|  |
Changes in the Abolitionist Movement
Contributing teacher:
Bruce Baskind
Time period: 1830–65
E-Seminar Approach
Professor Eric Foner sees 1830 as a crucial milestone in the history of the abolitionist movement. Before then, the dominant idea within the movement was that once emancipated, the freed slaves should be colonized, perhaps in Africa. After 1830, abolitionists began to consider slaves as Americans and argued that after the abolition of slavery, the freedmen should receive full citizenship rights.
The movement changed again after 1840, as former slaves such as Frederick Douglass (1817–95) and Harriet Tubman (c. 1820–1913) joined. Their writings about their experience as slaves brought something new and significant to the movement. William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79) and other white abolitionists attacked slavery as a moral wrong, doing so in fiery, sometimes bombastic language. Although they could be quite persuasive, their attack lacked any firsthand knowledge of slavery and its effects. The new black abolitionists documented the abuses of slavery from personal experience, showing the pain that slavery inflicted in their very emotional accounts of the peculiar institution. Douglass, for example, demonstrated through eyewitness accounts how slavery ruined the lives not only of slaves, but of masters as well. Furthermore, the eloquence of his writing became a direct refutation of the notion that freed blacks were unfit for the rights of full citizenship.
This lesson is designed to get your students to consider the powerful role played by black abolitionists, such as Douglass. They will see that while white abolitionists such as Garrison told his audience that slavery was a moral wrong, Douglass showed them that it was, through gut-wrenching descriptions of his personal experience. Your students will see how much more powerful it must have been for white Northerners to learn how Douglass's mother was treated and how he was denied her love. Your students might also be surprised by the quality and eloquence of his language, since he had never been given a formal education. They should consider how powerful this must have been to an audience that had long believed in the intellectual inferiority of blacks.
Suggested Teaching Activity
Ask a student to play the part of Garrison and another student to play Douglass, before the entire class. Assign these parts well in advance of the lesson, giving the students time to practice. After both have performed, based on the documents, ask the class who they believe was more persuasive, Garrison or Douglass. Analyze with the students Garrison's strategy for persuading his audience that slavery was wrong, then how Douglass tried to do the same. Discuss with them why they found either Garrison or Douglass more persuasive. Ask them what black abolitionists brought to the movement that white abolitionists could not. See these writings by Douglas and Garrison in the Primary Sources section:
|
| |
