Can it be said that female slaves and female abolitionists had contributed mostly to the end of slavery?
It can be said, but it is as far from the truth as the myth that slavery in the British Empire was ended thanks to the disinterested work of evangelical humanitarians like Wilberforce. Slavery had been a response to a lack of an adequate labour force throughout the Americas. It tied up a horrendous lot of capital and it obliged the slave owner to keep his workforce alive during downturns in trade. It interfered with the development of more profitable forms of trade with Africa, and, while it lasted, it was the mainstay of tropical agri-business, whose economic interests in free trade (export of crops to the UK and the free import of British manufactures) were directly opposed to the need of high protective tariffs behind which American industry could develop. And, during the course of the 19th century it became apparent that Blacks could be retained as a docile labour force more cheaply by share cropping and JIm Crow, or replaced by the flood of immigrants from (mostly southern) Europe
