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Founded in 1816
It was founded by Robert Finley. American Colonization Society (ACS), originally known as the The Society for the Colonization of Free People of Color of America -
The Missouri Compromise of 1820
The Missouri Compromise of 1820, which allowed Missouri to become a slave state, further provoked anti-slave sentiment in the North. The abolitionist movement began as a more organized, radical and immediate effort to end slavery than earlier campaigns. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1830
The abolitionist movement began as a more organized, radical and immediate effort to end slavery than earlier campaigns. Historians believe ideas set forth during the religious movement known as the Second Great Awakening inspired abolitionists to rise up against slavery. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1833
The abolitionist movement emerged in states like New York and Massachusetts, the same year Britain outlawed slavery, the American Anti-Slavery Society was established. It came under the leadership of William Lloyd Garrison, a Boston journalist and social reformer. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1837
On November 7, 1837, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was killed while defending the site of his anti-slavery, He was shot and killed by a pro-slavery mob in Alton, Illinois, during their attack on the warehouse of Benjamin Godfrey and W. S. Gillman, where Lovejoy's press and abolitionist materials were stored. His death both deeply affected many individuals who opposed slavery and greatly strengthened the cause of abolition. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1850
In 1850, Congress passed the controversial Fugitive Slave Act, which required all escaped enslaved people to be returned to their owners and American citizens to cooperate with the captures. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1854
Kansas-Nebraska Act.
This act was an 1854 bill that ordered "popular sovereignty" which allowed settlers of a territory to choose if slavery would be allowed within a new state's borders. Conflicts began to rise between pro-slavery and anti-slavery settlers in the result of the act's passage led to a time of violence which is known as Bleeding Kansas. This helped influence the American Civil War. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1856
In 1856, a pro-slavery group attacked the town of Lawrence. abolitionist John Brown organized a raid that killed five pro-slavery settlers. Then, in 1859, Brown led 21 men to capture the U.S. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1857
The 1857 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court in Dred Scott v. Sanford denied citizenship to anyone of African blood and held the Missouri Compromise of 1820 to be unconstitutional. While Southern states had been passing laws prohibiting “Negro citizenship” and further restricting the rights even of freemen of colour. Virginia in 1857 prohibited slaves from smoking and from standing on sidewalks, among other restrictions, -
The Abolitionist Movement 1859
The ship Clotilde landed in Mobile, Alabama. Though the importation of slaves had been illegal in America since 1808, Clotilde carried 110 to 160 African slaves. The last slave ship ever to land in the United States, clearly demonstrated how lax the enforcement of the anti-importation laws was. -
The Abolitionist 1859 John Browns Raid on Harpers Ferry
On the evening of October 16, 1859, John Brown, a staunch abolitionist, and a group of his supporters left their farmhouse hide-out en route to Harpers Ferry. Descending upon the town in the early hours of October 17th, Brown and his men captured prominent citizens and seized the federal armoury and arsenal. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1860
Abraham Lincoln’s election to the presidency in 1860,
Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation. It freed all slaves residing in areas of the nation currently in rebellion. it only freed slaves in areas that did not recognize Lincoln’s authority, as the armies advanced, slaves in the newly captured areas were considered free. It also effectively prohibited European nations that had long since renounced slavery from entering the war on the side of the South. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1861
The abolitionists saw slavery as an abomination and an affliction on the United States, making it their goal to eradicate slave ownership. They sent petitions to Congress, ran for political office and inundated people of the South with anti-slavery literature. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1863
As the bloody war went on, Lincoln issued his Emancipation Proclamation of 1863, calling for the freeing of enslaved people in areas of the rebellion. -
The Abolitionist Movement 1865
In 1865, the Constitution was ratified to include the Thirteenth Amendment, which officially abolished all forms of slavery in the United States.
