Abolitionism: The People

The Quakers

The initial steps toward abolitionism occurred in 1712 and initially concerned the prevention of continued importation of non-Whites into the American colonies. It was not until 1767 that abolitionism took a humanitarian position against slavery and began to assert that the trading and the enslavement of Africans were immoral. In 1783, the first antislavery movement was organized in England by the Quakers. The Quakers petitioned Parliament to end the slave trade and abolish slavery throughout the British Empire. By 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was developed largely by groups of evangelical reformers, and a network of abolitionists was created around the country.

In 1775, the Quakers founded the first American abolition society, called the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage. This initial organization did not get national exposure until it was taken over in 1784 by Benjamin Franklin, who served as president. From this point onward, the abolition of slavery in every northern state occurred gradually with the advocacy of organizations such as the Society of Friends, the Pennsylvania Antislavery Society, and the New York Manumission Society. The abolition of slavery in the northern states succeeded in 1804, the largest emancipation of slaves before the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.

William Lloyd Garrison

During the 1830s, with the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, the abolitionist movement made a radical shift. The original goal of the movement was for the gradual abolition of slavery; however, this goal was changed to one that demanded the immediate emancipation of slaves. In 1831, Garrison published the abolitionist journal The Liberator and publicized the movement's goal of immediate and unconditional emancipation of slaves. It was this shift in the abolitionist movement that created great animosity between America's slaveholders and major political and religious leaders.

The objectives of Garrison's movement were quite revolutionary because they were deemed to undermine the economic and social order of the time. Even though the abolition of slavery was successful in Great Britain and most of the European colonies, slaveholders in the U.S. southern colonies were resistant to ending slavery. Their opposition was due to the belief that the chattel system was necessary for economic prosperity and to the fact that in some states where slaves were the majority there was a fear that emancipated slaves would retaliate against the Whites.

In 1833, Garrison and the Tappan brothers organized the Antislavery Society. This society was involved in publicly denouncing slavery and called for immediate action to free all slaves. By 1835, this society started a major propaganda campaign in the South and inundated the slave states with abolitionist literature, sent organizers to the North, and petitioned Congress to end slavery.

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