Let Your Motto Be Resistance

1. Let Your Motto Be Resistance Chapter 9

2. The Underground Railroad Entitled “A Bold Stroke for Freedom,” this illustration from William Still’s The Underground Railroad depicts fugitive slaves aiming guns at slave-catchers in an attempt to preserve their freedom.

3. 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

4. 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

5. Mob Violence in the United States, 1812–1849 Figure 9–1. Mob Violence in the United States, 1812–1849. 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.

6. Antiabolitionist and Antiblack Riots During the Antebellum Period Map 9–1. 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.

7. 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

8. 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

9. 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

10. Black and Women’s Anti-Slavery Societies • Fundraising • Main task • Bake sales, bazaars, and fairs • Feminism • Created an awareness of women’s rights • Challenged male culture • Essays, poems, speeches • Sojourner Truth • See PROFILE

11. 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 Purvis’s left. As significant as Purvis’s central location in the photograph, is that he is the only African American pictured.

12. 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

13. 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

14. 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

15. Black Newspapers • Important voice in abolition movement • Freedom’s Journal • Samuel Cornish • Colored American • Phillip A. Bell • Charles Ray • North Star • Frederick Douglass • Financial difficulties

16. 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

17. 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.

18. 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

19. 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 • Garrison’s increasing radicalism • Members form the AFASS • Lewis Tappan • Liberty party • First antislavery political party • James G. Birney, 1840

20. 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

21. The Underground Railroad Map 9–2. 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.

22. 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.

23. 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

24. 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.

25. 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

26. 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

27. 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.

28. 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

29. The Antislavery Struggle Intensifies

30. African-American — National Events

31. African-American — National Events

32. African-American — National Events

33. African-American — National Events

34. 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