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The best-known of the social reform movements of the antebellum era may be abolition - the effort to end slavery in the United States. There had been abolitionists since colonial days, notably the Quakers, and a vocal minority had tried to abolish slavery with the founding of the nation. Since the Transatlantic Slave Trade, slavery itself had changed with the invention of the cotton gin and the fabulous wealth earned from 'King Cotton.' While Southerners became more committed to maintaining and even expanding the peculiar institution, many Northerners began to see slavery as a moral evil because of what was called the Second Great Awakening.
There were many opponents to slavery in the 1800s, both white and black. All Northern states had outlawed slavery by 1807. Many runaway slaves and free blacks opposed slavery and helped bring it into the public consciousness, such as John Brown, Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Loyd Garisson and Frederick Douglass. With support for abolition growing, many people worked together to help enslaved people escape into free territory during this time, it was called the Underground Railroad and it was lead by many conductors throughout the South, but none more famous than Harriet Tubman.
Summary
Summary
Goals: to ABOLISH: get rid of slavery and discrimination
Leaders:
- Fredrick Douglass - bought his own freedom to go on to speak out against slavery
- Harriet Tubman: escaped slavery, helped thousands of slaves go to freedom, and raided southern plantations during the Civil War
- Grimke Sisters
Notable events:
- Formation of "The Society for the Abolishment of slavery" in England
- Sparking a Civil War
The abolition movement continues today. It seeks to abolish or radically change the institutional biases or preserved racism that remain in our political systems (institutional racism). Abolition - from it's anti-slavery advocacy days to more modern efforts such as the Civil Rights movement or the Black Lives Matter movement - has always been controversial, but these issues define our history.
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