American anti slavery society founded in 1833 1350

American Anti- Slavery Society
- Founded in 1833
- 1350 local chapters by 1838 with 250,000 members
- Organized and prompted speaking tours for antislavery agents and slave runaways
- Distributed antislavery literature.
The Abolitionists:
- Concentrated in the North’s middle class
- Attracted younger women and men, raised in rural areas and small towns
- Drew devout evangelical protestants, revival converts
- Regarded slavery as the root of every evil in American society and a usurpation of
divine prerogative.
- Aimed to convince through “moral suasion”—appeals to the individual conscience.
- Elaborated the concept of the “slave power”
- Denounced racism and doctrines of white supremacy.

3/2/18
Fredrick Douglass
- Baltimore
o Total population: 200k
o Free blacks: 30k
o Salves: <7k
- Efforts to escape
o 1836: failed
o 1838: succeeded through the underground railroad.
- Fredrick Douglass on Slavery
o Deprives people of the opportunity for an education.
o Deprives its victims of the capacity to feel
o Deprives its victims of individually
o Deprives the victims of the rewards of hard work.
o Deprives its victims of family and kinship ties.
o The slaveholders know they are cruel, corrupts them.
o Women were raped and treated awfully.
- Why does he write this bibliography?
o Persuade people to be abolitionists.
o Convince people the damages of slavery.
- Why does he say that he’s half white?
o He believes that if the southern slave holders can do it to him, then what’s
stopping the northern whites from doing the same to the free blacks.
 This makes this piece genius as propaganda.
3/5/18
The Abolitionists
- Concentrated in the North’s Middle Class
- Attracted younger women and men, raised in rural areas
- Regarded slavery as the root of every evil in American society and a “usurpation of
divine prerogative” claiming a power that belonged only to god.
Radicalizing American Antislavery
- Militancy of free blacks
- Antislavery sentiment emerged in the West

o Humanitarianism: Sympathy for the suffering of others and benevolence
toward them identifies individuals as person of elevated feelings.
o The enlightenment’s confidence in reason and belief in the possibility of
progress through reason.
- The example of British abolitionism
- Nat Turner’s rebellion
o
- 1807: British outlawed the slave trade
- 1820: British antislavery leaders adopted immediate
- 1833: An act of the British Parliament emancipated 800,000 slaves in the Caribbean.
Could The U.S follow the British path to emancipation.
- Sugar planters in the British Caribbean had nothing like the political influence
enjoyed by planters in the American south.
- The costs of compensation: More than 2 million slaves in the U.S by 1830. (4 million
by 1860.
o Valued at $10 trillion in today’s money. 20% of the total U.S wealth.
o States, not the federal government would pay the costs of compensating
slave owners.