Let Your Motto Be Resistance

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• Let Your Motto Be Resistance

Chapter 9
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The Underground Railroad

• Entitled A Bold Stroke for Freedom, this
  illustration from William Stills The Underground
  Railroad depicts fugitive slaves aiming guns at
  slave-catchers in an attempt to preserve their
  freedom.

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I. A Rising Tide of Racism Violence

• Increased racism and violence, 1830-1860
• Met with growing abolitionist militancy
• Manifest Destiny
• Legitimized war for territorial expansion
• Defined progress in racial terms
• White people are a superior race
• Nativism
• Scientific justification
• Continued enslavement of black people
• Extermination of Indians

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Anti-Black and Anti-Abolitionist Riots

• Urban riots pre-dated abolition
• Increased as abolitionism gained strength,
  1830s-1840s
• Philanthropist, 1836 and 1841
• Providence, Rhode Island
• New York City

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Mob Violence in the United States, 18121849

• Figure 91. Mob Violence in the United States,
  18121849.
• This graph illustrates the rise of mob violence
  in the North in reaction to abolitionist
  activity. Attacks on abolitionists peaked during
  the 1830s and then declined as antislavery
  sentiment spread in the North.

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Antiabolitionist and Antiblack Riots During the
Antebellum Period

• Map 91. Antiabolitionist and Antiblack Riots
  during the Antebellum Period.
• African Americans faced violent conditions in
  both the North and South during the antebellum
  years. Fear among whites of growing free black
  communities and white antipathy toward spreading
  abolitionism sparked numerous antiblack and
  antiabolitionist riots.

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Texas and the War Against Mexico

• Texas annexation divided the nation
• Fear of adding another slave state
• Political parties avoided the issue
• Manifest Destiny
• James K. Polk wanted Texas and Oregon
• Texas annexed in 1845
• War with Mexico, 1846-1848
• Polk provoked war

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II. The Response of the Antislavery Movement

• Race-related violence increased
• Created difficulties
• Setting policies
• White abolitions set policy
• Abolitionist commitment to non-violence weakened
• Limited options

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The American Anti-Slavery Society

• American Anti-Slavery Society
• AASS, 1831
• Black men participated without formal
  restrictions
• Rarely held positions of authority
• William Lloyd Garrison
• Immediate, uncompensated emancipation
• Equal rights for African Americans

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Black and Womens Anti-Slavery Societies

• Fundraising
• Main task
• Bake sales, bazaars, and fairs
• Feminism
• Created an awareness of womens rights
• Challenged male culture
• Essays, poems, speeches
• Sojourner Truth
• See PROFILE

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Robert Purvis

• Wealthy black abolitionist Robert Purvis is at
  the very center of this undated photograph of the
  Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society. The famous
  Quaker abolitionist Lucretia Mott and her husband
  James Mott are seated to Purviss left. As
  significant as Purviss central location in the
  photograph, is that he is the only African
  American pictured.

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The Black Convention Movement

• First convention, Philadelphia, 1831
• Local, state, and national black conventions
• Provided a forum for black male abolitionists
• Abolition of slavery
• Improve conditions for northern black people
• Integrate public schools
• Black suffrage
• Juries
• Testify against white people in court

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III. Black Community Institutions

• Free black communities
• Fivefold increase, 1790-1830
• Gradual emancipation and individual manumission
• Provided resources
• Churches, schools, and benevolent organizations
• Provided the foundations for black anti-slavery
  institutions

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Black Churches in the Antislavery Cause

• Leading black abolitionists often ministers
• Used pulpits to attack slavery and racial hatred
• Provided meeting places for abolitionists
• Forum for speakers

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Black Newspapers

• Important voice in abolition movement
• Freedoms Journal
• Samuel Cornish
• Colored American
• Phillip A. Bell
• Charles Ray
• North Star
• Frederick Douglass
• Financial difficulties

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IV. Moral Suasion

• Reform strategy
• Appeal to Christian conscience
• Support abolition and racial justice
• Slaveholding was a sin
• Sexual exploitation, unrestrained brutality
• Northerners guilt
• Government protected slaveholder interests
• Cloth manufactures
• Fugitive Slave Act of 1798

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Moral Suasion (cont.)

• AASS
• Used moral arguments against slave owners
• Ultimately failed
• Great Postal Campaign
• Sent anti-slavery literature to the South
• Petitions to Congress
• To end slavery in Washington, D.C.

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Moral Suasion (cont.)

• Reactions
• Southern response
• Southern postmasters censored mail
• Vigilantes attacked antislavery supporters
• Gag Rule, 1836
• Northern response
• Mobs attacked abolitionists
• Disrupted meetings, destroyed newspaper presses
• Elijah P. Lovejoy

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V. The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society
and the Liberty Party

• Divided by failure of moral suasion
• AASS splintered in 1840
• Role of women in abolitionism
• Garrisons increasing radicalism
• Members form the AFASS
• Lewis Tappan
• Liberty party
• First antislavery political party
• James G. Birney, 1840

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VI. A More Aggressive Abolitionism

• Growing Northern empathy for slaves
• Labor demands sent slaves to the Southwest
• Radical wing of Liberty party
• Constitution supported slave resistance
• Encouraged northerners to help slaves escape
• The Amistad and the Creole
• The Underground Railroad
• Harriet Tubman
• See Map 9-2
• Canada West

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The Underground Railroad

• Map 92. The Underground Railroad.
• This map illustrates approximate routes traveled
  by escaping slaves through the North to Canada.
  Although some slaves escaped from the deep South,
  most who utilized the underground railroad
  network came from the border slave states.

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1845 Cover Illustration

• An increase in slave escapes helped inspire the
  more aggressive abolitionist tactics of the 1840s
  and 1850s. In this 1845 cover illustration for
  sheet music composed by white antislavery
  minstrel Jesse Hutchinson Jr., Frederick Douglass
  is shown in an idealized rendition of his escape
  from slavery in Maryland.

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Mutiny, by Hale Woodruff

• Mutiny, painted by Hale Woodruff in 1939,
  provides a dramatic and stylized portrayal of the
  successful uprising of African slaves on board
  the Spanish schooner Amistad in 1839.

SOURCE Savery Library Archives, Talladega
College, Talledega, Alabama
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Harriet Tubman

• Harriet Tubman, standing at the left, is shown in
  this undated photograph with a group of people
  she helped escape from slavery. Because she
  worked in secret during the 1850s, she was known
  only to others engaged in the underground
  railroad, the people she helped, and a few other
  abolitionists.

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VII. Black Militancy

• Too much talk and not enough action
• More black abolitionists consider forceful action
• Weak loyalty to national organizations
• Influenced by rebellious slaves
• Many black abolitionists wanted to do more,
  1840s-1850s
• Charged white abolitionists with duplicity
• Lewis Tappan
• William Lloyd Garrison

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VIII. Frederick Douglass

• Born a slave, 1818
• Learned to read
• Developed a trade
• Escaped in 1838
• Antislavery lecturer, 1841
• Encouraged by Garrison
• Breaks with Garrison in 1847
• North Star, 1847
• Endorsed the New York Liberty party, 1851

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Frederick Douglass

• This c. 1844 oil portrait of Frederick Douglass
  is attributed to E. Hammond. Douglass escaped
  from slavery in 1838. By the mid-1840s, he had
  emerged as one of the more powerful speakers of
  his time. He began publishing his influential
  newspaper, the North Star, in 1847.

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IX. Revival of Black Nationalism

• African-American migration and black nationalism
• Best means to realize black aspirations
• Violence
• Convinced a small few to advocate emigration
• Martin R. Delany
• See VOICES
• Henry Highland Garnet
• See PROFILE
• Douglass and other black abolitionists rejected
• Wanted freedom in the Unites States

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The Antislavery Struggle Intensifies
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African-American National Events
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African-American National Events
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African-American National Events
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African-American National Events
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X. Conclusion

• From gradual to immediate abolition of slavery
• Adjust antislavery tactics to meet rising
  violence
• Combined approach
• Moral suasion
• Political involvement
• Direct action
• Movement to black nationalism
• Promote interests, rights, and identity