Unit 5 Notes 1 Abolition & Women’s Rights

1. Unit 5 Notes 1 Abolition & Women’s Rights

2. Abolition: the movement to end slavery, began in the late 1700’s. Abolitionists strongly believed that the US needed to end slavery to fulfill its promise of liberty and equality.

3. The most outspoken white abolitionist was William Lloyd Garrison. He started a well circulated antislavery newspaper called The Liberator in 1831. On occasion, abolitionists were attacked. William Lloyd Garrison was once dragged through the streets of Boston. Ultimately, southerners saw the abolitionist movement as a threat to their way of life! They were going to take away their work force.

4. Frederick Douglass • Born Fredrick Bailey to a white father and a black mother • At age 8 he was taught how to read by from his Masters wife. • He escaped by train with a borrowed pass. To avoid recapture he changed his name. • After traveling for some time, he learned that his slave owners had petitioned for his return. • Douglass escaped to Great Britain where he continued to speak out against slavery. • When Douglass returned, he bought his freedom. • He began publishing an Abolitionist newspaper called the North Star.

5. Sojourner Truth was born Isabella Baumfree, she was also an escaped slave. During her life, she challenged injustice wherever she saw it. She was an abolitionist, women's rights activist and a devout (dedicated) Christian. In fact, she changed her name in 1843 to reflect her life’s work: to sojourn (temporary stay in a place) and “declare the truth to the people.”

6. Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad. The UndergroundRailroad was not a real railroad but a network of abolitionists that secretly helped runaway slaves to reach freedom in the North and in Canada. Whites and free blacks acted as “conductors” to guide slaves to stations (abolitionist homes, caves, churches) to spend the night and get food.

7. Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor. She led 300 slaves (including her parents) to freedom during 19 trips. Tubman herself was an escaped slave who was struck in the head by an overseer when she was 13. This caused her to have fainting spells throughout her life. She escaped from slavery with help from a local abolitionist who directed her along the Underground Railroad She made it to Philadelphia, PA in 1849 and joined the UGRR

8. Elizabeth Cady Stanton After returning from the 1840 World Antislavery Convention in London , (they were not allowed in because the men said it was not their place) Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott decided to hold the first national women’s rights convention.

9. In 1848, in Seneca Falls, New York they gathered to discuss the issues relating to women’s rights. This was known as the Seneca Falls Convention. They wrote a Declaration of Sentiments which proclaimed, “We hold these truths to be self evident: that all men and women are created equal.”