The early antislavery movement includes the early
abolitionist societies (1780s–1812), which were present in almost every state,
and the religious antislavery movement, which began to be significant in the
mid-1700s. The movement also includes free blacks who made political and
practical economic efforts to encourage emancipation, to end the slave trade,
and, ultimately, to abolish slavery in the new American republic.
The early antislavery movement and the early
resistance to slavery in the British colonies (1600s–1700s) are both precursors
to the Underground Railroad. One example of early resistance would be
African-American war-related efforts to leave the United States during the
Revolutionary War and the War of 1812; to sue for freedom on the basis of
military service; and to organize slave rebellions like the Stono Rebellion
(1739), Gabriel’s Conspiracy (1800), and that of Denmark Vesey (1823). In order
to understand early antislavery and resistance, one should look at examples of slave
and free black life in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, as well as at
the circumstances that led many slaves to become runaways.
There are several intertwined strands in the early
stages of the North American antislavery movement. In the British North
American colonies, sentiment against slavery developed slowly throughout the
years between 1680 and 1770 when the number of Africans arriving in the
colonies was at its highest level and the importance of bonded labor to the
colonial economy was growing. In the eighteenth century—the period of the most
intense slave trading and transportation to North America—antislavery activity
focused on ending the slave trade.
After the Enlightenment philosophy had grown in
mid-eighteenth-century France, it soon began spreading rapidly to England and
to the colonies. It emphasized the innate abilities of each person and the
limitless progress available to humanity through scientific study and rational
thought. Its central premise was that each person and each society was capable
of progress. In this way, the Enlightenment was frequently used as a rebuke to
slaveholders and to nations involved in the slave trade. The Enlightenment
philosophy was important in the development of American Revolutionary theory
and the subsequent talk of “the rights of man.”
Another eighteenth-century strand, which also
emphasized the dignity and decision-making capacity of each person, was the
rise of evangelical religion. Beginning in the 1730s, a style of emotional
preaching and a theology of direct and personal experience of God contributed
to the waning power of state-sponsored denominations. The “Great Awakenings,”
as these religious belief systems were styled, called into question the
morality of slavery.
The Society of Friends (Quakers) in England was the
first religious group to question the morality of human bondage. They came
slowly, over a period of several generations in the eighteenth century, to view
slavery as incompatible with membership in the Friends. Quakers began to divest
themselves of slaves in the 1750s. Those who found they could not do this left
the Society of Friends. By the nineteenth century, southern Quakers had begun
to move west to escape the culture of slavery. Both those Quakers who remained
in the south and those who moved to the midwestern states often took
responsibility for aiding ex-slaves and they acquired a deserved reputation for
assisting runaways.
The authority of the Church of England in the south
and the Congregational (Puritan) Church in the north diminished, dispersed, and
disappeared. Meanwhile, in the 1780s and 1790s, independent sections of
Presbyterians and, more frequently, Baptists and Methodists attracted
African-American converts in the north and south. Although this did not mean true
equality of condition in these denominations, it did create a moral language
against slavery and a philosophical underpinning for resistance.
A third strand was the rise of benevolent societies
in England and America, made possible by a rising standard of living that had
created a middle class with the time and money necessary to do good works.
Ironically, much of that prosperity was based on slave labor. Benevolent
societies were concerned with assisting the most powerless members of society;
among those were persons held in bondage in England’s colonies. Abolitionist
societies in England sparked abolitionist societies in the new United States.
For some three decades after the American Revolution, it seemed possible that
slavery might gradually be ended, even though the Constitution and the Fugitive
Slave Act of 1793 had guaranteed the rights of slave property to slaveholders.
When British North America severed ties with
England, the slave trade between West Africa, the British West Indies, and
North America was also officially broken. However, colonial American merchant
shipping was prepared to expand its role and replace the British. At the same
time, in the Revolutionary Era, the public debate in favor of liberty from
England strengthened arguments against the slave trade and human bondage.
When legal codes were changed during the American
Revolution, both the Continental Congresses and the individual states took the
opportunity to condemn and restrict the slave trade. Reasons for condemning the
slave trade varied. Slavery was increasingly attacked as a moral evil by
religious and benevolent societies. Parts of the south feared slave
insurrections if the numbers of Africans grew to be much greater than the white
population; it appeared that the enslaved population could sustain itself and
increase in numbers without significant importations. To want to end the slave
trade, however, was not necessarily to favor an end to slavery. Here the
colonies divided.
The American Revolution (1775–1783) and the subsequent
adoption of the Constitution (1787) challenged slavery in at least two ways.
First, the rhetoric and ideology of the American Patriots, especially as
embodied in the Declaration of Independence, scorned slavery and affirmed human
rights and dignity, a line of argument dangerous to the continued enslavement
of Africans and yet not lost on them. Second, the Revolutionary battles
themselves were fundamentally contradictory on the subject of slavery. Although
nearly five thousand African Americans eventually served in the American
Revolutionary forces, both the British and the American military were
distinctly unenthusiastic about the prospect of African-American soldiers at
the beginning of the war, fearing it would encourage slave insurrection.
Nevertheless, military necessity prevailed; all the states but South Carolina
and Georgia eventually enlisted slaves. In addition to those who enlisted as
soldiers or sailors, others served as cooks, guides, spies, laborers, and body
servants. Slaves who served in the latter capacities were to be freed, although
some were tricked out of their freedom.
Although the British governor of Virginia, Lord
Dunmore, offered freedom to slaves who joined the British Army, the result of
that call to arms was less than what African Americans had hoped for. Dunmore’s
Act of 1774 was more a political and military tactic than a humanitarian act.
Some eight hundred African-American men enlisted in an Ethiopian Regiment and
three hundred took part in a battle. However, when Dunmore and his forces left
Virginia, the two thousand African Americans who contrived to leave with them
received little help from the British. Those who gave aid to or served with the
British or ran to the British lines during the war—sometimes called “Black Loyalists”—had
varied fates. Some shipped out to the Maritime Provinces of Canada (e.g., Nova
Scotia, New Brunswick) near the conclusion of the Revolution; a number of those
who had gone to Canada then went to Sierra Leone. Some were claimed
by Loyalist slaveholders and some were sold in the British West Indies. Others
were abandoned to find their own fates. Many of the runaways found new homes
and remained undetected.
Since the Americans had argued for natural rights
in their Declaration of Independence, there was some sentiment for ending the
slave trade, although less political will for ending slavery. Ultimately, the
Constitution did not follow up on the implications for “liberty” offered in the
Declaration of Independence. The Constitutional Compromise of 1787 put an end
to the slave trade by 1808, but the Constitution and the Fugitive Slave Law of
1793 confirmed the rights of slaveholders to their property. Section 2, Article
4 of the Constitution referred to slavery without naming it when it said the following:
No person held to service or labour in one state,
under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law
or regulation therein, be discharged from such service or labour, but shall be
delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labour may be due.
After the American Revolution, abolitionist
societies were formed in every part of the United States. The American
antislavery movement was modeled after the English antislavery movement from
the adoption of the Constitution (1787) until the 1820s. English reformers—led
by Quakers, evangelicals, and certain politicians—had organized in 1787 to
abolish English participation in the international slave trade. The British
reformers ended the slave trade by 1807 and ended slavery by 1833, giving
compensation to slave owners. The Americans followed the British example by
being in favor of gradually abolishing slavery and compensating slave owners
for their losses. But it was the activities of American free blacks and the resistance
to slavery of American slaves that provided the antislavery movement with its
most tireless workers and its best reasons for persisting.
The American antislavery movement ultimately
differed from the English experience in one great strength and one great
difficulty not found in England. Its strength lay in the fact that the reasons
for the American Revolution supplied a readymade set of legal arguments against
slavery. Human bondage denied the very rights of man for which the revolution
had been fought. This contradiction was felt very keenly for almost two
generations after the revolution and was as important as the belief that
slavery violated God’s law. The difficulty was that slavery was legal in the
United States and much of the new nation’s economy depended on slave labor. The
early abolitionist societies could not overcome the indifference of much of the
public and the success of proslavery forces in congressional debates. The
abolitionist societies met every year from 1794 to 1806. They experienced some
success in promoting emancipation legislation in the north and laws to make
manumission (the act of freeing slaves) easier in the south. However, they lost
both membership and purpose as the price of slaves rose.
The results of the American Revolution did provide
for significant growth in the free black community. Some slaves were freed for
their service to the American forces. Many more were manumitted (freed from
slavery or bondage) when southern state legislatures made emancipation easier
for slave masters and when northern legislatures began a process of gradual
emancipation for their states. The era from the American Revolution to the War
of 1812 was the period of greatest opportunity to end slavery. However, a
reaction to these efforts to encourage emancipation set in even before the War
of 1812, perhaps because the price of slaves increased as cotton production
became so profitable on the southern frontier.
Congress was divided over whether or not slavery
should be extended into the territories; by extension, the north and south were
similarly divided as their economies had developed in different directions. It
soon became clear to all Americans that slavery would not simply fade away
through individual emancipations and local legislation.
Southern whites were uneasy with the presence of free blacks among a large slave population, believing
that if slaves could not see free blacks, they would not imagine them. As a
result, southern states passed laws that required newly-emancipated blacks to
leave their states. Still, even with restrictions on manumissions, the free
black population grew nationally. In addition, in the south, some slaves were
able to earn money to purchase their freedom.
Especially in urban areas, slaves picked up work
for which they earned cash. Laborers might sell newspapers or sweep floors in a
factory at night. Those who swept the floors in a tobacco factory were
permitted to use the bits and pieces of tobacco their brooms found to make
plugs of tobacco. Liberally sprinkled with licorice to cover the dusty taste,
these plugs sold well. Enslaved artisans, such as blacksmiths, plasterers, or
barbers, could work in their free time for pay. Due to the fact that slave
labor was so desperately needed, few southerners attempted to keep the slaves
out of the cash economy.
In some parts of the north, the end of legal
slaveholding came with the adoption of new state constitutions. In
Massachusetts in the 1780s, court challenges to slavery brought an unclear end
to bondage when the court interpreted the state’s Bill of Rights and the new
state constitution was adopted (1783). The Vermont constitution of 1777
specifically outlawed slavery while, in New Hampshire, an assumption that the
1783 constitution and bill of rights freed slaves was maintained in the law,
although some persons remained in slavery at least through the 1790s.
Laws for the gradual abolition of slavery were
passed by the state legislatures in Pennsylvania in the 1780s, in Rhode Island
and Connecticut in 1784, and in New York in 1799. Connecticut adopted a gradual
abolition law in 1784 and, in 1797, repealed the entire colonial slave code.
When Connecticut enacted total abolition in 1848, there were still a few aged
slaves, born before the first gradual emancipation act. Gradual abolition could
take a long time; it could mean that infants and children served until they
reached the age of thirty or that old persons remained in bondage if it
appeared that they would have to be supported by the state.
Newport, Rhode Island’s prosperity was tied to
slave trade shipping. Its citizens generally opposed the abolition of slavery.
Their influence on the colonial and Revolutionary legislatures gave advocates
of abolition, who were primarily Quakers, difficulty. As the Revolution ended
in 1783, public feeling was strong enough to pass a gradual abolition plan that
compensated slaveholders and did not significantly interfere with the slave
trade.
New York was the first state to pass a law for the
total abolition of slavery. In 1817, New York adopted an amendment to its
original act of gradual emancipation and, as of July 4, 1827, freed all blacks
born before July 4, 1799. The law provided for the retroactive and
uncompensated emancipation of approximately ten thousand slaves who had not
been freed by the earlier scheme of gradual emancipation.
Not all northern states were quick to abolish
slavery. New Jersey did not adopt an abolition act until 1846. At that time,
there were seven hundred slaves in the state, half over fifty-five years old.
An apprenticeship system, designed to make masters pay for the upkeep of aged
slaves, also kept blacks in involuntary servitude in New Jersey. In the 1860
census, there were still eighteen slaves. They were freed either by death or by
the 13th Amendment in 1865, which liberated all those still living as slaves.
The War of 1812 saw black enlistment in the U.S. Navy and two free black
companies in the famous Battle of New Orleans. African-American men freely
volunteered during the war, but their services were not readily accepted. Prior
to the war, the United States maintained a standing army of fewer than seven
thousand men. Such being the case, the country was dependent upon the various
state militias to cope with military emergencies. The Federal Militia Act of May
7, 1792, said that every “true able-bodied white male citizen . . . who is or
shall be of the age of eighteen years, and under the age of forty-five years .
. . shall be enrolled in the Militia . . . ”
Service by African Americans was not specified, so
each state adapted its own interpretation. Many black volunteers served in
state militias before the war, but their role was largely relegated to that of
servants or laborers. However, the lack of military success in 1812 and 1813
soon changed perspectives. By 1814, northern states like Pennsylvania and New
York were recruiting entire regiments of black troops. Even some southern
states like Louisiana and North Carolina followed this trend.
Black enlistment in the U.S. Army was banned by law
prior to and during the first year of the war. The U.S. Navy also issued
directives against enrolling black sailors. Despite the ban, many naval
recruiters ignored the prohibition. The social fabric of life at sea evolved
differently from that on land. Seafaring was “a partly separate subculture with
its own mores and traditions” which “could offer minority men opportunities not
available in the mainstream.” Getting crewmen was ultimately the commanding
officer’s responsibility. The availability of skilled seamen soon became more
important than skin color. Black sailors served in the Quasi-War with France
and the Tripolitan Wars against the Barbary pirates. Throughout the War of
1812, black seamen comprised 15–20 percent of all enlisted men on all ships and
all stations in the navy.
Both the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army were
integrated during the War of 1812. On March 3, 1813, Congress passed an act
officially opening the naval ranks to “ . . . citizens of the United States or
persons of color, natives of the U. States . . . ” The U.S. Army followed suit
shortly thereafter. By no means can it be said that equality or lack of
prejudice existed, especially since both slavery and racism had become part of
the U.S. Nevertheless, by 1814, black soldiers and sailors fought and died side
by side in line of battle and on warship gun decks. Moreover, in official
records and documentation, black soldiers and sailors were treated exactly the
same as their white counterparts.
Thousands of slaves escaped to the British lines
during the War of 1812, but the British made little military use of them.
Perhaps the most important outcome of the War of 1812, relative to runaways,
was when some African Americans and Native Americans occupied a “Negro Fort” at
Prospect Bluff in Florida. Some of those who were looking for a safe place to
hide in Florida had fought for the British in the War of 1812; therefore, when
the British left, these same people occupied the former Fort Gadsden. It was a
visible base from which to harass slaveholders. However, it did not last long.
In July 1816, U.S. troops destroyed the fort and killed or enslaved the
inhabitants.
In addition to the debate in the northern states
over an end to slavery, the Confederation Congress in 1787 passed the Northwest
Ordinance. It prohibited the introduction of slaves into the territory west of
the Ohio River, which had once been claimed by Virginia. This area, which
became the states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, was
permanently free. The belief that slavery was a moral evil and the hope—held
widely in the north and south during the early republic—that somehow the
slavery issue might resolve itself as the American economy changed and as
slaveholders were persuaded of the evils of slavery, disappeared after the bitter
congressional fight over the admission of Missouri to the Union as a slave
state in 1820. It was, as Thomas Jefferson claimed, “a firebell in the night.”
Jefferson had heard the firebell twenty years
earlier when, as president of the United States, he learned the details of
slave insurrection in his native Virginia. In the summer of 1800, a young man
named Gabriel was owned by Thomas Prosser, Jr. Gabriel was frequently seen in
the city of Richmond, the capital of Virginia, and the surrounding countryside,
where he would talk to his fellow slaves after church services, at taverns, at
Sunday barbeques, at a blacksmith’s forge, or where the fishermen clustered
along the James River. As a blacksmith, he had considerable freedom of movement
and few whites who saw him troubled their minds about him. They were aware of a time in 1799, however, that he created
quite a stir when he bit off part of a white man’s ear in a fight.
Yet on an August Sunday, after a violent
thunderstorm on Saturday night, the citizens of Richmond began to hear rumors
of a slave insurrection that had been halted at the last possible moment.
Virginia Governor James Monroe received reports that Gabriel, his brother
Solomon, and numerous other young slave men and free blacks had organized a
wide-ranging conspiracy and planned a revolt to take over the city of Richmond
and free the slaves. Gabriel had planned to mount his own revolution for the
freedom of enslaved Africans. He expected to negotiate with whites and even to
end the revolution peacefully if white Richmonders would recognize black
claims. That unlikely premise was never to be tested. Gabriel’s plot was
disclosed by two slaves to their master. At the same time, the swollen creeks
outside Richmond halted his advance toward the city on Saturday night. Over the
next few days, most of the conspirators were arrested, although Gabriel stayed
hidden on a commercial vessel in the James River for ten days, apparently
protected by its white captain until betrayed by a slave on board.
The trials of the conspirators revealed their view
of slavery. One described a piece of silk Gabriel intended to purchase on which
to inscribe “death or Liberty” and noted that they planned to kill all whites
except “Quakers, Methodists, and French people.” While the conspirators saw
their actions as an extension of the Age of Revolution, white Virginians saw
the nightmare of slave insurrection—recently acted out in Haiti—now at their
doorstep. Virginia’s response was to hang many people, including Gabriel, and transport
others to the West Indies for sale. Throughout the trials, Gabriel said
nothing. He had reportedly said earlier that if the white people agreed to
their freedom, then they would hoist a white flag, and he would dine and drink
with the merchants of the city on the day when it should be agreed to.
Jefferson and his fellow Virginia revolutionaries
were deeply and permanently disturbed by Gabriel’s rebellion. The fear of
insurrection now hung over the south even as the north ended slavery. The
results of this division would be seen after 1820.
1. Which of
the following was not a militant
antislavery movement?
a.
the Stono Rebellion
b.
Denmark Vesey’s rebellion
c.
Gabriel’s Conspiracy
d.
the
Underground Railroad
2. In the
eighteenth century, what was most important to those against slavery?
a.
ending
slave trading
b.
catching runaway slaves
c.
spreading evangelical religion
d.
encouraging slaves to revolt
3. What
effect did the Enlightenment have on the issue of slavery?
a.
It tied slaves more closely to England and France.
b.
It
helped point out that even slaves had the ability to progress.
c.
It changed the way people felt about the colonies.
d.
It made people realize that slaveholders were
capable of scientific study and rational thought.
4. What
would be characteristic of evangelical religion?
a.
state-sponsored services
b.
speeches
about personal religious experiences
c.
members supportive of slavery
d.
the absence of moral standards
5. What was
the Quakers’ relationship to the slaves?
a.
They feared them, so they left the south.
b.
They took them to the midwestern states.
c.
They
helped them to escape and hide.
d.
They supported human bondage, especially for
slaves.
6. In the late eighteenth century, African Americans were
mainly drawn to join the ________ Churches.
a. Society
of Friends and Quaker
b.Presbyterian
and Congregational
c. Church of
England and evangelical
d.Methodist and Baptist
7. When the
legal codes were changed during the Revolutionary War, why did some of the
southern states speak out against the slave trade?
a.
They
were afraid of the possibility of slave revolt.
b.
They were being worn down by the religious and
benevolent societies.
c.
They didn’t want anyone to know about their secret
support of the slave trade.
d.
They knew the slaves would only be able to create
their own independent society if more
Africans were imported to the colonies.
8. Why were
the British and American military forces uneasy about having African-American
soldiers?
a.
They didn’t think they needed any extra soldiers.
b.
They thought the African Americans might try to
escape.
c.
They
were afraid the African Americans might decide to revolt.
d.
The African Americans were too badly needed off the
battlefield.
9. Who were
“Black Loyalists”?
a.
African Americans who were rewarded by the British
b.
African
Americans who helped the British during the Revolutionary War
c.
African Americans whom Lord Dunmore had chosen in
his Act of 1774
d.
African Americans loyal to slave runaways
10.
Which of the following best summarizes the point being made in Section 2, Article 4 of
the Constitution?
a.
Slaves
who escape to another state must be returned to their original owners.
b.
No one who lived in one state could escape to
another.
c.
By law, if a slave escaped, he or she was
considered officially discharged from service.
d.
If a slave wanted to work in another state as a
slave, then he or she could not return to
the state he or she had worked in.
11.
What was the great strength that the author
mentions when comparing America’s antislavery efforts to those of England?
a.
Abolitionist societies met frequently between 1794
and 1806.
b.
The public was indifferent to the topic.
c.
As
a result of the American Revolution, there were legal arguments against
slavery.
d.
Slavery was legal in the United States.
12.
Why did southern states require free blacks to
leave?
a.
They did not want free blacks to be happy.
b.
They
did not think slaves should be exposed to free blacks.
c.
They did not want any blacks in the south.
d.
They knew that free blacks would try to hurt their
former owners.
13.
In which of the following states would you be most
likely to find records of slaves having lived there in 1791?
a.
Vermont
b.
New
Hampshire
c.
Pennsylvania
d.
Massachusetts
14.
________ had been declared permanently free.
a.
Any slave living in Prospect Bluff
b.
Virginia
c.
A slave who assisted the British during the War of
1812
d.
The
territory west of the Ohio River
15.
In what way was Jefferson using the term,
“firebell”?
a.
warning
b.
loud noise
c.
revolution
d.
slaveholder
16.
Gabriel swore to “drink with the merchants of the
city” when
a.
they threatened to hang him.
b.
he was transported to the West Indies.
c.
Haiti faced slave revolt.
d.
white
people agreed to let African Americans go free.
17.
Describe the three strands the author believes to
have been “intertwined” in the antislavery movement. Explain how each
contributed.
18. Why do you think South Carolina and Georgia
were the only states that did not enlist African-American soldiers during the
Revolutionary War?
19. In what ways were Lord Dunmore’s actions “more
a political and military tactic than a humanitarian act”?
20. Why do you think so many freed African
Americans volunteered to join the U.S. military? What could some of the
benefits have been?
