I understand analysis of structural forces is a thing. But the great persons of history had a fair impact too.
You wouldn’t be enslaving your own peasant but rather buying foreigners or capturing people outside of your territory in raids etc.
If the slave populations were self-sustaining I’d assume just banning the slave trade would had a significant effect
> that's a heck of a long gestation to develop a moral conscience.
True, but there were many reformist movements around ~1000 AD and the church was finally able to assert its independence from secular authorities around that time. Before that it had somewhat limited power to force anyone to do anything so they just usually went along with stuff like slavery, polygamy etc. while occasionally criticizing it.