Description:

Poster: Abolitionism .

The word abolition
means to put an end to something. Abolition was the title given to the campaign to end the slave trade.

Top left picture
Frederick Douglass lectured and wrote against slavery after his own escape from bondage. He was the editor of the North Star, an agent for the Underground Railroad , and a reformer with a wide variety of interests who spoke out for the rights of all people, black or white.

Top right picture
In 1851 a Negro Vigilance Committee in Christiana, Pennsylvania drove off a posse that came to arrest some runaway slaves. William Parker, who led this resistance, and his men escaped to Canada after the battle leaving one dead slaveholder.

Bottom left picture
This poster warned Boston Negroes to beware of Southern slave-catchers who had recently arrived in the city to catch runaway slaves.

Bottom middle picture
A wounded John Brown tells the court that the sin of slavery must be paid for in blood.

Bottom right picture
O R Anderson was one of five black people who took part in John Browns raid on Harpers Ferry. He was one of the few men to escape capture.

Contributed by John Judkyn Memorial.

The language used to describe people of African descent in the 18th, 19th and 20th centuries is unacceptable in todays terms. We cannot avoid using this language in its original context. To change the words would impose 20th century attitudes on history.

Date: c1830s - 1850s

Copyright: The American Museum in Britain, Bath

Object ID:74.179.5