Art and the Abolitionist Movement

Art and the Abolitionist Movement

The Abolitionist Movement • Abolitionism: a political movement that worked toward outlawing slavery and the slave trade • Began in the United States after the American Revolution • To spread message of the movement there were inexpensive prints and large-scale sculptures

The Abolitionist Movement cont’d • Quakers and Christians played a prominent role in the abolition of slavery • They argued that enslavement was contrary to the teachings of Scripture

Abolitionist Leaders

John Brown • John Brown was an important abolitionist leader • Led an armed raid in an attempt to seize arms and incite a slave revolt at Harper’s Ferry in October, 1859 • Revolt was not successful but was a key event that led to the Civil War • Born into a religious family in CT with a father who was strongly against slavery • Later Brown family moved to Ohio into an anti-slavery area • Participated in the Underground Railroad • Helped establish the League of Gileadites

Brown cont’d • John Brown and his wife had 20 children and agreed to take on a black youth as their own • Brown was not a major figure until 1855 when he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack in the antislavery town of Lawrence. • Brown killed 5 of its settlers. His sons and he continued to fight in the territory and in Mo for the rest of the year

William Lloyd Garrison • Garrison was the editor of an abolitionist newspaper called The Liberator

William Blake • William Blake was an important abolitionist leader in Britain, whose art was important the the American Abolitionist movement • His art depicted the hardships slaves endured

Blake cont’d • Blake’s “Flagellation of a Female Samboe Slave”(1806) • Woman is point of focus and the men are smaller to show their close-mindedness and “small” characters • Shows that women were victims as well as men

Frederick Douglass and Sojourner Truth • Both were former slaves who played active roles as advocates for the anti-slavery movement • Both were dynamic speakers whose speeches drew large crowds • Both wrote biographies, which were illustrated with portrait images • Images of such abolitionists were inexpensively printed and used as flyers to gather support from the public

Robert Duncanson • Painted a scene, Uncle Tom and Little Eva, based on the sympathetic characters in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Works Cited • http://cghs.dadeschools.net/african-american/precivil/abolition.htm

Art and the Abolitionist Movement