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Back to Hypertext History: Critical Issues of American History
The Abolitionists
Important Figures in the Antislavery Cause

Born into slavery in Maryland, he escaped into Pennsylvania around the age of 20. He worked as a blacksmith and a schoolteacher before studying theology at Yale and becoming a minister in Connecticut. He helped organize African American support for the Amistad captives and represented Connecticut at the 1840 World Anti-Slavery Convention in London. He published his autobiography, The Fugitive Blacksmith, in 1859.

For excerpts from his autobiography, see:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASpennington.htm

Picture credit:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASpennington.htm

A wealthy Boston Brahmin and a Harvard-trained attorney, he abandoned the practice of law after he saw a Boston mob try to lynch William Lloyd Garrison. A spellbinding orator, he became a radical abolitionist who strongly supported women's rights.

Picture credit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASphillips.htm

The son of a cotton broker in South Carolina, he moved to Philadelphia, where he established a library for African Americans and campaigned to repeal a state law prohibiting blacks from voting. Following passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, he served as chairman of a vigilance committee, which sought to protect African Americans from kidnapping.

For excerpts from an 1860 Purvis speech, see:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASpurvis.htm

Picture credit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASpurvis.htm

The American Anti-Slavery Society's first African American lecturer was born in Salem, Mass., and recruited black soldiers during the Civil War.

Picture credit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASremond.htm

The son of a North Carolina slave owner and a slave, Roper lived in North and South Carolina and Georgia before he escaped from slavery in 1834. He published the narrative of his life, Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper, in 1838.

For excerpts from his narrative, see:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASroper.htm

Picture credit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASroper.htm

The country's first African American bookseller, he wrote and edited a number of antislavery publications. He is best known for his role in assisting Frederick Douglass after his escape from slavery.

For additional biographical information and Douglass's account of Ruggles, see:
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASruggles.htm

Born in Florida, Seward served as New York governor, U.S. Senator, and Secretary of State during the Civil War. A Whig and later a Republican in politics, he gained notoriety for arguing that there was a "higher law" than the Constitution, a higher moral law that regarded slavery as sinful.

In 1858, Seward examined the sources of the conflicts between North and South. Some people thought the sectional conflict was "accidental, unnecessary, the work of interested or fanatical agitators, and therefore ephemeral." Seward believed these people were wrong. The roots of the conflict went far deeper. "It is an irrepressible conflict," he said, "between opposing and enduring forces."

Picture credit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASseward.htm

A wealthy upstate New York landholder and a founder of the Liberty Party, he provided land to hundreds of African American families. He was one of the "Secret Six" who financed John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, Va.

Picture credit: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASsmith.htm