Abolitionists

Frederick Douglass• 1818 (Maryland) to 1895

• An escaped slave, a famous orator, journalist and antislavery leader, who was self-educated.

• His mother was Harriet Bailey and his father was an unknown white man

• At 17, a slave breaker named Covey had beaten him on a daily basis. After 6 months, Frederick resisted Covey. After that Covey never attempted to beat him again. Before this event, Frederick believed that he was nothing and after it, he wrote that he was a man now. He described this as the turning point of his life as a slave.

• He was sent to Baltimore to work as an apprentice in a ship yard. In 1838, he obtained papers from a free black seaman and, dressed as a sailor, took a train to New York.

Frederick Douglass• He married Anna Murray and had 5

children• He changed his surname, Johnson

to Douglass, the name of a character in the poem “The Lady of the Lake”

• His autobiographies were:• Narrative of the Life of Frederick

Douglass (1845)• My Bondage and My Freedom

(1855)• Life and Times of Frederick

Douglass (1881/1882)

• His newspapers were:• The North Star (1847-1863)• Frederick Douglass’ Weekly• Douglass’ Monthly

Frederick Douglass• His house in Rochester was a station on the

UGR

• He was a friend of John Brown, but refused to join the rebellion

• 1884, he married his white secretary, Helen Pitts, which outraged many blacks and whites. For him, the marriage symbolized one more victory in his lifelong crusade against racial discrimination.

• Douglass also encouraged Lincoln to have an all black regiment in the American Civil War, which was the 54th Massachusetts Regiment

Thomas Clarkson

• 1760-1846• Leading figure in the

Abolition Society of Britain in 1787.

• Spoke out against the slave trade and persuaded people not to buy slave-grown sugar.

William Lloyd Garrison

• 1805-1879• From Massachusetts• He used his newspaper, The

Liberator, to fight slavery• Helped organize the American

Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, of which he was president.

• Later he campaigned on behalf on the Native Americans and also for votes for women.

Elijah Lovejoy• 1802-1837• Born in Maine; Died in Alton, Illinois

• A white abolitionist journalist and Presbyterian minister

• He published a religious newspaper, The St. Louis Observer, and began to advocate the abolition of slavery.

• After seeing a slave burned at the stake, his editorials became so strident against slavery that he became an object of hatred by both Southerners and slave-holders. His printing presses were frequently destroyed.

Elijah Lovejoy• On Nov. 7th, 1837, Lovejoy and 20 supporters gathered at Godfrey

& Gilman warehouse to guard a new press.

• They were confronted by an angry mob and while trying to stop a fire, Lovejoy was shot.

• The mob action at Godfrey & Gilman warehouse was the first, but unrecorded battle of the American Civil War.

Sojourner Truth• Born about 1797 in New York and died in

1883.

• She transformed herself from a domestic servant named Isabella Van Wagenen into a runaway slave, who became a favourite speaker at abolitionist rallies

• In 1843, she changed her name to Sojourner Truth (Sojourner = a temporary resident)

• She was a deeply religious woman who spent more than 40 years preaching and arguing against slavery.

• She gave her famous “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech at the 1851 Women’s Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio.

Harriet Beecher Stowe

• 1811 (Connecticut) – 1896• a white, American writer• She is most famous as the

author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel that made Northerners angry over slavery.

• Published in 1852• It condemned slavery and was

an important factor precipitating the American Civil War

Charles Sumner• 1811-1874• From Massachusetts

• A white US senator, who became the Senate’s leading opponent of slavery.

• After one speech Sumner made against pro-slavery groups in Kansas in 1856, he was beaten unconscious by Preston Brooks, a congressman from South Carolina

Harriet Tubman (Araminta Ross)

• She was born in Dorchester County, Maryland. Her birth was not recorded, but it was app. 1820

• Both of her parents were from Africa and were taken into slavery

• At age 12 she would not help her master tie up a fellow slave, who was being punished. Her master struck her in the head with a weight/rock, which caused her to have blackouts throughout her life.

• At the 25 she married John Tubman,

who was a free black

Harriet Tubman (Araminta Ross)

• She escaped slavery by using the Underground Railroad (UGR)

• Stationmaster William Still, from Philadelphia taught everything she knew about the UGR

• She became the most famous conductor of the UGR.

• She rescued app. 300 slaves and did not lose anyone. She threatened death to anyone who tried to go back, as she carried 2 pistols

• There was a $40,000 reward for her capture

Harriet Tubman (Araminta Ross)

• Her nickname was Moses, as she led her people to freedom

• She was friends with Frederick Douglass & John Brown• During the American Civil War, she served as a nurse

and spy for the Union.• After the American Civil War, she went to Auburn, New

York, where she died in 1913