Abolitionism

This article is about the abolition of slavery. For the general concept of the word, see abolition. For the project to abolish all suffering, see Abolitionist Society. The Abolitionist Party of Canada was a minor political party focused on monetary reform.

This French poster depicting the horrific conditions on slave ships was influential in mobilizing public opinion against slavery.

Abolitionism was a political movement that sought to abolish the practice of slavery and the worldwide slave trade. It began during the period of the Enlightenment and grew to large proportions in several nations during the 19th century, largely succeeding in its goals.

Abolitionism in Britain and the British Empire

See also Abolition of the Atlantic slave trade.

Slavery in Britain

The trade in slaves in England was made illegal in 1102, and the last form of enforced servitude (villeinage) had disappeared in Britain by the beginning of the 17th century. However, by the 18th century black slaves began to be brought into London and Edinburgh as personal servants. They were not bought or sold, and their legal status was unclear until 1772, when the case of a runaway slave named James Somerset forced a legal decision. The owner, Charles Steuart, had attempted to abduct him and send him to Jamaica to work on the sugar plantations. While in London Somerset had been baptised and his godparents issued a writ of habeas corpus. As a result Lord Chief Justice William Murray, Lord Mansfield, of the Court of King's Bench had to judge whether the abduction was legal or not under English Common Law as there was no legislation for slavery in England. In his judgement of 22 June 1772 he declared: "Whatever inconveniences, therefore, may follow from a decision, I cannot say this case is allowed or approved by the law of England; and therefore the black must be discharged." It was thus declared that the condition of slavery did not exist under English law. This judgement emancipated the 10 to 14 thousand slaves in England and also laid down that slavery contracted in other jurisdictions (such as the American colonies) could not be enforced in England.

After reading of the Somerset case, a black slave in Scotland, Joseph Knight, left his master, John Wedderburn. A similar case to Steuart's was brought by Wedderburn in 1776, with the same result: that chattel slavery did not exist under the law of Scotland (nevertheless, there were native-born Scottish slaves until 1799, when coal miners previously kept in serfdom gained emancipation).

First steps towards abolition

Despite the disappearance of slavery in Great Britain, in the American and West Indian colonies of the British Empire, slavery was a way of life.

By 1783, an anti-slavery movement was beginning among the British public. Dr Beilby Porteus, Bishop of Chester and later Bishop of London, used the opportunity afforded by preaching the 1783 Anniversary sermon of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts (SPG) at St Mary-le-Bow, Cheapside, London to issue a call to the Church of England to cease its involvement in the slave trade and to formulate a workable policy to draw attention to and improve the conditions of the Afro-Caribbean slaves on the church's plantations in Barbados. The same year, the first English abolitionist organisation was founded by a group of Quakers. The Quakers continued to be influential throughout the life-time of the movement. On June 17, 1783 the issue was formally brought to government by Sir Cecil Wray (Member of Parliament for Retford), who presented the Quaker petition to parliament.

The movement for abolition gains momentum

In May 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was formed, referring to the Atlantic slave trade, the trafficking in slaves by British merchants operating in British colonies and other countries. Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson and other members of the Clapham Sect of evangelical reformers were among the 12 committee members, some of whom were Quakers. Quakers could then not become MPs, so William Wilberforce was persuaded to become the leader of the parliamentary campaign. Clarkson was the group's researcher who gathered vast amounts of information about the slave trade.

A network of local abolition groups was established across the country. They campaigned through public meetings, the publication of pamphlets and petitions. The movement had support from Quakers, Baptists, Methodists and others, and reached out for support from the new industrial workers. Even women and children, previously un-politicised groups, got involved.

One particular project of the abolitionists was the establishment of Sierra Leone as a settlement for former slaves of the British Empire back in west Africa.

In 1796, John Gabriel Stedman published the memoirs of his five-year voyage to Surinam as part of a military force sent out to subdue bosnegers, former slaves living in the inlands. The book is critical of the treatment of slaves and contains many images by William Blake and Francesco Bartolozzi depicting the cruel treatment of runaway slaves. It became part of a large body of abolitionist literature.

Slave Trade Act 1807

The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act was passed by the British Parliament on March 25, 1807. The act imposed a fine of £100 for every slave found aboard a British ship. The intention was to entirely outlaw the slave trade within the British Empire, but the trade continued and captains in danger of being caught by the Royal Navy would often throw slaves into the sea to reduce the fine. In 1827, Britain declared that participation in the slave trade was piracy and punishable by death.

Slavery Abolition Act 1833

After the 1807 act, slaves were still held, though not sold, within the British Empire. In the 1820s, the abolitionist movement again became active, this time campaigning against the institution of slavery itself. The Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1827. Many of the campaigners were those who had previously campaigned against the slave trade.

On August 23, 1833, the Slavery Abolition Act outlawed slavery in the British colonies. On August 1, 1834, all slaves in the British Empire were emancipated, but still indentured to their former owners in an apprenticeship system which was finally abolished in 1838. £20 million was paid in compensation to plantation owners in the Caribbean.

Campaigning after the act

From 1839, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society worked to outlaw slavery in other countries and to pressure the government to help enforce the suppression of the slave trade by declaring slave traders pirates and pursuing them. This organization continues today as Anti-Slavery International.

Abolitionism in France

Further information: Colonialism

As in other "New World" colonies, the Atlantic slave trade provided the French colonies with manpower for the sugar cane plantations. The French West Indies included Anguilla (briefly), Antigua and Barbuda (briefly), Dominica, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Haïti, Montserrat (briefly), Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Sint Eustatius (briefly), St Kitts and Nevis (St Kitts, but not Nevis), Trinidad and Tobago (Tobago only), Saint Croix (briefly), and the current French overseas départements of Martinique and Guadeloupe (including Saint-Barthélemy and northern half of Saint Martin)) in the Caribbean sea.

The slave trade was regulated by Louis XIV's 1689 Code Noir. The institution of slavery was first repealed following the Haïtian Revolution led by Toussaint L'Ouverture, which started in 1791. The rebels imposed to the First Republic (1792-1804) the repeal of slavery on February 4, 1794. The Abbé Grégoire and the Society of the Friends of the Blacks (Société des Amis des Noirs), led by Jacques Pierre Brissot, were part of the abolitionist movement, which had laid important groundwork in building anti-slavery sentiment in the metropole. The first article of the law stated that "Slavery was repealed" in the French colonies, while the second article stated that "slave-owners would be indemnified", with a financial compensation. On May 10, 1802, colonel Delgrès signed a public notice, which was a call to Guadeloupe for insurgency against general Richepanse, sent by Napoleon to reestablish slavery. The rebellion was repressed, and slavery reestablished. Then, on April 27, 1848, under the Second Republic (1848-52), the decree-law Schœlcher repealed once again slavery. Slaves were bought back to the colons (Békés in Creole) and then freed by the state. At the same time, France started colonizing Africa, transferring the population to the mines, the forestry and rubber plantations.

Debates about the value of colonialism continue to this day. On May 10, 2001, the Taubira law officially recognized slavery and the Atlantic slave trade as a crime against humanity. Between various propositions, May 10 was finally chosen as day dedicated to the recognition of the crime of slavery. Anti-colonialist activists also want the African Liberation Day to be recognized by the Republic. Although slavery was recognized by this law, four years later, the vote of the February 23, 2005 law by the conservative Union for a Popular Movement (UMP), asking teachers and textbooks to "acknowledge and recognize in particular the positive role of the French presence abroad, especially in North Africa", was met with public uproar and accusations of historic revisionism, both inside France and abroad. Abdelaziz Bouteflika, president of Algeria, refused to sign the envisioned "friendly treaty" with France because of this law. Famous writer Aimé Césaire, leader of the Négritude movement, also refused to meet UMP leader Nicolas Sarkozy, leading the later to cancel his visit to Martinique. The controversial law was finally repealed by president Jacques Chirac (UMP) at the beginning of 2006.

Abolitionism in Russia

Although serfs in Imperial Russia were technically not slaves, they were nonetheless forced to work and were forbidden to leave their assigned land. The Russian emancipation of the serfs on March 3, 1861 by King Alexander II of Russia is known as 'the abolition of slavery' in Russia.

Gradual Abolition

The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society, formed April 14, 1775, in Philadelphia, primarily by Quakers who had a strong religious objection. Benjamin Franklin, originally a slave owner, was later a member. Benjamin Rush was a leader, as were many Quakers. African Slavery in America was one of the earliest calls for abolition; it appeared in the Pennsylvania Magazine and some scholars believe Thomas Paine wrote it.

Abolition in northern states

The Revolution set in motion actions in every northern state to abolish slavery. This was achieved by 1810, with the last house servant feed by the 1840s. The most important organization was the New-York Society for Promoting the Manumission of Slaves, and Protecting Such of Them as Have Been, or May be Liberated, led by John Jay, Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. Jay, Hamilton and Burr --powerful men who controlled politics in New York--organized boycotts against New York merchants and newspaper owners involved in the slave trade. The Society had a special committee of antislavery militants who visited newspaper offices to warn publishers against accepting advertisements for the purchase or sale of slaves. Another committee kept a list of persons who either participated in or invested in the slave trade and urged members to boycott anyone listed. The Society triumphed in securing the gradual abolition of slavery in the state of New York in 1799. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, Hamilton helped negotiate a deal by which the United States abolished the international slave trade in 1807.

Colonization to Liberia

In the 1820s and 1830s the American Colonization Society was the main vehicle for proposals to eventually do away with slavery. It created an American colony in Africa, Liberia and assisted thousands of blacks (both ex slaves and free people) to move there. The disease environment was extreme, and most of the migrants died quickly, but enough survived to rule Liberia into the 1980s.

Garrison and immediate emancipation

A radical shift came in the 1830s, led by William Lloyd Garrison, who demanded "immediate emancipation, gradually achieved.". That is he demanded that slaveowners repent immediately, and set up a system of emancipation. After 1840 "abolition" usually referred to positions like Garrison's; it was largely an ideological movement led by about 3000 people, including freed blacks. Abolitionism had a strong religious base including Quakers, and (among Yankees) people converted by the revivalistic fervor of the Second Great Awakening in the North in the 1830s. The Awakening operated as strongly in the South where it did not produce support for abolition. Belief in abolition contributed to the breaking away of some small denominations, such as the Free Methodist Church.

Evangelical abolitionists founded some colleges, most notably Bates College in Maine and Oberlin College in Ohio. The established colleges, such as Harvard, Yale and Princeton, generally opposed abolition, although the movement did attract such figures as Yale president Noah Porter and Harvard president Thomas Hill.

In the North most opponents of slavery supported other modernizing reform movements such as the temperance movement, public schooling, and prison- and asylum-building. Most evangelical Protestant feared the Catholic Church because it was seen as a bastion of reaction and opposed to modernization; see Syllabus of Errors. American Catholics (especially the Irish Americans) opposed reforms such as abolition, prohibition, feminism, and utopianism; they opposed Bible reading in schools, and denounced Protestant churches. The abolitionists were alarmed to see Catholics were growing rapidly, especially in the larger cities, where they were becoming politically powerful. As a result many abolitionists embraced nativism as typified by the Know Nothing Movement in the 1850s. In 1849, Garrison wrote that "not a Catholic priest, not a Catholic journal, can be found in this great country, pleading for the liberation of the enslaved; on the contrary, they most heartily stigmatize the abolitionists and all their movements." Thus abolitionism had strong opponents in the North--led by the Irish Catholics who increasingly dominated the Democratic party in major cities. One option for anti-slavery Democrats was the Free Soil Party that drew anti-slavery people out of the main Democratic party and eventually into the anti-slavery Republican party. The Irish disliked the blacks but they violently hated the abolitionists who they saw as a threat to their religion. This was important as late as the draft riots of 1863.

History of American abolition

In detail: Origins of the American Civil War, History of slavery in the United States

Although there were several groups that opposed slavery (such as The Society for the Relief of Free American Black People Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage), at the time of the founding of the Republic, there were few states which prohibited slavery outright. The Constitution had several provisions which accommodated slavery, although none used the word.

All of the states north of Maryland gradually and sporadically abolished slavery between 1789 and 1830, although Rhode Island had already abolished it before statehood (1774). The first state to abolish slavery was Massachusetts, where a court decision in 1783 interpreted the Massachusetts Constitution of 1780 (which asserted in its first article, All men are created free and equal...) as an abolition of slavery. This was later explicitly codified in a new version of the Massachusetts Constitution written by John Adams. The institution remained solid in the South, however, and that region's customs and social beliefs evolved into a strident defense of slavery in response to the rise of a stronger anti-slavery stance in the North. The anti-slavery sentiment which existed before 1830 among many people in the North, was joined after 1840 by the vocal few of the abolitionist movement. The majority of Northerners rejected the extreme positions of the abolitionists; Abraham Lincoln, for example. Indeed many northern leaders including Lincoln, Stephen Douglas (the Democratic nominee in 1860), John C. Fremont (the Republican nominee in 1856), and Ulysses S. Grant married into slaveowning southern families without any moral qualms.

Abolitionism as a principle was far more than just the wish to limit the extent of slavery. Most Northerners recognized that slavery existed in the South and the Constitution did not allow the federal government to intervene there. Most Northerners favored a policy of gradual and compensated emancipation. After 1849 abolitionists rejected this and demanded it ended immediately and everywhere. John Brown the only abolitionist known to have actually planned a violent insurrection, thought David Walker promoted the idea. The abolitionist movement was strengthened by the activities of free African-Americans, especially in the black church, who argued that the old Biblical justifications for slavery contradicted the New Testament. African-American activists and their writings were rarely heard outside the black community; however, they were tremendously influential to some sympathetic whites, most prominently the first white activist to reach prominence, William Lloyd Garrison, who was its most effective propagandist. Garrison's efforts to recruit eloquent spokesmen led to the discovery of ex-slave Frederick Douglass, who eventually became a prominent activist in his own right. Eventually, Douglass would publish his own, widely distributed abolitionist newspaper, the North Star.

In the early 1850s, the American abolitionist movement split into two camps over the issue of the United States Constitution. This issue arose in the late 1840s after the publication of The Unconstitutionality of Slavery by Lysander Spooner. The Garrisonians, led by Garrison and Wendell Phillips, publicly burned copies of the Constitution, called it a pact with slavery, and demanded its abolition and replacement. Another camp, led by Lysander Spooner, Gerrit Smith, and eventually Douglass, considered the Constitution to be an antislavery document. Using an argument based upon Natural Law and a form of social contract theory, they said that slavery existed outside of the Constitution's scope of legitimate authority and therefore should be abolished.

Another split in the abolitionist movement was along class lines. The artisan republicanism of Robert Dale Owen and Frances Wright stood in stark contrast to the politics of prominent elite abolitionists such as industrialist Arthur Tappan and his evangelist brother Lewis. While the former pair opposed slavery on a basis of solidarity of "wage slaves" with "chattel slaves", the Whiggish Tappans strongly rejected this view, opposing the characterization of Northern workers as "slaves" in any sense. (Lott, 129-130)

Many American abolitionists took an active role in opposing slavery by supporting the Underground Railroad. This was made illegal by the federal Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, but participants like Harriet Tubman, Henry Highland Garnet, Alexander Crummell, Amos Noë Freeman and others continued regardless with the final destination for slaves moved to Canada. Two landmark events for the movement were the Oberlin-Wellington Rescue and John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry.

After the issuance of the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, abolitionists continued to pursue the freedom of slaves in the remaining slave states, and to better the conditions of black Americans generally. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865 officially ended slavery. See Reconstruction for details.

National abolition dates

Slavery was abolished in these nations in these years:

• Sweden: 1335 (but not until 1847 in the colony of St Barthélemy)
• Portugal: 1761
• England and Wales: 1772 as a result of Somersett's case
• Scotland: 1776 as a result of Wedderburne's case
• Haiti: 1791, due to a revolt among nearly half a million slaves
• Upper Canada: 1793, by Act Against Slavery
• France (first time): 1794-1802, including all colonies (although abolition was never carried out in some colonies under British occupation)
• Argentina: 1813
• Gran Colombia (Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, and Venezuela): 1821, through a gradual emancipation plan (Colombia in 1852, Venezuela in 1854)
• Chile: 1823
• Mexico: 1829
• British Empire: 1833, including all colonies (with effect from 1 August 1834; in East Indies from 1 August 1838)
• Mauritius: 1 Feb 1835, under the British government. This day is a public holiday.
• Denmark: 1848, including all colonies
• France (second time): 1848, including all colonies
• Peru: 1851
• The Netherlands: 1863, including all colonies
• The United States: 1865, after the U.S. Civil War (Note: abolition occurred in some states before 1865)
• Puerto Rico 1873 and Cuba: 1880 (both were colonies of Spain at the time)
• Brazil: 1888
• Korea: 1894 (hereditary slavery ended in 1886)
• Zanzibar: 1897 (slave trade abolished in 1873)
• China: 1910
• Burma: 1929
• Ethiopia: 1936, by order of the Italian occupying forces (see Second Italo-Abyssinian War). After Ethiopia regained independence in 1942 during World War II, Emperor Haile Selassie did not re-establish slavery.
• Tibet: 1959, by order of the People's Republic of China
• Saudi Arabia: 1962
• Mauritania: July 1980 (still formally abolished by French authorities in 1905, then implicitly in the new constitution of 1961 and expressly in October of that year when the country joined the United Nations), actually still practiced

Slavery today

Although slavery is outlawed in most countries today (with the notable exception of Mauritania, where it is still practiced publicly), slavery is still practiced in secret throughout the world, most often in the Middle East.

There are three general types of slavery today: wage slaves, contract slaves and slaves in the traditional sense.

Wage slavery is most common in underdeveloped areas, where employers can afford to employ people at low wages, knowing they can't afford to risk their employment. Most child laborers can be considered to be wage slaves.

Contract slaves are generally poor (often illiterate) people tricked into signing contracts they do not understand.

Slavery in its traditional sense is still very active; only its activities are carried out underground. Actual slavery is still carried out much the same way it has been for centuries: people, often women and children, are abducted (usually from an underdeveloped country such as South America, Africa and the former Soviet Bloc countries), loaded aboard a ship and smuggled to a foreign country (usually Asia or the Middle East) and there sold, the men and children usually sold for labor, the women usually sold into some rich man's harem or to work as unwilling prostitutes.

Modern-day abolitionism

Slavery still exists today across the world. Groups such as Anti-Slavery International and Free the Slaves continue to campaign to rid the world of slavery.

On December 10, 1948, the General Assembly of the United Nations adopted the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Article 4 states:

No one shall be held in slavery or servitude; slavery and the slave trade shall be prohibited in all their forms.

Since 1997, the United States Department of Justice has, through work with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, prosecuted six individuals on charges of slavery in the agricultural industry. These prosecutions have led to freedom for over 1000 slaves in the tomato and orange fields of South Florida.

This is only one example of the contemporary fight against slavery worldwide, which is especially pervasive in agriculture, apparel and the sex industry.

In the contemporary United States, the mantle of "abolitionist" has been widely embraced by those who seek to abolish the death penalty.

Also embraced by the immigration rights movement in the united states

Commemoration of the abolition of slavery

The abolitionist movements and the abolition of slavery has been commemorated in different ways around the world in modern times. The United Nations General Assembly has declared 2004 the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle against Slavery and its Abolition. This proclamation marks the bicentenary of the birth of the first black state, Haiti. A number of exhibitions, events and research programmes are connected to the initiative.

Notable opponents of slavery

Note: Not all of these were abolitionists.

William Allen Gamaliel Bailey Henry Ward Beecher Ramón Emeterio Betances (Puerto Rican) William Henry Brisbane John Brown Thomas Fowell Buxton (British) Antônio de Castro Alves (Brazilian) Thomas Clarkson (British) Levi Coffin Thomas Day (British) Charles Dickens Richard Dillingham Frederick Douglass Ralph Waldo Emerson Olaudah Equiano Calvin Fairbank Benjamin Franklin Amos Noë Freeman Thomas Garret William Lloyd Garrison Henri Grégoire (French) Angelina Grimké Vicente Guerrero (Mexican) Alexander Hamilton Laura Smith Haviland

Lewis Hayden Hinton Rowan Helper (enemy of slaveowners) Elias Hicks Miguel Hidalgo (Mexican) Isaac Hopper Julia Ward Howe Samuel Gridley Howe John Jay Samuel Johnson Abby Kelley Abraham Lincoln Toussaint L'Ouverture Jermain Loguen Elijah Lovejoy James Russell Lowell Maria White Lowell Henry G. Ludlow Benjamin Lundy Philip Mazzei (Italian) José Gregorio Monagas (Venezuelan) Hannah More (British) José María Morelos (Mexican) Lucretia Mott Lord William Murray (British) Joaquim Nabuco (Brazilian) Thomas Paine Theodore Parker John Parker (abolitionist) José do Patrocínio (Brazilian) Wendell Phillips Mary Ellen Pleasant Bishop Beilby Porteus (British) John Wesley Posey James Ramsay (British)

John Rankin André Rebouças (Brazilian) Ernestine Rose Benjamin Rush Victor Schœlcher (French) Granville Sharp (British) Gerrit Smith William Smith (British) Silas Soule Lysander Spooner Elizabeth Cady Stanton Henry Stanton William Still Harriet Beecher Stowe Arthur Tappan Henry David Thoreau Henry Thornton (British) Sojourner Truth Harriet Tubman Nat Turner insurrectionist Delia Webster Theodore Dwight Weld John Wesley (British) William Wilberforce (British) John Woolman

References

Britain and World

• Brown, Christopher Leslie. Moral Capital: Foundations of British Abolitionism (2006)
• Davis, David Brion, The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823 (1999); The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (1988)
• Gould, Philip. Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World Harvard U. Press, 2003. 258 pp.
• Thistlethwaite, Frank. Anglo-American Connection in the Early Nineteenth Century. 1971. ISBN 0846215403.

USA

• Abzug, Robert H. Cosmos Crumbling: American Reform and the Religious Imagination. Oxford, 1994. ISBN 0195037529.
• Bacon, Jacqueline. The Humblest May Stand Forth: Rhetoric, Empowerment, and Abolition U. of South Carolina Press, 2002. 352 pp.
• Barnes, Gilbert H. The Anti-Slavery Impulse 1830-1844. reprint 1964. ISBN 0781253071.
• Blue, Frederick J. No Taint of Compromise: Crusaders in Antislavery Politics. Louisiana State U. Press 2005. 301 pp.
• Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. HarperCollins, 2005. 510 pp.
• Davis, David Brion, Inhuman Bondage : The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World (2006)
• Filler, Louis. The Crusade Against Slavery 1830-1860. 1960. ISBN 0917256298. survey of movement in U.S.
• Griffin, Clifford S. Their Brothers' Keepers: Moral Stewardship in the United States 1800-1865. Rutgers UP, 1967. ISBN 0313240590.
• Harrold, Stanley. The Abolitionists and the South, 1831-1861. University Press of Kentucky, 1995. ISBN 081310968X.
• Harrold, Stanley. The American Abolitionists. Longman, 2000. ISBN 0582357381, short survey
• Harrold, Stanley. The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves. University Press of Kentucky, 2004. ISBN 0813122902.
• Huston, James L. "The Experiential Basis of the Northern Antislavery Impulse." Journal of Southern History 56:4 (November 1990): 609-640.
• John R. McKivigan The War Against Proslavery Religion: Abolitionism and the Northern Churches, 1830-1865 (1984)
• McPherson, James M. The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP Princeton U. Press 1975. 438 pp.
• Newman, Richard S. The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic. U. of North Carolina Pr., 2002. 256 pp.
• Osofsky, Gilbert. "Abolitionists, Irish Immigrants, and the Dilemmas of Romantic Nationalism" American Historical Review 1975 80(4): 889-912. Issn: 0002-8762
• Perry, Lewis and Michael Fellman, eds. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists. Louisiana State Univ Press, 1979. ISBN 0807108898.
• Peterson, Merrill D. John Brown: The Legend Revisited U. Press of Virginia, 2002. 196 pp.
• Pierson, Michael D. Free Hearts and Free Homes: Gender and American Antislavery Politics. U. of North Carolina Press, 2003. 250 pp.
• Beth A. Salerno. Sister Societies: Women's Antislavery Organizations in Antebellum America Northern Illinois University Press, 2005. ISBN =0-87580-338-5.
• Speicher, Anna M. The Religious World of Antislavery Women: Spirituality in the Lives of Five Abolitionist Lecturers. Syracuse Univ Press, 2000. ISBN 0815628501.
• Harrold, Stanley. The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves U. Press of Kentucky, 2004. 246 pp.
• Stauffer, John. The Black Hearts of Men: Radical Abolitionists and the Transformation of Race. Harvard U. Press, 2002. 367 pp.
• Vorenberg, Michael. Final Freedom: The Civil War, the Abolition of Slavery, and the Thirteenth Amendment. Cambridge U. Press, 2001. 305 pp.
• Zilversmit, Arthur. The First Emancipation: The Abolition of Slavery in the North. University of Chicago Press, 1967. ISBN 0226983323.

External links

• The Antislavery Literature Project major academic center for primary sources
• Elijah Parish Lovejoy: A Martyr on the Altar of American Liberty
• Brycchan Carey's pages listing British abolitionists
• Slavery in Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau
• The National Archives (UK): The Abolition of the Slave Trade
• John Brown Museum
• American Abolitionism