How did some abolitionists differ in their views toward African Americans?
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The practice of slavery is one of humankind's most deeply rooted institutions. Anthropologists find evidence of it in nearly every continent and culture dating back to ancient times and even the Neolithic period of human development. In Europe, the first significant efforts to ban human trafficking and abolish forced labor emerged in the 18th century. Show Enslaved Africans supplied the free labor that helped the British Empire prosper for much of the 18th century. The practice took hold in the English colonies in North America, too. Before, during, and after the United States Revolutionary War, several of the original 13 British colonies abolished slavery. The agricultural-based plantation economy of Southern colonies like Virginia and the Carolinas required a large labor force, which was met via enslaving people of African descent. In the New England states, many Americans viewed slavery as a shameful legacy with no place in modern society. The abolitionist movement emerged in states like New York and Massachusetts. The leaders of the movement copied some of their strategies from British activists who had turned public opinion against the slave trade and slavery. In 1833, the same year Britain outlawed slavery, the American Anti-Slavery Society was established. It came under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, a Boston journalist and social reformer. From the early 1830s until the end of the Civil War in 1865, Garrison was the abolitionists' most dedicated campaigner. His newspaper, the Liberator, was notorious. It was limited in circulation but was still the focus of intense public debate. Its pages featured firsthand accounts of the horrors of slavery in the South and exposed, for many, the inhumane treatment of enslaved people on U.S. soil. Garrison was a close ally of Frederick Douglass, who escaped his enslavement and whose 1845 autobiography became a bestseller. Abolitionists were a divided group. On one side were advocates like Garrison, who called for an immediate end to slavery. If that were impossible, it was thought, then the North and South should part ways. Moderates believed that slavery should be phased out gradually, in order to ensure the economy of the Southern states would not collapse. On the more extreme side were figures like John Brown, who believed an armed rebellion of enslaved people in the South was the quickest route to end human bondage in the United States. Harriet Tubman was like Douglass, she too had escaped enslavement and became a prominent abolitionist. She was active in the Underground Railroad, the clandestine network of safe houses and abolitionists that helped escapees reach freedom in the North. In the late 1850s, she assisted Brown in his planning for the disastrous raid on a federal arsenal in Harpers Ferry, Virginia. The threat of an armed revolt alarmed Americans on both sides of the debate over slavery. In the 1860 presidential election, voters chose Republican Party candidate Abraham Lincoln. The senator from Illinois opposed slavery but was cautious about supporting the abolitionists. Thirty-nine days after Lincoln's inauguration, the first shots were fired at Fort Sumter, South Carolina, which marked the onset of the U.S. Civil War. Five years later the war ended and the ratification of the 13th Amendment formally ended slavery in December 1865. William Lloyd Garrison published the Liberator, a radical anti-slavery newspaper, from 1831 until after the end of the Civil War in 1865. One of the few whites to support Walker's Appeal, he favored a non-violent, pacifist approach known as moral suasion; if people could be persuaded of the immorality of slavery, they would change their ways. Garrison used incendiary language to advocate the immediate emancipation of all slaves and their legal equality in every way with the country's white citizens. Some southerners alleged a link between the Liberator and the August, 1831 slave uprising in Virginia, led by Nat Turner, in which over 55 whites were killed. Garrison denounced the insurrection in Editorial Regarding David Walker's Appeal stating that "a good end does not justify wicked means." Women played a strong role in the abolitionist movement, often breaking new ground for women as well as for blacks. By the mid-1830s, abolitionists engaged in heated debates over whether women should participate in "male" activities for the sake of the cause. In fact, the idea for the first convention for women's rights, held in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, grew out of women abolitionists' dissatisfaction with the limitations placed on their role. In 1831, Maria Stewart began to write essays and make speeches against slavery, promoting educational and economic self-sufficiency for blacks. The first black woman, or woman of any color, to speak on political issues in public, Stewart gave her last public speech in 1833 before retiring to work only in women's organizations. Although her career was short, it set the stage for the African American women speakers who followed: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Sojourner Truth, and Harriet Tubman, among others. Since more direct participation in the public arena was fraught with difficulties and danger, many women assisted the movement by boycotting slave-produced goods and organizing fairs and food sales to raise money for the cause. Pennsylvania Hall was the site in 1838 of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women. As 3,000 white and black women gathered to hear prominent abolitionists such as Maria Weston Chapman and Angelina Grimké Weld, the speakers' voices were drowned out by the mob which had gathered outside. When the women emerged, arms linked in solidarity, they were stoned and insulted. The mob returned the following day and burned the hall, which had been inaugurated only three days earlier, to the ground. • Pennsylvania Hall When the women emerged, arms linked in solidarity, they were stoned and insulted. • Henry Highland Garnet • Garnet's "Call to Rebellion" • Frederick Douglass • The Meaning of the Fourth of July for the Negro Mob violence against abolitionists began to increase, as they were seen as a threat to the social order. And increasingly in the 1840s, abolitionist leaders were escaped slaves. They had a different, more personal approach to the issue of slavery and were more anxious for action rather than rhetoric in the fight for freedom. Henry Highland Garnet, a well-educated clergyman born a slave, issued his incendiary Call to Rebellion at the 1843 National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York. His speech, which encouraged slaves to rise up against their masters rather than wait for political solutions to their plight, was not endorsed by the committee. Why did some abolitionists differ in their views?How did some abolitionists differ in their views toward African Americans? some believed African Americans should have the same treatment as white Americans, while others were opposed to full equality.
What did the abolitionists believe about slaves and slavery?The abolitionists saw slavery as an abomination and an affliction on the United States, making it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. They sent petitions to Congress, ran for political office and inundated people of the South with anti-slavery literature.
How did the abolition movement affect African American?The abolition of slavery was the cause of free African-Americans. Once the colonization effort was defeated, free African-Americans in the North became more active in the fight against slavery. They worked with white abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Wendell Phillips to spread the word.
What are some difficulties faced by abolitionists?Abolitionists often faced violent opposition. Their printing presses were smashed, their books burned, and their lives threatened in both the North and South. Through their perseverance, however, they escalated the conflict over slavery to a critical point.
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