ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT-AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY

The antislavery cause gained much more visibility in 1831 when white Boston newspaper editor William Lloyd Garrison and his newspaper, The Liberator, joined African Americans in demanding the immediate abolition of slavery. Though he was a pacifist, in 1831 Garrison published in his paper excerpts from Walker's Appeal, including its call for slave revolt. That summer a revolt led by Nat Turner, a slave, killed more than 50 whites in Virginia and increased slaveholders' conviction that such antislavery propaganda was dangerous. Southern states and local areas offered rewards for Walker, Garrison, and Garrison’s publisher and newspaper agents, and prohibited the paper's circulation. Later that year, Walker died suddenly at his shop in Boston; many suspected foul play.

A

Antislavery Societies

In 1833 Garrison’s supporters, both blacks and whites, organized the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). In less than a year, this society had established 47 local chapters in ten states. Members worked to convince Americans that slavery was immoral and argued for immediate emancipation. They also provided aid to campaigns to end discrimination and programs to educate blacks. Their attempts to win over major religious denominations and Congress met with little success. Their speakers were denied access to many churches and meeting houses, and for almost a decade (1836-1845) Congress employed a 'gag rule,' refusing to hear their antislavery petitions. Racial fears and public antagonism prompted mob attacks on antislavery speakers and interracial gatherings.

Members of the AASS contended that the Constitution was a proslavery document. Therefore, they argued that slavery could not be fought with political strategies; it must be destroyed through moral arguments. Other members of the AASS wanted to work through political parties, even if it meant striking compromises with proslavery forces. They were also uneasy about Garrison's attacks on most churches for failing to speak out against slavery and his insistence on the full participation of women. In 1840 some abolitionists withdrew from the AASS and formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. They announced their support for a new political party called the Liberty Party, which was founded in 1839.

Many other activists eventually supported working through political organizations to abolish slavery, including the most famous antislavery orator, Frederick Douglass. Douglass had escaped from slavery in 1838 and worked passionately for the antislavery cause. He joined other men and women, such as Sojourner Truth and Charles Lenox Remond, who traveled throughout the North testifying against slavery and organizing moral and political opposition. Abolitionist women commonly organized fairs and concerts to raise funds for antislavery work.

B

Underground Railroad

Many members of interracial antislavery societies added their efforts to the work of black churches and other black organizations in a vast informally organized network known as the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad helped shelter and transport fugitive slaves who had escaped from the South. Most escaped slaves remained in Northern communities, but some fled to black settlements in Canada, where they would be safe from recapture. Although most slaves found aid from the Underground Railroad only when they reached the North, some were aided by such 'conductors' as Harriet Tubman who ventured into the South to lead people to freedom. Through this underground, fugitives from slavery also escaped to freedom in the West Indies, Mexico, and Native American territories in Florida and the West.

Abolitionist networks were also activated in cases like the Amistad case. In 1839, 53 captured Africans being transported to Havana, Cuba killed the crew of the ship, the Amistad, and captured the vessel. Attempting to return the ship to Africa, they were eventually taken into custody by American officials off the coast of Long Island, New York, and charged with piracy and murder. Antislavery forces convinced former President John Quincy Adams to defend them and publicized their plight in newspapers and public meetings. Black communities and antislavery activists mobilized to raise funds, producing a play in New York, selling portraits of the leader of the captured Africans, Joseph Cinque, and holding antislavery events. After appeals, the Supreme Court finally freed those Africans who survived their two-year imprisonment on the grounds that they had been kidnapped in an illegal slave trade and had acted in self-defense.

During the 1840s black abolitionists became increasingly impatient with their slow progress and determined to widen the antislavery struggle. New Yorker David Ruggles called for slave uprisings in the pages of the Liberator in 1841. Black leaders began to more openly support violence to protect fugitives from being returned to slavery. But the growing power of the proslavery forces was signaled at the end of the decade when Texas joined the Union as a slave state.