Social Reform Movements
from the 1820s to the 1850s:
Abolitionist Movement
Social Reforms & Redefining the Ideal of
Equality in America
Fighting Against Slavery
Main Idea
The movement to end slavery dominated the Reform Era.
Reading Focus
• What was life like for enslaved African Americans in the South?
• How did people in the South fight against slavery?
• What were the major developments in the abolition movement?
The Lives of Enslaved African
Americans
• Including the colonial period, slavery had been an American institution for two
centuries.
• Enslaved African Americans were held in every colony, northern and southern.
• In the North, slavery continued to exist in some form until the 1840s.
• By 1860 nearly 4 million African Americans lived in slavery in the South.
Slave Auctions
• At slave auctions, slaves (like animals) were
inspected for any physical impurities.
• If a slave had many scars, it usually meant
he/she was whipped several times and was
troublesome.
The Lives of Enslaved African Americans
• Children were routinely separated from their parents, brothers from their
sisters, and husbands from their wives. Families were often separated to “break
their will” and would ensure that there would be no resistance by the slaves.
Owners could separate families by selling husbands,
wives, and their children to different buyers.
· Strong
family
relationships
were formed
through
extended
families.
Five
generations
of a family
born into
slavery on a
South
Carolina
plantation.
The Lives of Enslaved African
Americans
• Enslaved men, women, and children worked every day of their lives, from the
time they were old enough to perform chores until they were too old to be of any
more use to the slaveholder.
• Most enslaved people lived on farms or plantations in the South, where cotton
was a leading crop.
• They worked planting, tending, picking, processing, and loading cotton.
The Lives of Enslaved African
Americans
• Other jobs included the many other tasks needed to maintain a farm or
plantation, such as constructing and repairing buildings.
• Other plantation slaves worked as servants in the slaveholder’s house.
The Lives of Enslaved
African Americans
• Some enslaved people were skilled artisans,
and many worked as blacksmiths, bricklayers,
or carpenters.
• Some slaves lived in cities where they worked
in factories and mills, in offices, and in homes.
• Others worked in mines or in the forest as
lumberjacks.
The Lives of Enslaved African Americans
A life of want
• Enslaved African Americans were provided with inadequate food, clothing, and
shelter.
• They seldom received medical care; sickness rarely stopped their work.
• They had no rights under the law because it viewed them as property.
The Lives of Enslaved African Americans
• Many slaveholders treated their slaves relatively well. But they generally did so
in order to secure loyal service, not out of any great sense of humanity.
• Some slaveholders used a wide variety of punishments, such as beating,
whipping, starving, and threatening a person’s family members, to ensure
obedience.
The Lives of
Enslaved African
Americans
• African Americans developed
ways to survive and bring some
light into their lives through
religion, storytelling, and music.
• Picture Top Right:
• Slaves holding a Christian
religious ceremony
• Picture Bottom Right:
• Slaves singing and dancing
to a “slave spiritual”
The Two Sides of Slavery
Supporting Abolition
Opposing abolition
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The Antislavery Movement in the South
• In 1860, about 215,000 African Americans in the South were free
blacks.
– Former slaves who had been emancipated, or freed, by
slaveholders
– More typically, some were free because their ancestors had
been freed.
• They still faced harsh legal and social discrimination.
• Free blacks aided people escaping slavery and spoke out for
freedom.
Slave Revolts
• An uprising led by Nat Turner in 1830 became the deadliest slave
revolt in American history.
• New laws were enacted to strictly limit the movements and
meetings of slaves.
Nat Turner’s Rebellion: Background
• Nat spent his entire life in Southampton
County, Virginia, an area with
predominantly more blacks than whites.
• Nat was singularly intelligent, and
learned how to read and write at a
young age.
– He grew up deeply religious, and was
often seen fasting, praying or immersed in
reading the stories of the Bible.
– He frequently received visions which he
interpreted as messages from God.
– These visions greatly influenced his life;
for instance, when Nat was 23 years old,
he ran away from his owner, but returned a
month later after receiving such a vision. • While working in his owner's fields on
• Turner often conducted Baptist services, May 12, Turner:
and preached the Bible to his fellow
"heard a loud noise in the heavens, and the
slaves, who dubbed him as "The
Spirit instantly appeared to me and said the
Prophet".
– Turner also had an influence over some
white people.
• By early 1828, Nat was convinced that
he "was ordained for some great
purpose in the hands of the Almighty.“
Serpent was loosened, and Christ had laid
down the yoke he had borne for the sins of
men, and that I should take it on and fight
against the Serpent, for the time was fast
approaching when the first should be last and
the last should be first.“
• Nat was convinced that God had given
him the task of "slay[ing] my enemies
with their own weapons."
• Beginning in February 1831, Turner
came to believe that certain atmospheric
conditions were to be interpreted as a
sign that he should begin preparing for a
rebellion against the slave owners.
• On February 12, 1831, an annular solar
eclipse was seen in Virginia. Nat saw this
as a Black man's hand reaching over the
sun and he took this as his sign.
– The rebellion was initially planned for July
4, Independence Day, but was postponed
due to deliberation between him and his
followers, and illness.
• On August 13, there was an atmospheric
disturbance, another solar eclipse, in
which the sun appeared bluish-green
(possibly from debris deposited in the
atmosphere by an eruption of Mount
Saint Helens).
– Nat took this as the final signal, and a week
later, on August 21, he began the rebellion.
Nat Turner’s
Rebellion:
Background
Nat Turner’s Rebellion
• Nat started with a few trusted
fellow slaves.
– The rebels traveled from house to
house, freeing slaves and killing all
the white people they found.
– The rebels ultimately included more
than 50 enslaved and free blacks.
• Because the rebels did not want to
alert anyone to their presence as
they carried out their attacks, they
initially used knives, hatchets, axes,
and blunt instruments instead of
firearms.
– Nat called on his group to "kill all
whites.“
• The rebellion did not discriminate
by age or sex, although Nat later
indicated that he intended to spare
women, children, and men who
surrendered as it went on.
•Before Nat and his brigade of rebels
met resistance at the hands of a white
militia, they killed a total of 60 white
men, women and children.
•They spared a few homes "because
Turner believed the poor white
inhabitants 'thought no better of
themselves than they did of negroes
Significance of Nat Turner’s Rebellion
• Nat Turner's rebellion was
suppressed within 48 hours,
but Turner eluded capture
until October 30, when he
was discovered hiding in a
hole covered with fence
rails and then taken to court.
• On November 5, 1831, he
was tried, convicted, and
sentenced to death.
• Turner was hanged on
November 11 in Jerusalem,
Significance:
Virginia, now known as
• No other large-scale revolt by slaves
Courtland, Virginia.
• New laws were enacted to strictly
– His body was flayed,
beheaded and quartered.
limit the movements and meetings of
slaves.
The Antislavery Movement in the South
• Some enslaved people chose a nonviolent way to end their enslavement—they
escaped.
• They tried to reach the free states of the North or Canada or Mexico, where
slavery was illegal.
• No one knows exactly how many slaves escaped.
• Thousands attempted escape, and although most were soon captured, many did
make it to freedom.
The Underground
Railroad
• It was an informal, constantly
changing network of escape
routes
• Sympathetic white people and
free blacks provided escapees
with food, hiding places, and
directions to their next
destination, closer to free
territory.
• “Conductor”  leader of the
escape
• “Passengers”  escaping
slaves
• “Tracks”  routes
• “Trains”  farm wagons
transporting the escaping slaves
• “Depots”  safe houses to
rest/sleep
Harriet Tubman
(1820-1913)
• Harriet Tubman: famous
Underground Railroad worker who
had escaped slavery and helped
hundreds of slaves to freedom
• She helped over 300 slaves to
freedom.
• There was a $40,000 bounty on
her head for helping slaves escape
from their masters.
• She served as a Union spy during
the Civil War.
“Moses”
Leading Escaping Slaves Along the
Underground Railroad
Abolitionist Laura Smith Haviland
• She was an abolitionist and conductor
in the Underground Railroad.
• Haviland's anti-slavery efforts became
her life's work, establishing the first
Underground Railroad station in
Michigan
– She traveled to the South many times to
help runaway slaves find their way to
freedom.
Haviland is pictured probably
speaking at an anti-slavery meeting.
• In 1849, Haviland opened a school for
African Americans in Toledo, Ohio in
an effort to educate free blacks.
• She continued her humanitarian work
as a nurse in the Civil War and agent of
the Freedmen's Aid Society.
• Here Haviland is pictured probably
speaking at an anti-slavery meeting.
Escaped Slave Josiah Henson
• Henson escaped as a fugitive slave from
Maryland in 1830, to Canada on the
Underground Railroad.
• By 1841, Reverend Henson revealed his
skills as an abolitionist, conductor on the
Underground Railroad, and businessman
when he organized with others to purchase
400
• acres of land near Dresden, Ontario. This
became the Dawn Settlement where the
British American Institute for fugitive
slaves was located, the first vocational
training school for blacks in North
America.
• Henson's work as a conductor on the
Underground Railroad brought at least 118
enslaved to freedom.
Josiah Henson, pictured here
with his wife, appears dignified
and of middle-class wealth
– Obviously it was dangerous for Henson leave
the safety of his home and freedom in Canada
to travel south in order to guide other
enslaved men and women to freedom
Abolitionist Reverend John
Rankin and Wife
Reverend John Rankin and Wife
pictured here with his wife on their 50th
wedding anniversary.
• The life of John Rankin represents a deep
belief in the right to freedom for all people
regardless of race.
• As a Presbyterian minister, Rankin started an
anti-slavery society in Carlisle, Kentucky,
amidst angry slave owners.
• He eventually moved to Ripley, Ohio, where
slavery was illegal although many whites in
the area remained strong pro-slavery
supporters, and risked working as a
conductor and station keeper on the
Underground Railroad.
• Rankin lectured across the northern states
for the American Anti-Slavery Society, often
falling victim to mob-violence.
• One time, pro-slavery advocates shaved his
horse’s tail and mane in an effort to
embarrass and scare him.
• In 1829, Rankin established the historic
Ripley College, enrolling the first AfricanAmerican student in 1831.
The Abolition Movement
• The abolition movement was a campaign
to abolish, or end, slavery.
• No other movement attracted as many
followers, garnered as much attention,
elicited such strong feelings, or had such an
impact on the history of the United States.
• The abolition movement had deep roots
in religion.
• Many religious people in the North saw
slavery as a clear moral wrong that went
directly against their beliefs.
• By 1836 more than 500 antislavery
societies existed.
Gradualists
Immediatists
Anti-Slavery Alphabet
Detail of two
engravings from
The American
Anti-Slavery
Almanac of 1840.
The Tree of Slavery—Loaded with the
Sum of All Villanies!
Sarah &
Angelina
Grimké
• The Grimké sisters were born in Charleston, South Carolina
– They were outspoken campaigners for abolition and women’s rights.
• Throughout their lives, they traveled throughout the North, lecturing about
their first-hand experiences with slavery on their family's plantation.
• The Grimke father has hundreds of slaves. Among the first women to act
publicly in social reform movements, they received abuse and ridicule for
their abolitionist activity.
• They both realized that women would have to create a safe space in the
public arena to be effective reformers.
• They became early activists in the women's rights movement.
American Colonization Society
• Founded in 1817 & goal
was to end slavery by
setting up a colony in West
Africa for freed slaves.
• In 1822, the nation of
Liberia was formed and
several thousand AfricanAmericans settled there.
– It’s capital, Monrovia, is
named
after President
James Monroe
British Colonization Society symbol
•In the beginning of the 19th
century, groups of free-born blacks,
freed slaves and mulattoes from the
United States of America
emigrated to the west coast of
Africa.
•In 1847, 25 years after the first
successful colonization, they
proclaimed an independent
Republic, which they named
Liberia. At that time they
numbered about 3,000: men,
women and children.
•HOWEVER, Most AfricanAmericans wanted to stay in the
U.S., which was their homeland.
Trustee R.M. McGill
1846
William Lloyd
Garrison
(1801-1879)
• William Lloyd Garrison published an
abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator, for
35 years, until slavery was abolished
• Garrison’s Core Beliefs:
• Slavery & Masonry undermined
republican values.
• Immediate emancipation with NO
compensation for slave owners.
• Slavery was a moral, not an economic
issue.
Black Abolitionist David Walker
• American black abolitionist, most
famous for his pamphlet David
Walker's Appeal To the Coloured
Citizens of the World – among the
most powerful anti-slavery works
ever written.
• Walker denounced the American
institution of slavery as the most
oppressive in world history and
called on people of African descent
to resist slavery and racism by any
means.
• He believed that blacks (slaves)
should fight for freedom rather than
wait to be set free by whites.
• The book terrified southern slave
owners, who immediately labeled it
seditious.
– A price was placed on Walker's head:
$10,000 if he were brought in alive,
$1,000 if dead.
Frances Ellen Watkins Harper
• She was born a free black in Baltimore,
Maryland.
– She was fortunate enough to receive an
education & realized how disadvantaged
those of her race were.
– She worked towards the abolition of slavery
and civil rights for free blacks.
• Watkins traveled to many cities lecturing
on the human suffering and political
injustice of slavery.
• In Philadelphia she worked with the
Underground Railroad, an experience that
strengthened her convictions as an antislavery activist.
• In 1854, Watkins was exiled from her
home state because of new laws allowing
whites to re-enslave any African American
entering from the North.
• Watkins wrote poetry and novels, donating
part of the proceeds of her second book,
Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects, to the
Underground Railroad movement.
Aunt Polly Jackson
• She was a key figure in the
Underground Railroad movement and
is listed today on a local monument
dedicated to her and others who
risked their lives to help free the
enslaved.
• According to legend, as a fugitive
herself, Jackson fought off bounty
hunters with a butcher knife and
Kettle of boiling water.
• Jackson joined a community of free
blacks in the settlement of Africa,
Ohio, that was established near
Ripley.
• Many of the local black residents
served as conductors on the Railroad.
• The look of determination on Polly
Jackson’s face reveals her resolve to
fight for her freedom.
Robert James Harlan
• Born a slave into the elite white Harlan
family of Kentucky.
– He is believed to be the half brother of the
John Marshall Harlan, the U.S. Supreme
Court Justice most famous for opposing the
14th Amendment that granted African
Americans basic civil rights, and also for
voting against the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson
case that legalized segregation.
• He received some education while
enslaved and earned enough money to
purchase his freedom for $500.
• He struck it rich in the late 1840s, during
the California Gold Rush, and settled in
Cincinnati, Ohio, investing $90,000 in
local real estate.
• He built the first African-American
school in Cincinnati and fought for the
freedom and civil rights of all blacks
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
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•
•
An American abolitionist, women's suffragist, editor,
orator, author, statesman and reformer. Called "The
Sage of Anacostia" and "The Lion of Anacostia",
Douglass is one of the most prominent figures in
African-American and United States history.
He was a firm believer in the equality of all people,
whether black, female, Native American, or recent
immigrant.
He was born a slave in Talbot County, Maryland.
– He was separated from his mother, Harriet Bailey,
when he was still an infant.
– She died when Douglass was about seven and
•
Douglass lived with his maternal grandmother.
– The identity of his father is obscure. Appearing to be
of mixed race, Douglass originally stated that he was
told his father was a white man, perhaps his owner
Aaron Anthony.
– At age seven, Douglass was separated from his
•
grandmother and moved to the Wye House plantation,
where Anthony worked as overseer.
– When Anthony died, Douglass was given to Lucretia
Auld, wife of Thomas Auld.
She sent Douglass to serve Thomas'
brother Hugh Auld in Baltimore.
– When Douglass was about twelve, Hugh
Auld's wife Sophia started teaching him
the alphabet.
– She was breaking the law against
teaching slaves to read.
When Hugh Auld discovered this, he
strongly disapproved, saying that if a
slave learned to read, he would
become dissatisfied with his condition
and desire freedom.
Frederick Douglass (1817-1895)
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•
•
As Douglass learned and began to read
newspapers, political materials, and
books of every description, he was
exposed to a new realm of thought that
led him to question and then condemn
the institution of slavery.
In later years, Douglass credited The
Columbian Orator, which he discovered
at about age twelve, with clarifying and
defining his views on freedom and
human rights.
When Douglass was hired out to a Mr.
Freeman, he taught other slaves on the
plantation how to read the New
Testament at a weekly Sabbath school.
– As word spread, the interest among slaves
in learning to read was so great that in any
week more than 40 slaves would attend
lessons.
•
•
•
In 1833, Thomas Auld took Douglass
back from Hugh.
Dissatisfied with Douglass, he was then
sent to work for Edward Covey, a poor
farmer who had a reputation as a "slave- •
breaker.“
– There Douglass was whipped regularly.
The sixteen-year-old Douglass was indeed
nearly broken psychologically by his ordeal
under Covey, but he finally rebelled against the
beatings and fought back.
– After losing a confrontation with Douglass, Covey
never tried to beat him again.
In 1837, Douglass met Anna Murray, a free
black in Baltimore. They married soon after he
obtained his freedom.
•
•
Douglas’s Abolitionist Activities
Douglass continued traveling up to
Massachusetts. There he joined various
organizations in New Bedford, including a black
church, and regularly attended abolitionist
meetings.
He subscribed to William Lloyd Garrison's
weekly journal The Liberator, and in 1841 heard
Garrison speak at a meeting of the Bristol AntiSlavery Society.
– At one of these meetings, Douglass was
unexpectedly asked to speak.
– After he told his story, he was encouraged to
become an anti-slavery lecturer.
– Douglass was inspired by Garrison and later
stated that "no face and form ever impressed me
with such sentiments [of the hatred of slavery] as
did those of William Lloyd Garrison."
– Garrison was likewise impressed with Douglass
and wrote of him in The Liberator.
– Several days later, Douglass delivered his first
speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery
Society's annual convention in Nantucket.
– Then 23 years old, Douglass said later that his
legs were shaking but he conquered his
nervousness and gave an eloquent speech about
his rough life as a slave.
•
•
In 1843, Douglass participated in the
American Anti-Slavery Society's
Hundred Conventions project, a sixmonth tour of meeting halls throughout
the Eastern and Midwestern United
States.
He participated in the Seneca Falls
Convention, the birthplace of the
American feminist movement, and
signed its Declaration of Sentiments.
Sojourner Truth (1787-1883)
• An African-American
or Isabella Baumfree
abolitionist and
women's rights activist.
• She was born into
slavery in Swartekill,
New York. Her bestknown speech, Ain't I
a Woman?, was
delivered in 1851 at the
Ohio Women's Rights
Convention in Akron,
Ohio.
• After securing her
freedom, she toured the
nation and spoke out
against slavery and
1850
 The Narrative of Sojourner Truth
called
for abolition
“Ain't I a Woman?”—Sojourner Truth
She delivered her best-known speech in 1851 at the Ohio Women's Rights Convention. The
speech has become known as Ain't I a Woman? after Truth's refrain. The speech as shown
here has been revised from the 19th century dialect in which Truth spoke.
“ Well, children, where there is so much racket there must be something out of kilter. I
think that 'twixt the Negroes of the South and the women at the North, all talking
about rights, the white men will be in a fix pretty soon. But what's all this here
talking about? That man over there says that women need to be helped into
carriages, and lifted over ditches, and to have the best place everywhere. Nobody
ever helps me into carriages, or over mud-puddles, or gives me any best place! And
ain't I a woman? Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and
gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain't I a woman? I could work
as much and eat as much as a man - when I could get it - and bear the lash as well!
And ain't I a woman? I have borne five children, and seen most all sold off to
slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And
ain't I a woman?
“Ain't I a Woman?”—Sojourner Truth
Then they talk about this thing in the head; what's this they call it? [member of audience
whispers, "intellect"] That's it, honey. What's that got to do with women's rights or
Negroes' rights? If my cup won't hold but a pint, and yours holds a quart, wouldn't
you be mean not to let me have my little half measure full?
Then that little man in black there, he says women can't have as much rights as men,
'cause Christ wasn't a woman! Where did your Christ come from? Where did Christ
come from? From God and a woman! Man had nothing to do with Him.
If the first woman God ever made was strong enough to turn the world upside down all
alone, these women together ought to be able to turn it back, and get it right side up
again! And now they is asking to do it. The men better let them.
Obliged to you for hearing me, and now old Sojourner ain't got nothing more to say.
” --Sojourner Truth