Abolitionist Movement Facts
Abolitionist Movement Facts
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Interesting Abolitionist Movement Facts: |
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Among the most ardent supporters of abolitionism were members of the Religious Society of Friends, more commonly known as the Quakers. |
The first official abolitionist group in the American colonies was The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage, which was formed by Quakers in 1775. |
James Oglethorpe, the founder of the colony of Georgia, was one of the first people to bring abolitionist ideas to the Americas in the mid-eighteenth century. |
After the American Revolution, most of the northern states officially abolished slavery, making them the first governments in the Americas to do so. |
Importation of slaves into the United States was banned in 1808. |
The United Kingdom abolished slavery in its empire with the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. |
In 1833, abolitionist icon William Lloyd Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS). |
Freedman Frederick Douglass was a notable member and frequent speaker for the AASS. |
By the middle of the eighteenth century, the abolitionist movement began to overlap in its mission and membership with the temperance and women's suffrage movements. |
Women's suffrage leaders Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were also ardent abolitionists. |
The best selling novel Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852), by Harriet Beecher Stowe, was an abolitionist tome that helped sway public opinion in the north against slavery. |
Abolitionists were often subject to violence, especially in the border states. |
The murder of abolitionist Elijah Lovejoy by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois in 1837 became a rallying cry for abolitionists and Lovejoy became a martyr in their cause. |
Although most abolitionists were peaceful in their methods, perhaps owing to their Quaker background, some, such as John Brown, decided to pursue violence to end slavery. |
Modern historians draw a line between abolitionists and anti-slavery activists. For instance, the Free Soil Party of the mid-nineteenth century opposed the expansion of slavery into the west but was not against the institution of slavery in the south, therefore it was not an abolitionist party. |
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