What is Sterne's purpose in this excerpt? to describe slavery as just one of many different types of injustices in the world to explain that slavery is deeply rooted in society and impossible to fight to show that slavery is a terrible practice that has brought misery to too many people to argue that sooner or later people will do the right thing and abolish slavery

This excerpt was written by Laurence Sterne, an English abolitionist. He is trying to say that slavery is a terrible practice that has brought misery to many people.

Explanation:

Slavery is a practice that was occurring since the early days of civilization. However, when the mercantilism began to control the economical machine in the 15th century, slavery turns into a market. Considering that one of the mercantilist's practices is related to the exploration of the land, is necessary a human strength do so. Slavery, then, begins to be a profitable market, and to justify this practice, many ideas emerged in the 17th and 18th centuries. First, it was the Bible (especially the Book of Genesis and Noah's curse), and in the 19th century, the science (social Darwinism and eugenics). On the other hand, a massive group of people began to protect, and fight to abolition. In the United Kingdom, considering that we're talking about Sterne, rose in the late 18th century and gained considerable strength in the 19th century. Politicians, writers, philosophers, poets, they were determined to create communion and turns the abolition a reality. In 1832, United Kingdom freed it's slaves, becoming the first country in the world to do so.