Search results
In the United States, abolitionism, the movement that sought to end slavery in the country, was active from the colonial era until the American Civil War, the end of which brought about the abolition of American slavery, except as punishment for a crime, through the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution (ratified 1865).
Abolitionism in the United States became a popular expression of moralism, operating in tandem with other social reform efforts, such as the temperance movement, and much more problematically, the women's suffrage movement.
People also ask
What are some facts about abolitionism?
What were the causes and effects of abolitionism?
How did the abolitionist movement end slavery?
Was abolitionism a heterogeneous movement?
- Overview
- Origin of the abolition movement
abolitionism, (c. 1783–1888), in western Europe and the Americas, the movement chiefly responsible for creating the emotional climate necessary for ending the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. The intensification of slavery as a system, which followed Portuguese trafficking of enslaved Africans beginning in the 15th century, was driven...
The abolition movement began with criticism by rationalist thinkers of the Enlightenment of slavery’s violation of the “rights of man.” Quaker and other, evangelical religious groups condemned it for its un-Christian qualities. By the late 18th century moral disapproval of slavery was widespread, and antislavery reformers won a number of deceptively easy victories during this period. In Britain, Granville Sharp secured a legal decision in 1772 that West Indian planters could not hold slaves in Britain, because slavery was contrary to English law. In the United States, all the states north of Maryland abolished slavery between 1777 and 1804. But antislavery sentiments had little effect on the centres of slavery themselves: the massive plantations of the Deep South, the West Indies, and South America. Turning their attention to these areas, British and American abolitionists began working in the late 18th century to prohibit the importation of enslaved Africans into the British colonies and the United States. Under the leadership of William Wilberforce and Thomas Clarkson, these forces succeeded in getting the slave trade to the British colonies abolished in 1807. The United States prohibited the importation of slaves that same year, though widespread smuggling continued until about 1862.
Antislavery forces then concentrated on winning the emancipation of those populations already in slavery. They were triumphant when slavery was abolished in the British West Indies by 1838 and in French possessions 10 years later.
Britannica Quiz
Fast Facts About Abolitionism Quiz
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Oct 27, 2009 · MPI/Getty Images. The abolitionist movement was an organized effort to end the practice of slavery in the United States. The first leaders of the campaign, which took place from about 1830 to...
Lists of some of the causes and effects of abolitionism. The abolitionist movement arose in the late 18th century to end the transatlantic slave trade and emancipate enslaved persons in western Europe and the Americas. In the United States slavery would not be officially abolished throughout the country until 1865.
In the United States, all of the states north of Maryland abolished slavery between 1777 and 1804. But antislavery sentiments had little effect on the centers of slavery themselves: the great plantations of the Deep South, the West Indies, and South America.
May 18, 2020 · The transatlantic religious revivals of the early nineteenth-century, often referred to as the Second Great Awakening in the United States, inspired others, including some white men and women, to become abolitionists.
