Abolition of Slavery

Aim: How did Americans work to end slavery prior to 1860?

Do Now: Examine the Anti-Slavery Timeline (1774-1830)

1774: The Continental Congress approves a resolution prohibiting slave importations and further participation in the slave trade.

1777: Vermont's Constitution outlaws slavery.

1780: Pennsylvania adopts a gradual emancipation law.

1787: The Constitutional Convention adopts the Three-Fifths Compromise and forbids Congress from ending the slave trade until 1808; The Northwest Ordinance prohibits slavery north of the Ohio River and east of the Mississippi.

1790: The Quakers and the Pennsylvania Abolition Society petition Congress to discourage the slave trade.

1798: Georgia prohibits further imports of slaves from outside the United States.

1798: Congress rejects a proposal to prohibit slav

ery from the Mississippi Territory.

1799: New York adopts a gradual emancipation law.

1807: The British Parliament and U.S. Congress vote to end the African slave trade.

1816: The American Colonization Society is founded to resettle free blacks in Africa.

1820: The Missouri Compromise prohibits slavery in the northern half of the Louisiana Purchase.

1827: There are an estimated 106 antislavery societies in the South with 5,150 members; 24 organization in the North with 1,475 members.

1830: American Colonization Society sends just 529 free blacks to Liberia.

January 1, 1831: William Lloyd Garrison begins publishing The Liberator, the country's first publication to demand an immediate end to slavery.

With a partner pick the three events that you believe had the most significant impact in helping to abolish slavery in the United States. Explain your choice.

(1)______________________________________________________ (2)______________________________________________________

(3)______________________________________________________

Motivation: Ask some students to share their “Do Now” responses. Tally up which choices on the time line were picked the most. Delve into why they chose each option. Then explain how the abolitionist movement started before the Civil War and the many forms it took.

Both African Americans and Anglo-Americans fought for the end of slavery. There were many, though, who also tried to paint slavery in a good light, and insisted slaves were happy and that it was good for the economy. The passages that we will go over will illustrate these many points of view. Then split the students up into groups and assign each a document.

Activities:

1. Students will be broken into groups of three and each group will receive one set of documents.
2. Students will read the documents in their groups and answer the questions listed underneath the documents together.
3. Students will reconvene as a class, share their findings, and take notes on the documents their classmates read.

Summary: Based on student responses the teacher will highlight the different beliefs about slavery and how they affected those involved.

Evaluation: Using what we discussed in class today, write a paragraph that compares and contrasts George Ftizhugh's view point with Frederick Douglas' or William Lloyd Garrison's.

Document 1: Solomon Northup

The hands are required to be in the cotton field as soon as it is light in the morning, and, with the exception of, ten or fifteen minutes which is given them at noon to swallow their allowance of cold bacon, they were not permitted to be a moment idle until it is too dark to see, and when the moon is full, they often times labor till the middle of the night. They do not dare to stop even at dinner time, nor return to the quarters, however late it be, until the order to halt is by the driver.

The day's work over in the field, the baskets are "toted," or in other words, carried to the gin-house, where the cotton is weighed. No matter how fatigued and weary he may be-no matter how much he longs for sleep and rest -a slave never approaches the gin-house with his basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short in weight-if he has not performed the full task appointed him, he knows that he must suffer. And if he has exceeded it by ten or twenty pounds, in all probability, his master will measure the next day's task accordingly. So whether he has too little or too much, his approach to the in-house is always with fear and trembling. Most frequently they have too little, and therefore it is they are not anxious to leave the field.

How does this document describe the state of slavery?

Do you believe this to be accurate, why or why not?

Document 2: George Fitzhugh

The Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and in some sense, the freest people in the world. The children and the aged and infirm work not at all, and yet have all the comforts and necessaries of life provided for them. They enjoy liberty, because they are oppressed neither by care or labor. The women do little hard work, and are protected from the despotism of their husbands by their masters. The Negro men and stout boys work, on the average, in good weather, no more than nine hours a day... Besides, they have their Sabbaths and holidays... The free laborer must work or starve. He is more of a slave than the Negro, because he works longer and harder for less allowance than the slave, and has no holiday, because the cares of life with him begin when its labors end. He has no liberty and not a single right...

How does this document describe the state of slavery?

Do you believe this to be accurate, why or why not?

Document 3: Fredrick Douglass - The Meaning of July Fourth for the Negro (July 5, 1852)

My fellow citizens, pardon me, allow me to ask, why am I called upon to speak here to-day? What have I, or those I represent, to do with your national independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? and am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national altar, and to confess the benefits and express devout gratitude for the blessings resulting from your independence to us?

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer; a day that reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sound of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciation of tyrants brass fronted impudence; your shout of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanks-givings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy -- a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of the United States, at this very hour.

Who are the "great men" that Douglass speaks of?

What point is Douglass trying to make about the meaning of the Fourth of July to the American slave? Is his argument persuasive?

Document 4 - Opening Statement of William Lloyd Garrison's address delivered before the Free People of Color, 1831

"I never rise to address a colored audience, without being ashamed of my own color; ashamed of being identified with a race of men who have done you much injustice, and who yet retain so large a portion of your brethren in servile chains. To make atonement (amends), in part, for this conduct, I have solemnly (seriously) dedicated my health, and strength, and life, to your service. I love to plan to work for your social, intellectual, political and spiritual advancement. My happiness is augmented (increased) with yours; in your sufferings I participate."

What is William Llyoyd Garrison's argument?

What was he trying to teach us?