The Crusade Against Slavery

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● Early Opposition to Slavery

● American Colonization Society (ACS)

○ Organized by a group of prominent, white, Virginians

○ wanted to slowly free black slaves and move freed slaves back to Africa

○ masters of these slaves received compensation through funds from private charity or state legislature

○ Established Liberia in 1830, became independent in 1846

● Failure of the ACS

○ colonized” as many freed African Americans in a year as slaves were born in a month

○ too many black men and women in America to be transported

○ many slaves were 3 or more generations removed from those transported to America, and had no wish to go to Africa

○ cotton boom in the South led planters to be more loyal to their “peculiar” labor system. (that of slavery)

● Abolitionism

● William Lloyd Garrison

● assistant of a Quaker, Benjamin London, in New Jersey who published the leading antislavery newspaper of the time: Genius of Universal Emancipation

● became impatient with Lundy’s moderate tone and proposals

● returned to Boston and founded his own paper; the Liberator

● said opponents of slavery should look at it from the slaves perspective and not the owners

○ not talk about how it is a bad influence on white society

○ talk about the damage the system did to blacks

● very harsh tone

● did not like the colonization plan, saying it strengthened slavery by ridding the country of free blacks, and rejected gradualism (slow freeing of slaves)

● established the New England Antislavery Society in 1832

● established the American Antislavery Society a year later

● The American Antislavery Society

● more than 250, 000 members by 1838

● successful in part because it was similar to other reform movements of the time

○ called for unleashing the individual human spirit

○ tried to eliminate “artificial social barriers to fulfillment”

■ said enslaved men and women were most in need of assistance to help them realize their full individual potential

● Black Abolitionists

● Northern Free Blacks

■ mostly concentrated in cities

■ often in worse conditions than those that were enslaved

■ ran into a lot of prejudice, more than was common in the south (where white and blacks had to be closer in order for the relationship to work)

■ victims of violence, few could vote, and few got education of any sort

■ still proud of their freedom and huge supporters of abolitionism

■ aware that their position was precarious as long as slavery existed

■ made up the majority of the Liberator’s readers and subscribers

● David Walker

● published the pamphlet Walker’s Appeal…to the Colored Citizens

● said the land was more theirs than the whites

● said they should “kill (white masters) or be killed”

● most not this violent

● Frederick Douglass

● Born a slave in Maryland

● escaped to Massachusetts

● became a leader in the antislavery movement

● spent two years lecturing in England

● returned to the US in 1847 and purchased his freedom

● founded the antislavery newspaper North Star in Rochester, New York

● wrote his autobiography Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

● demanded not only freedom for blacks but full social and economic equality

● Black Abolitionists became a more influential force with Douglass as their leader

● Anti-Abolitionism

● Abolitionism still a minority

○ both southern and northern whites looked at the movement with fear and contempt

○ seen as a threat to the existing social system, and all stability and order

○ caused fear that it might produce a destructive war between the sections

○ also caused fear of an a great influx of free blacks into the North

● Violence towards Abolitionists

○ when Prudence Crandall tried to admit several black girls to her private school locals had her arrested, destroyed her well, and forced her to shut down the school

○ In Philadelphia a mob burned abolitionist headquarters, the “Temple of Liberty”, to the ground and began a bloody race riot

○ A mob in Boston seized Garrison and threatened to hang him, authorities saved him only by locking him in jail

○ an editor of an abolitionist newspaper, Elijah Lovejoy, had his presses smashed by angry whites three times, on the fourth time he tried to defend them, he was killed and the building burned

● Abolitionists

○ stayed put, most could not be dissuaded

● Abolitionism Divided

● Moderates

○ became more moderate, often because of the violence of anti-abolitionists, abolitionists 

○ argued that abolition could only be accomplished with a long, peaceful struggle

○ tried to appeal to the conscience of slaveholders

○ eventually turned to political action, convincing northern states and federal government to help whenever possible

○ joined Garrison in helping runaway slaves through the “underground railroad” to the Northern states or to Canada

○ also helped fund the legal battle over the Spanish slave vessel, Amistad

○ African slaves on a ship to Cuba took over the vessel and turned it back to Africa

○ US navy seized the ship and held them as pirates

○ Africans freed as the international slave trade had been illegal in the US since 1808

○ with extremists got “personal liberty laws” passed in several northern states, so officials would not be permitted to help catch runaway slaves, or in return them to their owners

● did not believe Congress could constitutionally interfere with the institution of slavery within the states themselves

○ Extremists

○ included Garrison

○ a few advocated violence

○ one group gave money to John Brown to support his bloody uprisings in Kansas and Virginia

○ some attempted to cause anger through propaganda

● they claimed there works were factual, although in truth they were very distorted

● e.g. Theodore Dwight Weld and Angelina Grimke’s American Slavery as It Is: Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses (1839)

● Uncle Tom’s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe

● work of fiction

● first published as a serial in an antislavery weekly in 1851-1852

● then published as a book

● sold more than 300,000 copies in a year

● later issued again and again

● it combined the antislavery message with the popular sentimental novel format

● brought the abolition message to a whole new audience

● portrayed good blacks victimized by evil whites

● Abolition Endured

● even divided, the abolitionist movements remained powerful, as the same basic wish for freedom for all remained throughout

● before Civil War very few thought slavery could be abolished in a single stroke