The Abolition Movement

Before the early 1830s, slavery was discussed calmly. Since slavery was banned in the North, most of the early abolitionists were southerners.

The first abolitionists were Quakers and free blacks. Quakers believed that all people had the same `spark of divinity,' making slavery immoral. Quakers were among the first to free their slaves. Some Quakers traveled the countryside urging slave-owners to free their slaves.

In the 1820s, a large anti-slavery movement emerged, supported by southerners and represented by organizations such as the American Colonization Society.

While they opposed slavery, they also believed that blacks and whites could not live together in harmony. Therefore, while they urged slaveowners to free their slaves, they also raised money to pay for the transportation of free blacks to West Africa.

The American Colonization Society supported the colonization movement. They set up a country in Africa (Liberia) where black people wishing to leave America could go (colonize).

By 1860, nearly 11,000 blacks had gone to Liberia in West Africa, and helped found and build that country. But most blacks refused colonization, insisting that the U. S. was their home.

William Lloyd Garrison was one of the most uncompromising abolitionists of his day. He was completely unwilling to compromise on slavery. Slaveowners were evil and should not receive reimbursement for slaves freed by legislation. Abolition must be complete, immediate, and without compensation.

Garrison didn't care what other social or economic problems might be caused by immediate emancipation. His words were so extreme and so harsh that he alienated many people who might otherwise have supported his cause.

In the South, Garrison was despised as one who encouraged slaves to revolt. Copies of his antislavery newspaper “The Liberator” were banned, and a $5,000 reward was offered to anyone who would capture Garrison and bring him to Georgia to stand trial.

“I am aware that many object to the severity of my language; but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject I do not wish to think, or speak, or write, with moderation... I will not equivocate – I will not excuse – I will not retreat a single inch – and I WILL BE HEARD!” -- William Lloyd Garrison

Elijah P. Lovejoy was another extreme abolitionist. He wrote articles strongly condemning slavery.

An angry mob broke into his printing office in They dumped his printing press into the Mississippi River, burned his office, and murdered him.

A more successful abolitionist was Theodore Dwight Weld. He tried to build a large antislavery movement by appealing to the consciences of Midwestern farmers and church groups.

Weld published a collection of newspaper articles detailing the horrors of slavery under the title, “American Slavery As It Is.” Weld especially focused on southern accounts, in order to counter southern claims that slave abuse almost never occurred.

Sarah Grimke Angelina Grimke Weld was married to Angelina Grimke. She and her sister Sarah were from a slaveholding family in South Carolina, but had been converted to abolition by Quakers. Many conventional Americans were shocked by the idea of two women speaking out publicly against slavery.

Both women spoke out powerfully against slavery. Many conventional Americans were shocked by the idea of two women speaking out in public.

In the North, free blacks could become involved in the abolition movement. Some black abolitionists had once been slaves themselves, and could tell of slavery's horrors based on personal experience.

Two leading black abolitionists were Henry Highland Garnett and Frederick Douglass. As rivals for black abolitionist leadership, they also demonstrated the divisions within the movement.

Highland Garnett was the more militant of the two, and as early as 1843 was calling for slaves to rise up against their owners and make themselves free.

Garnett believed that any violence done by slaves in the act of freeing themselves was justified on the grounds of self defense. His stated believe was that it was better to die free than live as slaves.

Frederick Douglass was the best orator, in the movement. He used his talent as a great speaker to help convince white politicians to end slavery. He had escaped slavery as a youth, taught himself to read and write, and published his Autobiography in He disagreed with Garnett on the role of violence in abolition, but not on the degradations of slavery.

He worked tirelessly with white politicians and social leaders throughout the 1840s and `50s, and beyond the Civil War. Until his death in 1895, Douglass spoke out on behalf of black equality, the rights of working people, and for the right of women to vote.

Black women such as Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman also played major roles in the antislavery movement.

Isabella Baumfree had been born a slave, and changed her name to Sojourner Truth when she became free. Although she was illiterate, Truth stood six feet tall and was a powerful speaker (made fiery speeches) who sometimes in her speeches used songs she had composed to rouse audiences.

Harriet Tubman was a runaway slave from Maryland. She aided the movement by working as a `conductor' on the Underground Railroad, an informal network of abolitionists who hid runaway slaves fleeing to Canada.

At the risk of her own freedom and safety, Tubman returned to slave states nineteen times to guide other blacks to freedom.