The Anti-Slavery Movement

People often believe that they have no power to change their circumstances. They often start to
believe their lives were meant to be lived the way they were being told to live. For a long time, even
slaves began to believe there was nothing they could do, and tried to make light of the situation by
appreciating having a roof over their heads and clothes on their backs. Slavery is to this day the best
example of success through literary protest. Despite the bleak and unlikely outcome of emancipation
for slaves, abolitionists across the North began to join together through word of mouth and through
print, and African Americans began learning to read and write and preach. This was how the anti-slavery
movement grew larger, and eventually succeeded.
Slavery in North America began many years ago in the year 1619. Twenty African slaves were
sold to the settlers in Jamestown, where they would harvest the tobacco that was being sold back to
England (Bordewich 15). As the years progressed, 10-12 million slaves were moved from Africa to the
Americas, but most were brought to the Caribbean and Brazil. Each slave had an average of 4 square
feet of space on slave ships, which help up to 400 slaves. This resulted in the death, illness, and injury of
many slaves before even reaching the destination. Slavery was expanding rapidly as demand for tobacco
increase, also due to other plantations such as rice and sugar plantations. Slavery became the
foundation of the economic system and trade, and was the beginning of a consumer culture due to the
products that were cultivated and sold. These products were for pleasure rather than sustenance.
Unfortunately, due to this dependency on slave labor to harvest these crops, it began to dig roots
deeper into the wrongful justification of owning slaves.
Plantations were mainly found in the South, and 90% slaves worked on plantations. 3/4 of the
worlds cotton came from slavery in the American South (Crash Course #13). This became the highest
commodity and the base of the American economy. There was not much technological innovation due
to the large focus around agricultural crops in the South. This economic boom paired with racism made
white Americans even more willing to justify their cruel inhuman acts. The brutality of slavery was the
attempt at dehumanization of slaves, but they resisted this dehumanization as much as they could by
raising families and following their religious beliefs. Many families were torn from each other as slaves
were sold or auctioned off to different farms and plantations. Even young children and unborn babies
were sold and separated from their mothers. But despite this, many families still emerged and gave a
sense of community. Christianity became part of an emerging African American culture as well.
Preachers often found a way to learn to read and write in secret, and spoke to the people of the church
of the inevitable day of liberation. David Walkers Appeal to the Coloured Citizens was a revolutionary
form of protest that was often read by black ministers, and helped began the abolitionist movement.
Walker addresses not only blacks but whites as well, and their misconduct of the Declaration of
Independence as he boldly states, Now, Americans! I ask you candidly, was your sufferings under Great
Britain one hundredth part as cruel and tyrannical as you have rendered ours under you? (Trodd 84).

Escape was often thought about and attempted, and towards the end of slavery, a few
succeeded with some help. Harriet Jacobs shares her experiences in Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. A
garret that Jacobs names as The Loophole of Retreat is where she hides for 7 years from the slaveholder
Dr. Flint. Rats and mice crawled over her in her sleep, harsh weather conditions each season, her legs
could not fully stretch out, and she had no contact with her children who she watched and listened to
the sounds of their voices. This excerpt shows that the determination to run from slavery can even be
strong enough to withstand living seven whole years in a garret. Slavery is a living death as Jacobs
depicts (Trodd 106). With the expansion of new railroads, the underground network for the abolitionist
movement expanded as well. The Underground Railroad was not really a railroad, but it was given this
name due to slaves and the people who helped them having to stay unseen and hide their actions. Many
were committed to the idea of emancipation, including Isaac Tatum Hopper, Gerrit Smith, Frederick
Douglas, William Lloyd Garrison, Levi Coffin, Harriet Tubman, and many more. As the word of abolition
spread, more and more people began to adopt the idea (Bordewich 237). Garrison was the editor of the
abolitionist newspaper The Liberator for over 30 years, which was one of the influences that eventually
spread across the North. Republicans eventually decided to side with the antislavery amendment.
Starting out as an issue of constitutional abolition of slavery, the election of 1864 was approaching, but
the issues of emancipation for African Americans began to fall into the background. The main ideas
became about success of the Union forces as well as a focus on racial issues such as miscegenation, and
a preservation of white purity (Vorenberg 142). Unfortunately, the two parties were unsure whether
they could come to an agreement peacefully, or whether military actions would have to be taken. This
was what resulted in the Civil War, with the fate of the antislavery amendment in its grasp. After 4
years, the war ended on April 9, 1865 at Appomattox Courthouse. Robert E. Lee surrendered the last
major Confederate army to Ulysses S. Grant, and the last battle was fought at Palmito Ranch, Texas, on
May 13, 1865. With the end of the Civil War, the election of Abraham Lincoln, and the ratification of the
Constitution of the United States human slavery was finally diminished. This was a huge step for
abolitionists and African Americans, the day of liberation had finally come.
It is important for generations to know about the history of the United States, and the
unfortunate truth about the existence of slavery on American soil. It is also important for people to
know the power of literary protest, whether it be poems or pamphlets or newspapers or novels. Literary
protest is the most powerful, lasting, and non-violent form of protest, a form that resonates in the
hearts and minds of its listeners. The abolition of slavery was the largest change ever made in American
History, all because of the spread of protest through literature.