Abolitionism: The People

Leslie C. Baker Kimmons

Abolitionists were people who fought for the eradication of slavery and the slave trade during the 18th and 19th centuries. Abolitionism was a movement to end slavery and the worldwide slave trade. Started by Quakers, the movement embraced both Whites and Blacks working together toward a common goal. This entry introduces some of the key figures in that movement. The initial steps toward abolitionism occurred in 1712 and initially concerned the prevention of continued importation of non-Whites into the American colonies. It was not until 1767 that abolitionism took a humanitarian position against slavery and began to assert that the trading and the enslavement of Africans were immoral. In 1783, the first antislavery movement was organized in England by the Quakers. The Quakers petitioned Parliament to end the slave trade and abolish slavery throughout the British Empire. By 1787, the Committee for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was developed ...

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