Abolitionism

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Abolitionism was British and American movement to end the institution of slavery and the worldwide slave trade. It originated with the Quakers in Briatin and the US around 1750, and attracted mostly evangelicals. The abolitionists were those who were actively against slavery. The term usually refers to the abolitionist movement in the United States and in Britain. The international slave trade was made illegal around 1810, and enforced by the British Navy. All the northern states in the U.S. abolished slavery 1777-1803, and the British Empire abolished it in the 1830s in its Caribbean colonies and Canada.

Slavery died out peacefully in most countries because it was unprofitable, as in the Roman Empire and in Brazil in the 1880s.

Although slavery is outlawed in all countries today, it is still practiced by Arabs in parts of Africa.

Contents

U.S.

Politics

In American politics, "abolition" was only a small part of the much larger Anti-Slavery movement. The latter included the Free Soil Party of 1848 and, especially, the Republican Party, founded in 1854. Abolitionists demanded the immediate abolition of slavery regardless of consequences. Republicans rejected that idea until 1862; their goal was to kill slavery eventually by preventing it from expanding. That is, the Republicans had a "containment" policy (much like the one in the Cold War against the Soviet Union). The idea was that slavery had to expand to survive. There was bad blood between abolitionists (who denounced the Republicans as soft on slavery), and the Republicans (who denounced the abolitionists as dangerous radicals). Democrats north and south repeatedly denounced the Republican Party, falsely, as the party of abolition. Abolitionists also rejected the idea of buying the slaves and freeing them, saying that would reward the slave owners for their sins.

Abolitionists

Probably the first U.S. abolitionist was Samuel Sewall, who published The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial in Boston in 1700. However, the first abolition organization formed in the United States was the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, originally known as the Society for the "Relief for Free Negroes unlawfully held in Bondage", in 1775.[1].

Runaway slaves sometimes used safe houses on their way to Caanda; a few hundred made it there. From this reality emerged much exaggerated stories about an Underground Railroad.

The American abolitionist movement was transformed by William Lloyd Garrison and reached its peak 1840-1850. The movement had little to do with the actual abolition of slavery, which was a war measure carried out by Abraham Lincoln and the Republican Party in 1862-65. The forces that were lined up for the continuation of slavery were strong and numerous; the abolitionists were few in number and had no political power before 1860 but were guided by a strong religious belief and the moral need to right a horrible wrong.

Abolitionists argued that the action of capturing Africans and selling them as slaves was as bad as the capture and selling of Joseph had been. Pro-slavery spokesmen pointed out that the Bible repeatedly endorsed slavery and denounced the abolitionists for trying to start a race war that would kill many thousands of blacks and whites, as happened in Haiti in the 1790s.

Historians debate whether the abolitionists ignited a frenzy that led to a war with 600,000 deaths that could have been avoided. Neoabolitionists are 20th century historians who used the moral themes of the original abolitionists to rewrite history in terms of the evils of slavery and racism.

Religion

Antsley (1979) analyzes the role of religious forces in the formation and expansion of antislavery movements in the United States and Britain and shows the religious influences on the abolition of the British slave trade, the West Indian emancipation, and American antislavery politics. Theological doctrines - Arminianism, redemptionism, sanctification, and postmillenialism - disposed evangelical Protestants to include the slaves among the potentially saved, to hate the institution of slavery, and to strive for earthly reform. Additionally, slavery became a denominational issue, as Anglican Evangelicals, Nonconformists, and Quakers combined to provide the political organization and strategy for abolition and emancipation.[2]

Famous Abolitionists

Further reading

  • Blackburn, Robin. The overthrow of colonial slavery, 1776-1848‎ (1988) 560 pages, in European empires
  • Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery, 1830-1860 (1960), a standard scholarly history of American movement
  • Jeffrey, Julie Roy. The great silent army of abolitionism: ordinary women in the antislavery movement (1998) 311 pages; excerpt and text search
  • Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists. (1991) excerpt and text search
  • Stewart, James Brewer. Holy Warriors: The Abolitionists and American Slavery (1997) excerpt and text search
  • Stewart, James Brewer. "Reconsidering the Abolitionists in an Age of Fundamentalist Politics," Journal of the Early Republic 26.1 (2006) 1-24 in Project MUSE; compares the movement to 21st century evangelical politics
  • Strong, Douglas M. Perfectionist politics: abolitionism and the religious tensions of American democracy (1999)

Primary sources

  • Lowance, Mason, ed. Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader (2000) 384pp; primary sources excerpt and text search


References

  1. ↑ http://www.hsp.org/default.aspx?id=634
  2. ↑ Roger Anstey, "Slavery and the Protestant Ethic," Historical Reflections 1979 6(1): 157-181. Pp. 157-172.

See Also

Links

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