The Abolitionist Crusade - Essay Example

Efforts to end slavery began earlier in the colonial era where Quakers who were members of Society of Friends, were the main torchbearers of the abolitionist movement. The main idea at that period was that blacks were inferior while the whites were superior. However, the Quakers held a different opinion and promoted the idea that all people regardless the skin colour where seen to be equal in God’s eyes and had a spark within. The Quakers abolitionists’ first goal was to end slave trade among its membership and believed that if the trade in slaves was abolished, slavery as a whole would seize to exist.

Notably, John Woolman and Benezet Anthony urged the other Quakers to disconnect from the barbaric slave trade and all connections to slavery (Ferrell 12-13). The Quaker congregations in the 1760s began expelling members who were involved in slave trade. The Quakers in the American colonies influenced the British Quakers and the latter founded the first antislavery society in 1793 named London Committee to Abolish Slave Trade. The abolitionist crusade got a boost during the American Revolution since it became very hard for the whites, who had fought for their independence from Britain to attain universal human rights, to be able to justify their involvement in slavery.

The abolitionists took advantage of this and encouraged the states in the North to end slavery and great achievements had been realised by the 1804. The success was manifest when the Congress banned slavery in most of Northwest region. In late 1820s and early 1830s, the abolitionist crusade took root and became more radical. The growing agitation of the blacks in the South region spurred the urgency among the white abolitionists who got the fear that continuation of slavery would lead to violence.

For instance, Vesey Denmark who was a free black, led to a massive revolt in South Carolina and Nat Turner led a bloody uprising in Virginia. This sounded