Abolition and Women’s Rights

Chapter 14 – Section 4

Main Idea:

*The spread of democracy led to calls for freedom for slaves and more rights for women.

Why It Matters Now:

*The abolitionists and women reformers of this time inspired 20th–century reformers.

Abolitionists Call for Ending Slavery

*Abolition, the movement to end slavery, began in the late 1700’s.

*In 1807, Congress banned the importation of slaves into the U.S.

*Abolitionists began to demand a law ending slavery in the South.

*David Walker, a free African American in Boston printed a pamphlet urging slaves to revolt. This angered slaveholders. Shortly afterward, Walker mysteriously died.

*A few whites also fought slavery.

*William Lloyd Garrison published The Liberator, an abolitionist newspaper. Many people hated his antislavery views.

*Sisters Sarah and Angelina Grimke grew up on a Southern plantation and believed slavery was morally wrong.

*They moved North and joined an antislavery society and lectured against slavery in public.

*John Quincy Adams introduced an amendment to abolish slavery and defended a group of Africans who had rebelled on the slave ship Amistad. Adams successfully argued their case in front of the Supreme Court and they returned home to Africa in 1842.

Eyewitnesses to Slavery

*Frederick Douglass spoke of his own experiences as a slave. He was a brilliant public speaker, he published an autobiography about his slave experiences, and he later published an antislavery newspaper.

Frederick Douglass

Eyewitnesses to Slavery

*Sojourner Truth was born into slavery, but fled her owners and went to live with Quakers, who set her free.

*Truth also spoke of her own experiences as a slave and drew huge crowds throughout the North when she spoke for abolition.

Sojourner Truth

The Underground Railroad*Some brave people helped slaves

escaped to freedom along the Underground Railroad.

*The Underground Railroad was an aboveground series of escape routes from the South to the North.

*Slaves traveled on foot, by wagons, boats, and trains.

*Runaways usually traveled by night and hid by day.

*They hid in stables, attics, and cellars referred to as “stations”.

*Frederick Douglass hid up to 11 runaways at a time at his home!

Harriet Tubman

*People who led runaways to freedom were called conductors. One of the most famous was Harriet Tubman. She was born into slavery and escaped at the age of 13 when she learned she was going to be sold.

Harriet Tubman

*After her escape, she made 19 dangerous journeys to free slaves.

*She carried a pistol to scare off slave hunters and medicine to quiet crying babies.

*Her enemies offered $40,000 for her capture!!!

*She was never caught!

*Among those she saved: her very own parents.

Women Reformers Face Barriers*Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton

were also abolitionists.

*They attended the World Anti-Slavery Convention in 1840, but were not allowed to enter because they were women.

*During this time, most people agreed with men that women should stay out of public life.

*Women could not vote, sit on juries, or hold public office. If a woman was married, the husband controlled any property his wife inherited and any wages she might earn.

*Mott and Stanton decided it was time to demand equality.

The Seneca Falls Convention

*Stanton and Mott held the Seneca Falls Convention in Seneca Falls, New York, on July 19 and 20, 1848.

*It was a convention for women’s rights. Both men and women attended including Frederick Douglass.

*The convention listed a demand for rights in what they named the Declaration of Sentiments and Resolutions.

*All resolutions passed including suffrage, or the right to vote.

*The women’s rights movement was ridiculed.

Continued Calls for Women’s Rights

*Three women lent powerful voices to the growing women’s movement.

1. Sojourner Truth – Spoke at a convention for women’s rights urging men to grant women rights and earned applause.

2. Maria Mitchell – Fought for women’s equality by helping found the Association for the Advancement of Women. She was an astronomer who was the first woman elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

3. Susan B. Anthony – Also worked in the temperance and antislavery movements.

*She built the women’s movement into a national organization and supported laws that would give married women rights to their own property and wages.

Susan B. Anthony

*Women’s suffrage would not become reality until the 1900’s and slavery began to tear the nation apart in the mid 1800’s.