the abolitionists 4-6.2. an abolitionist is a person who wants to end slavery
TRANSCRIPT
The abolitionists never really had any effect on the government of the USA (despite all of their protests)
Abolitionists were especially hated by slave owners but were also VERY unpopular by most northerners, too!
There were VERY few abolitionists in the North ~ abolitionists WERE EXTREMELY unpopular there as well!
Eventually the work of the abolitionist helped to anger the Southern states enough to want to secede from the Union to start a Civil War in the USA!
William Lloyd Garrison-published a newspaper, The Liberator, to tell everyone slavery was wrong and should immediately be abolished. The paper was banned in the South
Garrison also formed a group with others known as the American Anti-Slavery Society that published books and papers speaking out against slavery.Many Northerners were against his views and harassed him everywhere he went
Sojourner Truth-1st African-American speaker to gain fame as an anti-slavery speaker. She was born a slave in New York but was emancipated. She was a powerful and popular speaker. President Abraham Lincoln appointed her to help free slaves during the Civil War
Frederick Douglas- was a slave who taught himself to read and write. He escaped from his owners and became a popular abolitionist speaker
Douglas published an anti-slavery newspaper, The North Star, and wrote an autobiography telling about his life as a slave.
When Douglas wrote his autobiography telling the conditions of slavery he had to flee from the country to England because of the fugitive slave law once his autobiography was published and his identity and whereabouts revealed.
Sympathetic readers “bought” his freedom so he could return to the United States without being caught and returned by slave catchers.
Douglas worked very closely with President Lincoln during the Civil War to emancipate slaves and recruit African Americans in the North to fight for the Union Army
Harriet Tubman- was a runaway slave who became on the most successful “conductors” of the Underground Railroad.
Tubman is known as the Moses of her people because she led over 300 slaves out of the south (including South Carolina!!!) to their freedom!
It was a chain of homes, caves, farms and other hiding places where escaped slaves could ask for help, find shelter for a night or until it was safe to move and to the next stop.
True freedom was found only in Canada because the fugitive slave Law required the return of slaves (as property) from anywhere in the United States.
Harriet Beecher Stowe-author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The book told the story of the cruel treatment of slaves in the South.
Stowe wrote the book after learning of the more strict Fugitive Slave Laws added to Compromise of 1850.
Stowe often disagreed with President Lincoln because he was interested in preserving the Union instead of freeing slaves
The book was banned because of its unflattering portrayal of the South. Many Northerners were moved toward the abolitionist cause but unfairly judged Southerners by the book’s stereotypes.
John Brown-migrated to Kansas after the Kansas-Nebraska Act declared that the territory would decided through popular sovereignty if it would be free or slave.
Brown led a raid on a US arsenal at Harper’s Ferry in Virginia hoping to capture guns and lead a slave revolt that would spread across the country.
The raid was unsuccessful and he was captured with his troops by Robert E. Lee (who at that time was a General for the US Army)
Brown was tried, found guilty of treason and hanged. SOME northerner abolitionists thought he was a martyr—most people thought he was a murderer.
He succeeded in scaring many south slave owners and caused a bigger divide between the North and South
Brown became a source of great fear to Southerners, who mistook the actions of some Northern abolitionists as the opinion of all Northerners.