The Abolitionists and American Society (Spring 2009)

University of Richmond
Tag cloud for these 6 episodes
AASS Abolitionism Abolitionist violence American Anti-Slavery Soc Anti-slavery Bleeding Kansas Brooks Brooks-Sumner Fight Gerrit Smith Kansas-Nebraska Act Liberator Maryland Sumner Violence William Lloyd Garrison anti abolitionism boycott

Episodes

  1. Southern Outrage
    date September 8, 1835map RICHMOND, Virginiatags boycott, anti abolitionism

    Anti-abolitionists reacted violently and swiftly to the onslaught of antislavery literature that inundated post offices across the South during the fall of 1835. Northern abolitionists had hoped to amicably convert slaveholders through their postal campaign, yet had only further amplified the severity of the slavery issue to re-instill fear among the free black population in the South. After receiving...

  2. Daniel Raymond and Anti-Slavery Maryland
    date September 24, 1825map BALTIMORE, Marylandtags Anti-slavery, Maryland

      In Maryland in 1825, an anti-slavery candidate emerged from the city of Baltimore named Daniel Raymond. Seeking a position in the Maryland General Assembly, Raymond was highly publicized in the anti-slavery circles in Maryland. One such publication, the Genius of Universal Emancipation and Baltimore Courier touted Raymond’s disdain for slavery and his support of gradual emancipation. Nominated...

  3. Sumner-Brooks Affair
    date May 22, 1856map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Violence, Brooks, Sumner, Abolitionism, Kansas-Nebraska Act

    Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner sat as his desk in the nearly empty Chamber of the United States Senate on May 22, 1856. He had recently given a speech called “The Crime Against Kansas” on abolishing slavery in the United States. The speech described atrocities occurring in Kansas at the time. There pro-slavery border ruffians from Missouri crossed into Kansas and attacked anti-slavery settlers....

  4. Bleeding Congress
    date May 19, 1856 to May 22, 1856map Washington City, District of Columbiatags Abolitionism, Bleeding Kansas, Brooks-Sumner Fight, Violence

        Tensions on Capitol Hill had been rising for years as Southern and Northern politicians continued their debates with one another over the slavery issue. By the 1850s there was a full out war of words in both chambers of Congress as each side was becoming increasingly uncompromising in their cause. These tensions had been creeping across the country at an extremely fast rate throughout the nineteenth...

  5. Abolitionists Urged to Reunite Under Common Goal
    date February 19, 1841map SUFFOLK, Massachusettstags Gerrit Smith, Abolitionism, Liberator, William Lloyd Garrison, AASS, American Anti-Slavery Soc

    On February 19, 1841, abolitionist Gerrit Smith urged his fellow activists to reunite in their common cause after having split into two factions. He offered a “proposition for peace amongst ourselves.” He encouraged abolitionists of every persuasion to tolerate their differences so that they can employ “against their common foe the time and ammunition, which, for the last two years, they have...

  6. Abolitionists Free Suspected Runaway Slave
    date October 4, 1851map ONONDAGA, New Yorktags Abolitionism, Abolitionist violence, Violence

    On Wednesday October 4, 1851, Syracuse city police, led by Deputy U.S. Marshall Allen, arrested an African American man by the name of Jerry McHenry.  John M. Reynolds of Marion County, Indiana, claimed McHenry to be his slave, and as a result, McHenry was taken into custody as a runaway slave and set for trial.  However, Reynolds would soon be surprised by an unexpected turn of events that neither...