| Basic Concepts: The American Abolitionist
Movement
The movement to abolish slavery in the United States began in the eighteenth century, but it gained momentum in the New England states in the early nineteenth century. In 1833, representatives from ten states met in Philadelphia to found the national American Anti-Slavery Society. William Lloyd Garrison, the organization's founder, drafted the Society's declaration and began his long career as one of the most vigorous activists in the country in the cause of the abolitionists. His fiery publication, the Liberator, became the most strident voice calling for the immediate abolition of slavery and the secession of the North from the Union if slavery were to continue in the South. . The attack on slavery was orchestrated on various fronts. Stories of slaves, called "slave narratives," published widely, contributed to the cause of abolition. The Sunday School Union distributed thousands of copies in the networks of congregations throughout the North. Sojourner Truth, a freed slave, carried the anti-slavery message in her religious crusades. Frederick Douglass, escaped from the South, became one of the most celebrated and eloquent authorities on the evils of the practice. And William Lloyd Garrison organized the "Underground Railroad" which escorted thousands of escaped slaves from the South to sanctuary sites in the northern states and Canada. . Online Connections For examples of early seventeenth-century and nineteenth-century anti-slavery tracts and sermons, see the "African American Odyssey: Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy." For an overview of the Abolitionist Movement, see the "American Abolitionism." . Our Course Connections Selections from the "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass" recount the horrors of slavery and Douglass's own struggle to exert his independence and basic humanity in the context of the most abusive oppression in the South. .  |