certain labours for their debtors. Then somebody else said, "Hey..."

But I think the real starting point was probably the aftermath of war. Instead of killing everybody, some tribe figured out that they could force the losers to work out of a fear of death. The harsh conditions were to prevent uprisings. Heck, that actually is slightly better than genocide. Maybe the big moral victory in 35,000 B.C. was, "We're no longer slaughtering everybody, instead we're putting them to work!"

Of course, there's no excuse for why it's sticking around for so long. You'd expect that this would go away a lot sooner. Certainly after the 19th century. Yet, it still exists in many countries around the globe.

It did.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_abolition_of_slavery_and_serfdom

Because in the past slavery had been okay. Just like taking other people's countries had been okay. The law of the jungle. And slavery was only done away with eventually by Christian morality and that took a while.

It’s wrong? Britney must have missed the memo

https://youtu.be/Mzybwwf2HoQ

Abolitionists existed for a long prior to the Civil War in the Northeast US.

The masters still don't know it's wrong. Everyone is a slave to the dollar. The pyramids are still being built.