Chapter 8

Opposition to Slavery 1800-1833

I. A Country in Turmoil

Late 1820s was a time of great change– Transportation and market revolution– Industrialization and immigration– Banking and money influence public policy

Fears– People felt threatened– Paranoia

Political Paranoia Corrupt bargain Democratic party

– Protected workers and farmers from the “money power”

– States’ rights• Protected slavery from national

government interference– Supported expanding slavery into new

regions

Political Paranoia (cont.)

Democratic party– Traditional view of women’s role in society

• Subservient

– Advocated white supremacy– African Americans designed by God to be slaves– “Slave power”

Political Paranoia (cont.)

Whigs– Opposed Jackson and the Democrats– Anti-Masonic party

• Believed Freemasons wanted to destroy government

– Supported active, nationalist government– Greater emphasis on morality and Protestantism

• Reformers• Opposed territorial expansion

– Attracted opponents to slavery

The Second Great Awakening

Government and heaven becoming democratic– Take control in religion away from established

clergy– People have a role in their own salvation– Influenced black churches that emerged in 1800s-

1810s– Charles G. Finney

• Perfectionism • Reform movements

The Benevolent Empire

Practical Christianity– Reform: public education, temperance,

prison reform, mentally and physically handicapped

– Antislavery societies

Abolitionism Begins in America

Pre-revolutionary Southern slaves sought to free

themselves – Received help from free blacks and a few whites– Did not seek to destroy slave labor system

Abolitionism Begins in America (cont.)

Post-revolutionary – Black and white abolitionists from the North– Quakers

• Organized first antislavery society, 1775– Society for the Promotion of the Abolition of Slavery,

1784» Attracted non-Quakers

• Gradual emancipation• Not equal rights• Little emphasis on southern slavery

– Emotionalism and Action• Second Great Awakening and Benevolent Empire

From Gabriel to Denmark Vesey Gabriel’s Conspiracy, 1800

– Haitian refugees– Revolutionary rhetoric– Revolutionary spirit– Insurrectionary network lived on

From Gabriel to Denmark Vesey (cont.)

Gabriel’s Conspiracy, 1800– Consequences

• Chesapeake antislavery societies declined• Ended hope to abolish slavery in Maryland,

Virginia, and North Carolina– Fears of race war

• Rebellions – Not caused by slavery– Black people were suited and content– Free black people

» Free black people were dangerous and criminal» Economic threat to white people

From Gabriel to Denmark Vesey (cont.) Denmark Vesey, 1822

– Familiar with revolutionary rhetoric– Haitian revolts– French Revolution– Missouri Crisis

• Antislavery speeches

From Gabriel to Denmark Vesey (cont.) Denmark Vesey: Consequences

– Charleston• Destroyed AME church• Improved slave patrols • Outlawed slave assemblages• Banned teaching slaves to read• Black seaman jailed until ships ready to leave

port• Increasingly suspicious of

– Free African-Americans– White Yankee visitors

III. The American Colonization Society ACS, 1816

– Proposed gradual emancipation• With compensation

– Sending ex-slaves and freed people to Liberia

• Support of southern slaveholders• Northern supporters preferred giving a choice

Black Nationalism

White prejudice denied blacks full citizenship– Liberia– Haiti– Prince Hall– Paul Cuffe– Henry Highland Garnet– Alexander Crummel

Opposition to Colonization

– Americans not Africans– Preferred to improve conditions in America– Worried that “voluntary” colonization would be

forced• Most southern states required the expulsion of slaves

individually freed by masters• Efforts to expel all free black people or return them to

slavery– Arkansas, 1858

• ACS considered a proslavery scheme to force free black people to choose between reenslavement or banishment.

IV. Black Women Abolitionists

– 19th century rigid gender hierarchy• Denied women access to law, politics,

business, – Most black women poor, lacked education– Slave and free risked all harboring fugitive slaves– Used meager savings to purchase freedom

– Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, 1833

• Maria Stewart (See PROFILE)– First women to address male audiences in public

V. The Baltimore Alliance Benjamin Lundy

– Quaker– Genius of Universal Emancipation

William Watkins (See VOICES)– Freedom’s Journal

William Lloyd Garrison– The Liberator– Immediate emancipation without compensation or

expatriation– Equal rights– Altered abolition in America

VI. David Walker’s Appeal

David Walker– Appeal . . . to the Colored Citizens of the

World, 1829• Aggressively attacked slavery and white racism• Advocated violence

– Frightened white southerners– Pamphlet was regarded as dangerous in the

Old South» Found among slaves in southern parts

• See PROFILE

VII. Nat Turner

– Nat Turner• Learned to read as a child• Studied the Bible• Saw visions

– Believed God intended him to lead people to freedom– Revolt, August 1831

– Virginia state constitutional convention, 1829• Class tensions

– Emancipation

Nat Turner (cont.) Turner’s Revolt

– Shaped a new era in American abolition• Whites everywhere blamed abolitionists• Northern abolitionists asserted hope for peaceful

struggle• Accorded heroic stature by northern abolitionists

VIII. Conclusion

The Second Great Awakening and Reform Movement– Shaped slavery

Gabriel, Vesey, and Turner– Employed violence

Northern abolitionists– Employed newspapers, books, petitions, and

speeches Slaves’ resistance

– Influenced northern abolitionists