The document discusses the abolition movement which sought to end slavery of African Americans in Europe, the Americas, and Africa. It began as black resistance to slavery and grew as Christian morality and revolutionary ideas spread in the late 1700s. Abolitionists in Europe and Britain succeeded in banning the slave trade by 1807. In the US, abolitionism increased with slave rebellions and the work of Quakers and radical abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison. The Underground Railroad helped slaves escape to the North and Canada. The Civil War and 13th Amendment ultimately led to the legal end of slavery in 1865, though discrimination continued.

1. Abolitionism in Black
and White
Jennica Schoppenhorst
AFAS200 Summer 2013

2. Abolition: the action of abolishing a
system, practice, or institution.
Abolition Movement: sought to end the enslavement
of African Americans and people of African descent
in Europe, the Americas, and Africa itself. It also
aimed to end the Atlantic Slave Trade.

3. Background
• The Atlantic Slave Trade
• Brutality
• Arrival to the Colonies

4. Beginning of Abolitionism
• Black resistance to slavery.
• Christian Morality in the late 1700’s.
• Economic changes
• Intellectual movement

5. Marooning – Black Opposition
• Until late 18th century, slaves merely sought to free themselves from slavery
rather than to challenge the institution itself.
• Freedom through escape
• Marooned Communities

6. White Opposition
• Slow development.
 Economies based on plantations that required large labor forces to be
profitable.
 Hierarchical views of society.

7. The Quakers
• First whites to denounce slavery in Europe and European colonies.
• Believed that all people had a divine spark in them and were equal in
the eyes of God.
• First Goal:
 End slave trading among fellow Quakers; if the slave trade was
abolished, slavery itself would soon cease to exist.

8. Revolutionary Ideas
• Late 18th century, the age of revolution, brought ideas about equal rights to the forefront.
 Industrial revolution brought economic opportunity and power to the lower and middle
classes, which undermined the previous system in which slavery was a part of being lower
class and accepted.
 Age of Enlightenment
 The American Revolution and the French Revolution
 The Haitian Revolt

9. Abolition in Europe and European
Colonies
• Evangelical Christians joined the Quakers in establishing the Society for
the Slave Trade.
• In 1807, British Parliament abolished the slave trade and set up a naval
watch of the African coast, forcing other European nations to give up the
trade as well.

10. Emancipation in Europe and European
Countries
• Abolishment of the trade did not lead to the emancipation of all slaves.
• British abolitionists inspired other European countries and the emancipation of
slaves continued to spread.

11. Abolitionism in the U.S.
• Frequent slave rebellions in which the lives of whites were lost and plantations were
ruined, fueled the fire.
• American Quakers responded to these uprising by advocating a gradual emancipation.
• It was not until the American Revolution that abolitionism began to spread.

12. Negative Impact in the South
• Successful slave revolts and black abolitionists convinced white Southerners
that slaves could not be freed rather the system needed to be strengthened.
• Migration to West Africa

13. Southern Resistance
• Slaveholders Excuses
 Economic prosperity demanded the continuation of slavery.
 Disease
 Safety

14. White Abolitionists in the U.S.
• American Colonization Society
• Northern Abolitionists

15. Radical Abolition Movements in the
U.S.
• William Lloyd Garrison

16. Underground Railroad
• The collective name for a variety of regional semisecret networks that helped
slaves escape into the North and Canada.
• The Underground Railroad aided around 1,000 slaves per year in escaping and
its success helped raise awareness in the North about slavery and pushed
supporters of slavery into defensive measures.

17. Territorial Dispute
• Division between the North and the South
• Along with the victory of Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln in
1860, Brown's raid and the Northern reaction to it convinced Southern whites
that their proslavery interests were no longer secure within the United States.

18. The Civil War and Emancipation
• Most slaveholding states succeeded from the nation and formed the Confederate States
of America.
• President Abraham Lincoln
• Southern Slaves

19. The 13th Amendment
• The Northern victory and continuing abolitionist agitation led to the ratification of
the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which
banned involuntary servitude throughout the country.
• Although technically free, the great majority of black southerners remained
impoverished agricultural workers well into the 20th century. They faced
systematic segregation, inadequate schools, political disenfranchisement, and
lynching.

20. Significance and Legacy
• The abolition of slavery did not end comparable systems of labor
exploitation, such as contract labor, sharecropping, child labor, and sweatshops.
Nor did abolitionism succeed in ending racism or in establishing equal political
and social rights for people of African descent in the Americas.
• It established equal rights principles that have outlasted post-emancipation
efforts by former slaveholders to create caste systems, and provided a basis for
more recent efforts countering racial segregation and supporting racial justice.