Anti-Slavery Movement: A Brief Chronology (1831-1860) 

1831	Nat Turner leads an unsuccessful slave revolt. He is captured and hung.
1833	The American Anti-Slavery Society is founded by abolitionist groups from New York and New England.
1834	Anti-Abolition riots break out in New York and Philadelphia
1835	Congress adopts a "gag resolutions" against anti-slavery petitions and motions.
1839	Liberty Party, the first anti-slavery party holds a national convention in Warsaw, New York.
1840	World Anti-Slavery Convention held in London. American churches condemned for supporting slavery.
1841	Frederick Douglass addresses a convention of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in Nantucket, resulting in his employment as an agent.
1848	California adopts a constitution forbidding slavery. Conflicts between pro- and anti slavery groups deepens.
1850	Compromise of 1850 passes-California a free state. Fugitive Slave Act set up and slave trade abolished in District of Columbia
1851	Charles Sumner becomes U.S. Senator from Massachusetts and leads fight against slavery.
1854	Kansas-Nebraska Act is passed. All territories can decide to permit or prohibit slavery-condemned by abolitionists. --Republican Party formed as a reaction against Kansas-Nebraska Act- a call for abolishment of slavery.
1855	"Bleeding Kansas"--popular sovereignty leads to bloody war between pro and anti-slavery groups. John Brown arrived in Kansas, he helps to defend Lawrence.
1856	President Pierce recognizes proslavery legislature in Kansas Territory. Border Ruffians-proslavery, sack Lawrence, Kansas John Brown- attack in response. The Pottawatomie murders, May 23-26. Civil battles continue between free and proslavery states until federal troops restore peace. Senator Sumner gives bitter anti-slavery speech and rift between both sides broadens.
1857	Dred Scott Decision in Supreme Court means fugitive slaves in a free state are not free and says Congress has no right to prohibit slavery in the territories.
1858	Kansas rejects Locompton Constitution and becomes a non-slaveholding state.
1859	Abolitionist John Brown with 21 men, seize U.S. arsenal at Harper's Ferry-hoping to start a slave insurrection. He is hung for treason-Martyr to the North-Traitor to the South.
1860	Civil War rages...

| Top | John Brown (1800-1859)

John Brown was born on May 9, 1800, his family migrated a lot so education was hard to come by for John. He believed his main education came from his life experiences, he could heard cattle and speak Indian, but he had very little formal education. When he did go to school he hated the formal restraints that went along with it, he could never get enough of the roughest and hardest kind of play. Young John spent a lot of time in solitude, by the time he was twelve years old he was sent hundred of mules away with the cattle his family owned. He was entrusted with their care and safe arrival to the designated spot, and he did all of this alone. He was a lone soul and found himself bashful around others. His family's religious values strayed from the Puritanical beliefs for thought and discipline but fell into its work ethic. This was a more sensitive environment. One item of great importance to John was his bible, he was seldom without it, and grew to be a firm believer in what it said.

During the War of 1812, battle grounds found themselves at John's front door. He liked to hang around the camp talking to the men and forming opinions based on their discussions. He decided that this war "was a real war and not the war of fame and fairy tale" (Du Bois 25). But beyond all his childhood and adolescent experience, one incident stands out in Brown's life. Something that he would consider, though not at the time, life-changing. John had been traveling in 1812 when he came across a house and the master was kind enough to let him in, feed him and give him a place to stay. While in the house he met a small black slave close to his own age. John watched in horror as this half-clothed boy was verbally abused by his master. A voice that was kind to him suddenly turned venomous towards the young black boy. This scene confused young John, he did not understand why a boy would be beaten by an iron shovel. Was he bad or stupid? John saw this young creature with no mother and no father and asked the question a million other black bondman were asking "Is God their father?".

For most of his adult life Brown resided on the western slope of the Alleghenies, he worked as a tanner trying desperately to support his growing family. In 1820 he married Dianthe Lusk, who later died in 1832, during childbirth. He had seven children with her. In 1833 he married his second wife Mary Ann Day who bore him thirteen more children (although only six lived to adulthood). Of those twenty children two were killed during the raid of Harper's Ferry. During all this time Brown was involved in the Abolitionist movement, though not deep at first his feelings slowly changed and he became more and more involved. He was beginning to become frustrated with the movement and in 1839, a Negro preacher helped move him to the cause full throttle. The preacher was visiting John, telling him of all the torment and injustice he had to endure. It was there and then when Brown announced his purpose to make an active war on slavery. He enlisted the help of his entire family.

This marks a major turning point in Brown's life; throughout his childhood he disliked slavery and his disdain grew with him. This was a gradual hatred growing stronger with each tale of torment he heard. It finally dawned on him that he must fight this monster called slavery. At this time in his life he was not a non-resistant, physical warfare was not part of his plan. Slavery was not yet the sole subject of his life, but he was determined to fight it the best he could.

In 1845 he began studying the history of the insurrection and became familiar with the Abolition Movement. By 1846, it is said that the Harper's Ferry attack was already starting to formulate in his head, although it would not take place for over ten years. Three years after the Fugitive Slave Law was passed (1850) he began contemplating the idea of Kansas. This new territory offered brand new land and a call for "all lovers of freedom who desired homes in a new region to go there as settlers, and by their votes save Kansas from the curse of slavery" (Du Bois 127).

| Top | Following the 1854 passage of the Kansas -Nebraska Act, which provided that the people of the territory were to both on the existence of slavery there, both the north and south tried to pack sympathetic settlers there. Five of Brown's sons decided to move to Kansas in 1854, eventually Brown joined them in 1855.

The immediate result was conflict and bloodshed, with proslavery men entering the territory from Missouri to harass free-state men and stuff the ballot box with pro- slavery votes. ... these events, in which John Brown had little to do, formed the background for his activities in 1856 (Warch 9). From the moment he entered the territory he was itching for a fight; on May 21-22, 1856 a group of pro-slavery agitators attacked the town of Lawrence, burning buildings and killing two men. On the night of May 24 Brown sought revenge. Armed with four sons, a son-in-law and two other he entered the Pottawatomie settlement. The exact details will never be known, because Brown was a quiet man who kept to himself, but it is known that Brown presided over the meeting where this attack was staged. "These were not the leaders of the pro-slavery party in Kansas, but rather the dogs which were to worry the free state men to death" (Du Bois 156). By the orders of Brown himself, five men were led into the woods and hacked to death. This deed outraged Kansas, one group said it freed Kansas while another group said it plunged Kansas into civil war. "It has been estimated that between November 1855, and December, 1856 about 200 men were killed and around two million dollars' worth of property destroyed in the territory" (Warch 9).

After the incident Brown went into hiding and two of his sons, who were not even involved, were arrested. They were set free but were severely mistreated during their confinement. This was a major endeavor that placed John Brown at the center of the abolitionist movement. He went on to raid and attack pro-slavery activists, but one other major attack in what links him to history. The Harper's Ferry Raid was one of the best-known raids in the movement. Harper's Ferry lays where the Shanendoah and Potomac rivers come together. The population of the entire six-county surrounding area included whites, free Negroes and slaves (most of whom were women and children). He chose this attack spot for many reasons, one of which was because a United States arsenal was there and the capture of this would give a dramatic climax to his cause. But most importantly he chose Harper's Ferry because it was the safest entrance into the Great Black Way, a place where thousands of ex-slaves resided (Du Bois 274). "Convinced that the American Nation would be killed if slavery were not, he justified his methods by the holiness of his cause, by his belief that both ends and means came from the Lord God Almighty whose servant he was" (Boyer 3).

| Top | At eight o'clock Sunday evening on October 16, 1859 Brown loaded up his men and preceded to Harper's Ferry. The people involved numbered fifty, both white and black men. Some of his family was also involved; three sons and two brothers of his eldest daughter's husband. These were the men idealists, dreamers, soldiers and avengers, varying from the silent and thoughtful to the quick and impulsive; from the cold and bitter to the ignorant and faithful. They believed in God, in spirits, in fate in liberty (Du Bois 286). The plan was to seize the rifle factory, and then go out into the country and bring in certain masters and their slaves. The supplies of the rifle factory were to be moved to another location where they could arm the slaves as well as anyone else interested in their cause. By Monday, at four o'clock in the morning the town and arsenal are captured, by dawn panic and confusion in the town was widespread. Brown sent for hostages to be taken from nearby farms and to spread the news to the slaves that their freedom was at hand. Later, Brown's men stopped a Baltimore bound train entering Harper's Ferry. They allowed it to pass through and told the trainmen to relay the message of what was going on. By Monday morning Harper's Ferry was filled with slaves eager to join the insurrection; but they were also met with armed men ready to suppress it. Many people died at this insurrection, including Brown's family members. Brown was eventually captured , convicted of treason; and hanged on December 2, 1859.

Brown has been regarded as a martyr by sympathetic Northerners. The raid on Harper's Ferry ended disastrously, but it created such public discussion and turmoil that, for the first time, national thought was aroused on the issue. In its influence on history, it has been considered to be one of the major contributors to the Civil War, John Brown and his army of liberation is a milestone.

Sources

Warch, Richard and Fanton, Jonathan F., eds. John Brown. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, inc., 1973.

Malin, James C. John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1942.

Ketz, Louise Bilebof, ed. Dictionary of American History, vol. II. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1976.

Du Bois, W.E. Burghardt. John Brown. New York: International Publishers, 1962.

| Top |Selected Bibliography through 1999

Abzug, Robert H. Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld and the Dilemma of Reform. NY: Oxford UP, 1980. E449 .W46 A29

Bartlett, Irving H. Wendell and Ann Phillips: The Community of Reform, 1840-1880. NY: Norton, 1981. E449 .P56 B36

---. Wendell Phillips, Brahmin Radical. Westport: Greenwood, 1973. E449 .P56 B37

Blackett, R. J. M. Beating Against the Barriers: Biographical Essays in Nineteenth-Century Afro-American History. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1986. E185.96 .B55

Blue, Frederick J. Charles Sumner and the Conscience of the North. Arlington Heights: Harlan Davidson, 1994. E415.9 .S9

Child, Lydia Maria Francis. An Appeal in Favor of Americans Called Africans. NY: Arno, 1968. E449 C532

Curry, Richard O., ed. The Abolitionists; Reformers or Fanatics? NY: Holt, 1965. E449 .C98

Davis, David B. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770-1823. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1975. HT867 D38

Dillon, Merton L. The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority. DeKalb: Northern Illinois UP, 1974. E449 D58

Duberman, Martin B., ed. The Antislavery Vanguard; New Essays on the Abolitionists. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1965. E449 .D8

Elkins, Stanley M. Slavery; A Problem in American Institutional and Intellectual Life. Chicago: U of ChicagoP, 1968. E441 .E44

Faust, Drew Gilpin. Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War. U of North Carolina P, 1996.

Gerteis, Louis S. Morality and Utility in American Antislavery Reform. Chapel Hill: U of North CarolinaP, 1987. E449 .G38

Goodheart, Lawrence B. Abolitionist, Actuary, Atheist: Elizur Wright and the Reform Impulse. Kent: Kent State UP, 1990. E449 .W9373

Hersh, Blanche G. The Slavery of Sex: Feminist-Abolitionists in America. Urbana: U of IllinoisP, 1978. HQ1423 .H47

Kerr, Andrea M. Lucy Stone: Speaking Out for Equality. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 1992. HQ1413 .S73 K47

Lader, Lawrence E. The Bold Brahmins; New England's War Against Slavery, 1831-1863. NY, Dutton, 1961. E449 .L12

Lesick, Lawrence T. The Lane Rebels: Evangelicalism and Antislavery in Antebellum America. Metuchen: ScarecrowP, 1980. E449 .F86

Lutz, Alma. Crusade for Freedom; Women of the Antislavery Movement. Boston, BeaconP, 1968. E449 L95

Malin, James C. John Brown and the Legend of Fifty-Six. Philadelphia: The American Philosophical Society, 1942. F685 .B877

Marsh, Henry. Slavery and Race: A Story of Slavery and its Legacy for Today. NY: St. MartinP, 1974. HT861 .S25

McKitrick, Eric L. Slavery Defended: The Views of the Old South. Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1963. E449 .M16

| Top | McPherson, James M. The Abolitionist Legacy: From Reconstruction to the NAACP. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1975. E185.61 M18

---. The Struggle for Equality; Abolitionists and the Negro in the Civil War and Reconstruction. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1964. E449 .M176

Miller, Joseph C. Slavery: A Comparative Teaching Bibliography. Waltham: Crossroads P, 1977. Z7164 .S6 M54

Perry, Lewis. Radical Abolitionism; Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1973. E449 .P46

---, and Michael Fellman, eds. Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1979. E449 .A6237

Rampersad, Arnold, and Deborah E. McDowell, eds. Slavery and the Literary Imagination. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1989. PS217 .S55

Ripley, C. Peter, ed. The Black Abolitionist Papers. Chapel Hill: U of North CarolinaP, 1985-. E449 .B624

---, ed. Witness for Freedom: African American Voices on Race, Slavery, and Emancipation. Chapel Hill: U of North CarolinaP, 1993. E449 .W84

Ruchames, Louis. The Abolitionists; A Collection of Their Writing. NY: Putnam, 1963. E449 .R88

Sanchez-Eppler, Karen. Touching Liberty: Abolition, Feminism. and the Politics of the Body. Berkeley: U of California P, 1993.

Scott, Otto J. The Secret Six: John Brown and the Abolitionist Movement. NY: NY Times Books, 1979. E451 .S36

Sears, Lorenzo. Wendell Phillips, Orator and Agitator. NY: B. Blom, 1967. E449 .P5597

Ten Broek, Jacobus. The Antislavery Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment. Berkeley, U of CaliforniaP, 1951. E449 .T4

Walters, Ronald G. The Antislavery Appeal: American Abolitionism after 1830. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 1976. E449 .W2

Winter, Kari J. Subjects of Slavery, Agents of Change: Women and Power in Gothic Novels and Slave Narratives, 1790-1865. Athens: U of Georgia P, 1992.

Wolf, Hazel C. On Freedom's Altar; The Martyr Complex in the Abolition Movement. Madison, U of WisconsinP, 1952. E449 .W89 

Selected Bibliography 2000 to Present

Bennett, Michael. Democratic Discourses: The Radical Abolition Movement and Antebellum American Literature. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2005.  

Foote, Lorien. Seeking the One Great Remedy: Francis George Shaw and Nineteenth-Century Reform. Athens: Ohio UP, 2003.

Gray, Janet. Race and Time: American Women's Poetics from Antislavery to Racial Modernity. Iowa City: U of Iowa P, 2003.

Harrold, Stanley. The Rise of Aggressive Abolitionism: Addresses to the Slaves. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2004.

Nabers, Deak. Victory of Law: The Fourteenth Amendment, The Civil War, and American Literature, 1852-1867. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins UP, 2006.

Raimon, Eve A. The "Tragic Mulatta" Revisited: Race and Nationalism in Nineteenth-Century Antislavery Fiction. New Brunswick: Rutgers UP, 2004.

Ryan, Susan M. The Grammar of Good Intentions: Race & the Antebellum Culture of Benevolence. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 2003.

Zackodnik, Teresa C. The Mulatta and the Politics of Race. Jackson: UP of Mississippi, 2004.

Zaeske, Susan. Signatures of Citizenship: Petitioning, Antislavery, and Women's Political Identity. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2003.

MLA Style Citation of this Web Page:

Reuben, Paul P. "Chapter 4: Anti-Slavery Movement" PAL: Perspectives in American Literature- A Research and Reference Guide. WWW URL: http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap4/abolish.html (provide page date or date of your login).  

| Top |