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Slavery has been around for centuries. Eventually around the world more and more countries decided enough was enough. They began to fight slavery. This movement eventually spread to America. Slavery in the United States was a growing problem from 1776 to 1852.

There was many methods abolitionists did to try to prevent and end slavery. Some of these methods were more aggressive than others. One example of an aggressive method was fighting. Tension in the United States was building and sometimes free people fought slave owners or visa versa. A lot of the time this method was efficient. If the slave owner was killed or hurt, the slaves had an opportunity to escape. Another benefit of this method was that it scared other slave owners, possibly making them give up their slaves more easily. A problem with this method was that it helped trigger the civil war where both sides had much blood shed.

Another method to end slavery was literature. Countless abolitionists during this time wrote books, letters, speeches, poems, memoirs, documents, etc. to try to convince and show the United States why slavery needed to be stopped and how they can help the cause. One example of this was stated in the Abolitionist Sources. This document states, "The time has come when you must act for yourselves. . . . You can do the work of emancipation better than any
others. . . However much you and all of us may desire it, there is not much hope of redemption without the shedding
of blood. If you must bleed, let it all come at once . . ." This was an except from one abolitionist. This piece of writing was made to motivate, inspire, and educate slaves about standing up and fighting for whats right. The document was made to help make slaves fight their masters even if it means they die to try to save other slaves lives.

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The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship

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The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship

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This document talks about slavery and the removal of slavery over time. The documents talk about people and laws that were passed due to abolitionists. For example in  the document it states, "Music was one of the most powerful weapons of the abolitionists. In 1848, William Wells Brown, abolitionist and former slave, published The Anti-Slavery Harp, “a collection of songs for anti-slavery meetings,” which contains songs and occasional poems. The Anti-Slavery Harp is in the format of a “songster”—giving the lyrics and indicating the tunes to which they are to be sung, but with no music. The book is open to the pages containing lyrics to the tune of the “Marseillaise,” the French national anthem, which to 19th-century Americans symbolized the determination to bring about freedom, by force if necessary." This shows that music was one method to convince slaves and free men to stand up to fight slavery. This was done over time to try and fight slavery.

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Black and white abolitionists in the first half of the nineteenth century waged a biracial assault against slavery. Their efforts proved to be extremely effective. Abolitionists focused attention on slavery and made it difficult to ignore. They heightened the rift that had threatened to destroy the unity of the nation even as early as the Constitutional Convention.

Although some Quakers were slaveholders, members of that religious group were among the earliest to protest the African slave trade, the perpetual bondage of its captives, and the practice of separating enslaved family members by sale to different masters.

As the nineteenth century progressed, many abolitionists united to form numerous antislavery societies. These groups sent petitions with thousands of signatures to Congress, held abolition meetings and conferences, boycotted products made with slave labor, printed mountains of literature, and gave innumerable speeches for their cause. Individual abolitionists sometimes advocated violent means for bringing slavery to an end.

Although black and white abolitionists often worked together, by the 1840s they differed in philosophy and method. While many white abolitionists focused only on slavery, black Americans tended to couple anti-slavery activities with demands for racial equality and justice.

Anti-Slavery Activists

Sojourner Truth

Abolitionist and women's rights advocate Sojourner Truth was enslaved in New York until she was an adult. Born Isabella Baumfree around the turn of the nineteenth century, her first language was Dutch. Owned by a series of masters, she was freed in 1827 by the New York Gradual Abolition Act and worked as a domestic. In 1843 she believed that she was called by God to travel around the nation-sojourn-and preach the truth of his word. Thus, she believed God gave her the name, Sojourner Truth. One of the ways that she supported her work was selling these calling cards.

Woman to Woman

Ye wives and ye mothers, your influence extend-
Ye sisters, ye daughters, the helpless defend-
The strong ties are severed for one crime alone,
Possessing a colour less fair than your own.

Abolitionists understood the power of pictorial representations in drawing support for the cause of emancipation. As white and black women became more active in the 1830s as lecturers, petitioners, and meeting organizers, variations of this female supplicant motif, appealing for interracial sisterhood, appeared in newspapers, broadsides, and handicraft goods sold at fund-raising fairs.

Harriet Tubman-the Moses of Her People

The quote below, echoing Patrick Henry, is from this biography of underground railroad conductor Harriet Tubman:

Harriet was now left alone, . . . She turned her face toward the north, and fixing her eyes on the guiding star, and committing her way unto the Lord, she started again upon her long, lonely journey. She believed that there were one or two things she had a right to, liberty or death.

After making her own escape, Tubman returned to the South nineteen times to bring over three hundred fugitives to safety, including her own aged parents.

In a handwritten note on the title page of this book, Susan B. Anthony, who was an abolitionist as well as a suffragist, referred to Tubman as a "most wonderful woman."

William Lloyd Garrison-Abolitionist Strategies

White abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, born in 1805, had a particular fondness for poetry, which he believed to be "naturally and instinctively on the side of liberty." He used verse as a vehicle for enhancing anti-slavery sentiment. Garrison collected his work in Sonnets and Other Poems (1843).

During the 1840s, abolitionist societies used song to stir up enthusiasm at their meetings. To make songs easier to learn, new words were set to familiar tunes. This song by William Lloyd Garrison has six stanzas set to the tune of "Auld Lang Syne."

Popularizing Anti-Slavery Sentiment

Abolitionist Songsters

Music was one of the most powerful weapons of the abolitionists. In 1848, William Wells Brown, abolitionist and former slave, published The Anti-Slavery Harp, "a collection of songs for anti-slavery meetings," which contains songs and occasional poems. The Anti-Slavery Harp is in the format of a "songster"-giving the lyrics and indicating the tunes to which they are to be sung, but with no music. The book is open to the pages containing lyrics to the tune of the "Marseillaise," the French national anthem, which to 19th-century Americans symbolized the determination to bring about freedom, by force if necessary.

Fugitive Slave Law

North to Canada

In the wake of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which forced Northern law enforcement officers to aid in the recapture of runaways, more than ten thousand fugitive slaves swelled the flood of those fleeing to Canada. The Colonial Church and School Society established mission schools in western Canada, particularly for children of fugitive slaves but open to all. The school's Mistress Williams notes that their success proves the "feasibility of educating together white and colored children." While primarily focusing on spiritual and secular educational operations, the report reproduces letters of thanks for food, clothing, shoes, and books sent from England. This early photograph accompanied one such letter to the children of St. Matthew's School, Bristol.

Growing Sectionalism

Distribution of Slaves

Although the Southern states were known collectively as the "slave states" by the end of the Antebellum Period, this map provides statistical evidence to demonstrate that slaves were not evenly distributed throughout each state or the region as a whole. Using data from the 1860 census, the map shows, by county, the percentage of slave population to the whole population. Tables also list population and area for both Southern and Northern states, while an inset map shows the extent of cotton, rice, and sugar cultivation. Another version of this map was published with Daniel Lord's The Effect of Secession upon the Commercial Relations between the North and South, and upon Each Section (New York, 1861), a series of articles reprinted from The New York Times.

Militant Abolition

John Brown's Raid

More than twenty years after the militant abolitionist John Brown had consecrated his life to the destruction of slavery, his crusade ended in October 1859 with his ill-fated attempt to seize the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry in western Virginia. He hoped to take the weapons from the arsenal and arm the slaves, who would then overthrow their masters and establish a free state for themselves.

Convicted of treason and sentenced to death, Brown maintained to the end that he intended only to free the slaves, not to incite insurrection. His zeal, courage, and willingness to die for the slaves made him a martyr and a bellwether of the violence soon to consume the country during the Civil War.

Frederick Douglass on John Brown

The friendship of Frederick Douglass and John Brown began in 1848, when Douglass visited Brown's home in Springfield, Massachusetts. Brown confided to Douglass his ambitious scheme to free the slaves. Over the next eleven years, Brown sought Douglass's counsel and support.

In August 1859 Brown made a final plea to Douglass to join the raid on Harpers Ferry. Douglass refused. After Brown's capture, federal marshals issued a warrant for Douglass's arrest as an accomplice. Douglass fled abroad. When he returned five months later to mourn the death of his youngest daughter Annie, he had been exonerated. Douglass wrote this lecture as a tribute to "a hero and martyr in the cause of liberty."

"The Book That Made This Great War"

Harriet Beecher Stowe's Mighty Pen

Harriet Beecher Stowe is best remembered as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, her first novel, published as a serial in 1851 and then in book form in 1852. This book infuriated Southerners. It focused on the cruelties of slavery-particularly the separation of family members-and brought instant acclaim to Stowe. After its publication, Stowe traveled throughout the United States and Europe speaking against slavery. She reported that upon meeting President Lincoln, he remarked, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war."

Uncle Tom's Cabin-Theatrical Productions

This poster for a production of Uncle Tom's Cabin features the Garden City Quartette under the direction of Tom Dailey and George W. Goodhart. Many stage productions of Harriet Beecher Stowe's famous novel have been performed in various parts of the country since Uncle Tom's Cabin was first published as a serial in 1851. Although the major actors were usually white, people of color were sometimes part of the cast. African American performers were often allowed only stereotypical roles-if any-in productions by major companies.

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The African American Odyssey: A Quest for Full Citizenship Abolition, Anti-Slavery Movements, and the Rise of the Sectional Controversy

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Black and white abolitionists in the 1st half of the 19th century waged a biracial assault against slavery. Their efforts heightened the rift that had threatened to destroy the unity of the nation even as early as the Constitutional Convention.

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This document talks about slavery and that it needs to be abolished. The documents talked about slavery and how more slaves are starting to become free. The documents talked about the fact that people need to rally up to fight slavery. For example the document states, "With entire confidence in the overruling justice of God, we plant ourselves upon the
Declaration of Independence, and upon the truths of Divine Revelation. . . .
We shall organize Anti-Slavery Societies, if possible, in every city, town, and village of
our land.
We shall send forth Agents to lift up the voice of remonstrance, of warning, of entreaty
and rebuke. . . . "

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This document contains excepts from different abolitionists. These abolitionists talk about why slavery is so bad and why we need to end it. The documents further talk about things people up the the north can do to stop slavery. One example of this in the documents states, "

1. Speak for the slave...

2. Write for the slave....

3. Petition for the slave. Begin at once to circulate petitions for the immediate abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia, and in Florida, against the admission of Florida into the Union as a slave state, for the prohibition of the internal slave trade...Let every abolitionist bestir himself also in circulating petitions to the legislature of the state in which he lives, praying the repeal of all laws graduating rights by the skin.

4. Work for the slave. Distribute anti-slavery publications, circulate them in your neighborhood, take them with you on journeys, take them as you go to meetings, to the polls, to the stores, to mill, to school, and every where; establish an anti-slavery library; get subscribers for anti-slavery newspapers, and collect money for anti-slavery societies; gather facts illustrating the condition of slaves; search out all who have lived in slave states, get them to write out their testimony as to the food, clothing, lodging, shelter, labor, and punishments of slaves, their moral condition, the licentiousness of slave-holders, &c., &c., and forward them to some anti-slavery paper for publication...

5. Work for the free people of color; …

" This talks about things that abolitionists can do to stop slavery and raise awareness on the subject matter.

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DBQs | Abolition | Becoming American | Landmarks of American History

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This question is based on the accompanying document (1-13). The question is designed to test your ability to work with historical documents. Some of the documents have been edited for the purpose of this question. As you analyze the documents, take into account both the source of each document and any point of view that may be presented in the document.

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This document talks mostly about Abraham Lincoln and if he was racist or not. In the document it shows Lincoln talking about race and his views on it. He talks about how he is against slavery but he agrees that white is more superior than black. For example in the documents Lincoln states, "There is a physical difference between the
two, which in my judgment will probably forever forbid their living
together in perfect equality, and. . . I, as well as Judge Douglas,
am in favor of the race to which I belong, having the superior
position."

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This document is made up of many different excerpts that directly link to why the civil war happened. Some of these excerpts talk about how the law was changed over and over again to try to compromise and handle both sides of the country. These compromises didn't please the north or the south and only created more tension between them. The compromises and the laws were considered unfair to either side. One example in the document, Document 5 states that there was an act made in 1854 called, "The Kansas-Nebraska Act". This act made it so Kansas and Nebraska when they were to become states, they could choose whether or not they wanted to be a slave state or a free state. The people in the north and the south but also those who lived in the territory had different views. Some people wanted it to be a slave state and others wanted it to be a free state. This caused multiple battles to break out to try to decide it.

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This document is made of different excepts from famous abolitionists from 1831 to 1861. Many of these sources are form speeches or literature directed towards the free north and what they can do but also to slaves and what they can do too. These helped educate others on why slavery is so bad and why it needed to be stopped. This created more and more tension between the north and the south but also the south and the slaves. One example in the document it states, "The time has come when you must act for yourselves. . . . You can do the work of emancipation better than any
others. . . However much you and all of us may desire it, there is not much hope of redemption without the shedding
of blood. If you must bleed, let it all come at once . . ." This quote was meant for the slaves and that they need to stand up for themselves even if it causes some deaths for slaves.