Abolition and the Underground Railroad

1. Abolition and the Underground Railroad Conrad, Emily, Adina, and Mallory

2. Introduction What is Abolition? The movement to outlaw slavery What is the Underground Railroad? A system of routes along which runaway slaves were helped to escape to Canada or safe areas in the free states

3. The Underground Railroad

4. David Walker William Lloyd Garrison Frederick Douglass Harriet Tubman Harriet Beecher Sojourner Truth Important Leaders

5. William Lloyd Garrison • Active in religious reform movements. • Established his own paper, The Liberator, where he wrote that immediate emancipation with no payment to shareholders is necessary. • Founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society and helped found the National American Anti-Slavery Society. • Whites who opposed abolition hated Garrison. In 1835, a Boston mob dragged him through town at the end of a rope. • Whites who supported the cause of abolition opposed Garrison when he attacked churches and the government for failing to condemn slavery.

6. Frederick Douglass • Born into slavery and was taught to read and write by the wife of one of his owners. • Her husband ordered her to stop teaching Douglass, however, because reading “would forever unfit him to be a slave,” she continued to teach him. • Douglass realized that knowledge could be his “pathway from slavery to freedom,” which made him study harder.

7. Frederick Douglass Continued... • He became a ship caulker in Baltimore. Although he earned the highest wages in the yard, his slave owner took his pay each week. • After a disagreement with his owner, he decided to escape. • Borrowing the identity of a free black sailor, he stepped onto a train to NY where he tasted freedom for the first time. • Hoping that abolition could be achieved without violence, he began an antislavery newspaper called The North Star, named after the star that guided runaway slaves to freedom.

8. David Walker • A free North Carolinian who had moved to Boston, urged blacks to rise up and take their freedom by force. • In his Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, he advised African Americans to fight for freedom rather than wait for slave owners to end slavery. • The majority of free blacks expressed less extreme views than Walker.

9. Harriet Tubman • After suffering a severe head injury as a young girl, she increased her strength until she became strong enough to perform tasks that most men could not do. • After her owner died, she decided to make a break for freedom and succeeded in reaching Philadelphia. • After the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act, she became a conductor for the Underground Railroad.

10. Harriet Tubman Continued... • In all, she made 19 trips back to the south and is said to have helped 300 slaves making her one of the most famous conductors of the Underground Railroad. • Southern authorities put a price of $40,000 on her head, but neither Tubman nor the slaves she helped were ever captured. • She was called “Moses” by those she helped escape the Underground Railroad. • Later in her life, she opened a home for elderly African Americans.

11. Sojourner Truth • Isabella Baumfree, a slave for the first 30 years of her life, adopted the name Sojourner Truth when she decided to sojourn throughout the country arguing for abolition. • She refuted the arguments that because she was a woman, she was weak, or because she was black, she was not feminine. • She fought for women’s rights, abolition, prison reform, and temperance.

12. Harriet Beecher Stowe • Author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin • She never forgot standing on the banks of the Ohio River, watching boats fill with slaves from Kentucky be shipped to slave markets. Her hatred for slavery grew until she resolved to express herself in writing. • Her book stirred strong reactions from Northerners and Southerners alike.

13. Harriet Beecher Stowe Continued... • Although many of its characters were stereotypes and its scenes unbelievable, the book delivered the message that slavery was not just a political contest, but also a great moral struggle. • North abolitionists increased their protests against the Fugitive Slave Act, while Southerners criticized the book as an attack on the south as a whole.

14. Accomplishments • Spread awareness of the evils of slavery - The Liberator, The North Star, Appeal to the Colored Citizens - creation of anti-slavery societies - Nat Turner’s Rebellion • Underground Railroad freed about 100,000 slaves - Harriet Tubman helped 300 slaves escape - Uncle Tom’s Cabin • Emancipation Proclamation 1863 -Strengthened union • Thirteenth Amendment 1865

15. The Liberator, Uncle Tom’s Cabin

16. Connections Abolition and the Underground Railroad embody Jacksonian Democracy through the increase of rights among a larger percentage of American citizens. By freeing the slaves, one of the common groups of men on U.S. soil is provided rights and representation.

17. Quiz Which of the discussed leaders may have negatively affected the growth of abolition in the United States? A) Harriet Tubman B)Frederick Douglass C)David Walker

18. Quiz Which of the following is not a piece of literature which supported abolition? A)Appeal to Citizens B)The Liberator C)Uncle Tom’s Cabin

19. Quiz Which of the following was not an accomplishment of abolitionists? A)Emancipation Proclamation B)The Growth of Nationalism C)The Thirteenth Amendment