The institution of slavery is a severe hindrance to productivity.
There was no way to free a sufficient labor population without freeing the slaves. Port Nyanzaru's future development required a massive commoner class rather than a worthless slave class that could only sell brute labor.
Soren's Abolition Decree was like dropping a heavyweight bomb into the Material Plane, causing even the City of Radiance to tremble. This was because even though the Lord of Radiance belonged to the Lawful Good alignment and abhorred the institution of slavery Himself, the Church had never once proposed such an idea.
Even!
Some paladins would proactively uphold the institution of slavery.
Soren did not care at all about outside reactions. The very moment he promulgated the Abolition Decree, he initiated Port Nyanzaru's third census.
All slaves were emancipated into lower-class commoners. They would be registered in Port Nyanzaru's population statistics, and starting from now, they would gain personal freedom and property freedom. However, because as slaves they possessed virtually no wealth of his own, Port Nyanzaru City Hall's next arrangement was to distribute land to them.
Every single inch of land in Port Nyanzaru was extremely precious!
Thus, it was naturally impossible to give these lands to the slaves free of charge, as that would be unfair to all meritorious classes.
Port Nyanzaru had reclaimed a massive amount of land near its twelve large towns. These lands belonged to the property of Port Nyanzaru, and now they were leased to all the slaves. Port Nyanzaru City Hall uniformly allocated housing, farming tools, and daily necessities to the slaves.
But that was merely all there was to it.
Excessive grace easily produced the opposite effect, and Soren would only grant them the opportunity to rely on his own hard work to strive for a future.