Abolition movement was the organized effort to end slavery in the Americas. The movement centered in the United Kingdom and the United States. But antislavery efforts occurred in other countries as well.
Abolitionist activity began during the colonial period. At that time, Quakers in Pennsylvania condemned slavery on moral grounds. In the late 1700’s, prominent leaders of the American Revolution spoke out against slavery. These leaders included Thomas Jefferson, Patrick Henry, and Thomas Paine. British abolitionists included William Wilberforce, Thomas Clarkson, and the formerly enslaved African Olaudah Equiano. In 1807, British abolitionists persuaded Parliament to outlaw the Atlantic slave trade. In 1833, another bill abolished slavery throughout the British Empire.
In the United States, free Black people—including Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman, who both escaped from slavery—called for the immediate and universal ending of slavery. Many abolitionists came from New England. They included newspaper editor William Lloyd Garrison and the renowned orator Wendell Phillips. Others, such as the merchant brothers Arthur and Lewis Tappan and the reformer Theodore Weld, came from Middle Atlantic or Midwestern states. A number of abolitionists came from prominent slaveholding families in the South. Southern abolitionists included Moncure Daniel Conway and the sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimké. Women made significant contributions to the movement as writers, speakers, organizers, and fundraisers.
In 1831, Garrison began publication of his influential antislavery newspaper, The Liberator. The American Anti-Slavery Society, founded in 1833, supported Garrison’s crusade. The abolitionist movement gradually spread throughout the Northern States. It met with bitter and violent opposition by Southern slaveholders and Northerners who favored slavery. Abolitionists faced incredible dangers. In 1835, a mob dragged Garrison through the streets of Boston with a noose around his neck. Two years later, antiabolitionists in Alton, Illinois, murdered Elijah P. Lovejoy, a well-known antislavery newspaper editor.
The movement entered a new phase in 1840. In that year, some of its leaders entered politics and founded the Liberty Party. James G. Birney, a former slaveholder, ran as the party’s candidate for president in 1840 and 1844. In 1848, abolitionists became an important element in the Free Soil Party. After 1854, most abolitionists supported the Republican Party. A small group of enthusiasts formed the Radical Abolition Party in 1855.
Even after abolitionists entered politics, they combined political protest with direct action. Their homes often became stations on the underground railroad. The underground railroad was a system that helped enslaved people fleeing to the free states or to Canada.
In 1859, John Brown led a group of abolitionists in a military invasion of Harpers Ferry, Virginia, the site of a federal arsenal. Brown modeled his plan on a successful slave revolt in the French West Indies, a group of Caribbean islands under French control. Brown’s raid sought to end slavery by sparking a huge slave rebellion. Though his mission failed, it heightened tensions between the North and South.
After the American Civil War began in 1861, abolitionists rallied to the Union cause. They rejoiced when President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on Jan. 1, 1863. The proclamation declared enslaved people free in many parts of the South. In 1865, the 13th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States abolished slavery throughout the republic. By the end of the 1800’s, slavery had disappeared from the Western Hemisphere completely.
