Let Your Motto Be Resistance,

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• Chapter 9
• Let Your Motto Be Resistance,
• 1833-1850

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I. A Rising Tide 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

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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 War with Mexico

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

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Mexican Cession
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The American Anti-Slavery Society

• American Anti-Slavery Society
• AASS, 1831
• Black men participated without formal restriction
• Rarely held positions of authority
• William Lloyd Garrison white abolitionist
• 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 pg 289

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The Black Convention Movement

• First convention, Philadelphia, 1831
• Local, state, and national black conventions
• Goals
• 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

• Leading black abolitionists often ministers
• Used sermons 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
• North Star
• Frederick Douglass
• Financial difficulties

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Cool Down

• How did the addition of new American land cause
  the slavery debate to become a national political
  issue?
• In what ways did African-Americans create
  organizations to try to improve their living
  conditions?

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IV. Moral Suasion

• AASS Reform strategy
• Moral Suasion (persuasion today)
• Appeal to Christian conscience
• Support abolition and racial justice
• Slaveholding was a sin
• Sexual exploitation, unrestrained brutality
• Northernerswere guilty also
• Government protected slaveholder interests
• Profited off of 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
• 1836 over thirty thousand petitions reached
  Washington
• 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
• No petitions related to slavery introduced in the
  House
• AASS sent 415,000 petitions in 1838
• Northern response
• Mobs attacked abolitionists
• Disrupted meetings, destroyed newspaper presses
• Elijah P. Lovejoy white abolitionist newspaper
  editor was killed by a mob attempting to defend
  his printing press in Illinois.

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V. The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society

• Divided by failure of moral suasion
• AASS splintered in 1840
• Role of women in abolitionism
• Garrisons increasing radicalism
• Members form the AFASS (American and Foreign
  Anti-Slavery Society
• Liberty party
• First antislavery political party
• Nominated James G. Birney, for President1840
• Former slaveholder turned abolitionist
• Received 7,069 out of over 2.4 million votes

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VI. A More Aggressive Abolitionism

• Growing northern sympathy for slaves
• Labor demands sent slaves to the Southwest
• Radical wing of Liberty party
• Constitution supported slave resistance
• Encouraged northerners to help slaves escape

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The Amistad

• Rebellion aboard slave ship
• Slaves took control, ship came on shore in New
  Haven, Ct.
• Court battle over the origin of the captives
• If born on plantation in Caribbean then they
  could be tried for murder and either executed or
  returned to slavery
• If born in Africa, they were kidnapped and should
  be set free and returned
• Political debate dividing nation, John C.
  Calhoun, SC senator, threatening succession

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Amistad Cont.

• First judge ruled they were free
• President Van Buren called for new trial
• Second judge ruled that they were born in Africa
  and freed
• President Van Buren called for Supreme Court to
  hear the trial
• Ex-president, US congressman, John Q. Adams
  agreed to argue on behalf of the captives
• JQ Adams Supreme Court

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Underground Railroad

• Secret path to freedom, few details are known.
  Unknown origin.
• Harriet Tubman, known as black Moses, escaped
  slave, dedicated her life to free her people
• Made 13 trips
• Escaped slaves would travel at night
• During the day they would hide in friendly
  locations
• Use secret signals like a lantern hanging
• Hide in attic or basement
• Move from safe house to safe house until reaching
  Canada, Canada West
• Between 1850-1860 black population rose from
  8,000 to 20,000
• Ungerground Railroud

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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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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 deceit
• 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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Cool Down

• As an escaped slave would you live out the rest
  of your life having your freedom or try to help
  the people that were still living as slaves?
  Explain.

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Cool Down

• No written cool down today
• Work on your test study guide