Chapter 15

West Africa Squadron

British Royal Navy force formed to enforce the abolition of the slave trade in 1807. It intercepted hundreds of slave ships and freed thousands of Africans.

Black belt

Region of the Deep South with the highest concentration of slaves. It emerged in the nineteenth century as cotton production became more profitable and slavery expanded south and west.

Breakers

Slave drivers who employed the lash to brutally beat the souls of strong-willed slaves.

Responsorial

Call and response style of preaching that melded Christian and African traditions. Practiced by African slaves in the South.

Nat Turner's Rebellion

Virginia slave revolt that resulted in the deaths of sixty whites and raised fears among white southerners of further uprisings.

Amistad

Spanish slave ship dramatically seized off the coast of Cuba by the enslaved Africans aboard. The ship was driven ashore in Long Island and the slaves were put on trial. Former president John Quincy Adams argued their case before the Supreme Court, securing their eventual release.

American Colonization Society

Reflecting the focus of early abolitionists on transporting freed blacks back to Africa, the organization established Liberia, a West African settlement intended as a haven for emancipated slaves.

Liberia

West African nation founded in 1822 as a haven for freed blacks, fifteen thousand of whom made their way back across the Atlantic by the 1860s.

An Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World

Incendiary abolitionist tract advocating the violent overthrow of slavery. Published by David Walker, a southern-born free black.

The Liberator

Antislavery newspaper published by William Lloyd Garrison, who called for the immediate emancipation of all slaves.

American Anti-Slavery Society

Abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, who advocated the immediate abolition of slavery. By 1838, the organization had more than 250,000 members across 1350 chapters.

Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

Vivid autobiography of the escaped slave and renowned abolitionist Frederick Douglass.

Mason-Dixon Line

Originally drawn by surveyors to resolve the boundaries between Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and Virginia in the 1760s, it came to symbolize the North-South divide over slavery.

Gag Resolution

Prohibited debate or action on antislavery appeals. Driven through the House by proslavery southerners, was passed every year for eight years and was eventually overturned with the help of John Quincy Adams.

Slave narratives

Eighteenth and nineteenth century accounts of slavery written by former slaves, most of whom had escaped from bondage. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, the Works Progress Administration recorded oral histories with former slaves, which added to the body of personal testimonies about slavery by the enslaved.

William T. Johnson

(1809-1851) Free New Orleans black, known as the "barber of Natchez," who eventually owned fifteen slaves.

Nat Turner

(1800-1831) Black slave who led an ill-fated rebellion in Virginia in 1831. The deeply religious Turner sought a violent overthrow to the sinful institution of slavery. Before they were apprehended, Turner and his followers murdered more than sixty whites, sending a shockwave throughout the South.

William Wilberforce

(1759-1833) British politician who championed the abolition of the slave trade, and later slavery itself. An evangelical Christian, he delivered rousing speeches on the floor of the House of Commons, galvanizing public support for the abolitionist cause.

Theodore Dwight Weld

(1803-1895) Fervent abolitionist and author of American Slavery as It Is, an antislavery tract that dramatized the horrors of slave life.

William Lloyd Garrison

(1805-1879) Ardent abolitionist and publisher of The Liberator, an antislavery newspaper that advocated the immediate emancipation of slaves. In 1833, Garrison founded the American Anti-Slavery Society, which became the largest abolitionist organization in the North, counting more than 250,000 members by 1838.

David Walker

(1796-1830) Black abolitionist and author of the incendiary Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World, which advocated a bloody end to white supremacy.

Sojourner Truth

(1799-1883) Black abolitionist, preacher, and women’s rights activist, who worked tirelessly on behalf of slaves and freed blacks.

Martin Delany

(1812-1885) Black abolitionist and advocate of relocating freed blacks to Africa, even visiting West Africa’s Niger Valley in search of a suitable location in 1859.

Frederick Douglass

(1818-1895) Prominent back abolitionist, whose autobiography, Narrative, detailed his experience in bondage and his daring escape to the North. More practical than many of his fellow abolitionists, looked to politics to put an end to slavery. After the Civil War, he continued to write and speak on behalf of blacks, calling on the federal government to help ensure economic independence for newly freed slaves.