From the 1830s until 1870, the abolitionist movement attempted to achieve immediate emancipation of all slaves and the ending of racial segregation and discrimination. Their propounding of these goals distinguished abolitionists from the broad-based political opposition to slavery's westward expansion that took form in the North after 1840 and raised issues leading to the Civil War. Read More

Fredrick Douglass

Federick Douglass was a compelling force in the anti-slavery movement. A man of moral authority, Douglass developed into a charismatic public speaker... Read More

Frederick Douglass stood at the podium, trembling with nervousness. Before him sat abolitionists who had travelled to the Massachusetts island of Nantucket. Only 23 years old at the time... Read More

The Autobiography of Frederick Douglass... Click Here
The Frederick Douglass Museum & Cultural Center...Click here

John Brown

John Brown was born at Torrington, Connecticut, on 9th May, 1800. The family moved to Ohio in 1805 where his father worked as a tanner. John's father was staunchly anti-slavery and was a voluntary agent for the Underground Railroad... Read More

John Brown of Kansas was a militant abolitionist who attempted to use force to free the slaves in the South... Read More

John Brown's Raid... Click Here
Valley of the Shadow... Click Here
Dr. Stephen B. Oates on J. Brown... Click Here

Osborne Perry Anderson

The only surviving member of John Brown's original army of liberation at the battle of Harpers Ferry, this Pennsylvania-born African American emigrated to Canada in the early 1850s because of weakening rights for free Africans in the United States. He was part of the Chatham, Canada West community of fugitives and emigrants, and a member of the Convention of May 8, 1858, convened by Martin R. Delany and John Brown to plan militant action to free slaves... Read More

William Lloyd Garrison

Garrison rose from an impoverished childhood in Newburyport, Massachusetts, to national prominence as an advocate of the immediate abolition of slavery. Trained as a printer, Garrison was converted to "the cause of the slave" by Quaker Benjamin Lundy in 1828. A deeply religious Baptist, Garrison denounced slaveholding as an abomination in God's sight and demanded immediate, unqualified emancipation. After being jailed for libeling a slave trader, Garrison first published his famous Liberator in Boston on January 1, 1831. The Liberator through 1865 served as Garrison's personal vehicle for waging war against both slavery and his many critics, including abolitionists who questioned his zealous approach... Read More

William Lloyd Garrison Online... Click Here
Biography of William Lloyd Garrison... Click Here

Nat Turner

Leader of slave insurrection. Born in 1800 in Southampton County, Virginia. With Frederick Douglass and John Brown, Turner was a principal figure in the pre-abolition movement in the United States.

Turner was born on the Virginia plantation of Benjamin Turner, who allowed him to be instructed in reading, writing, and religion. He was sold three times during his childhood and hired out to John Travis in the 1820s. He became a fiery preacher and leader of African-American slaves on Benjamin Turner's plantation, as well as throughout Southampton County. He claimed that he had been chosen by God to lead them from bondage. Highly spiritual, it was during an eclipse of the sun in 1831 that Turner became inspired to rebel against his captors. He enlisted the help of four other slaves in the area and an insurrection was planned.

Beginning August 21, 1831 until the next day, Turner and six other slaves killed the Travis family, managed to secure arms and horses, and enlisted about 75 other slaves in a disorganized insurrection that resulted in the deaths of 51 white people. Afterwards, he remained in hiding for six weeks until he was discovered. Following his conviction, Turner was hanged in Jerusalem, Virginia, along with 16 of his followers. The incident left Southerners deeply fearful of future slave insurrection and effectively halted the organized emancipation movement in that region.

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