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EOTO Recap

Pro vs. Anti Slavery - EOTO Facts

    While going through the times of history, it is quite easy to see the two sides of many issues. When it came to slavery, the sides were vocal and apparent. Each side made advanced on their case, allowing for each side to further progress regarding its motives. 

Pro slavery was raging in the south. Southerners claimed that slavery was ethical, constitutional, and good for the economy. In order to push their point further, pro-slavery folk created crafty and even law abiding ways to advance their goal of making the United States a country of slavery.

  The Kansas-Nebraska Act was enacted in 1854. It created two new territories, Kansas and Nebraska. These territories allowed for popular sovereignty in regards to slavery, meaning the people inhabiting the land chose if slavery was going to be allowed there or not. This ability to choose whether slavery was going to legal or illegal in the territories caused a major pushback from the people. Pro-slavery southerners rushed to Kansas and Nebraska to opt for slavery being legal whereas anti-slavery northerners came full force to fight against it. This aggressive war fought in these territories was called Bleeding Kansas. Along with that, in 1850 the Fugitive Slave Act was passed. This act enforced that if a runaway slave was found, even in free northern states, the slave must be returned to captivity of its previous owner. This brought tension to the north, and created a slave market even in the north; people would take free blacks and bring them to slave owners in the south for a posted amount of money. 


The Kansas-Nebraska Act [ushistory.org]

    Regardless of the strong push for slavery, there was a very powerful force opposing it: anti-slavery and activism. People were beginning to see the harsh reality of slavery. Northerners were becoming bolder, and more active about abolishing slavery. They published books and articles and bent the rules to fight for what they knew was right.

    Harriet Beecher Stowe was an amazing activist in times of slavery, she published a very well known book, Uncle Tom's Cabin depicting the lives of slaves and the horrors they faced daily. While the book was fiction, it used accurate stories of slaves and the troubles they encountered. This book put a face to slavery by telling devastating stories, allowing for people to peer into the windows of the lives of slaves. But, activists did not just take the kind route of publishing books with the hopes of them being convincing enough. In October 1859, activist and abolitionist John Brown led a raid on armories in Harper's Ferry, West Virginia. The goal of Brown's raid was to start an armed revolt of enslaved people and destroy slavery. This resulted in sixteen people being killed, ten of which were Brown's men. Brown was placed on trial and charged with murder, treason against the state of Virginia and slave insurrection. While the raid did not go as planned, it sparked a flame within other abolitionists, empowering them to fight harder than ever to end slavery. The most effective means of freeing slaves was the Underground Railroad. The Underground Railroad was a network of safe houses running from the southern states all the way up to Canada. It is estimated that the Underground Railroad was effective in freeing approximately 100,000 slaves. The typical journey on the Underground Railroad was about 800 miles long and took roughly six weeks to accomplish. 

Howard County Network to Freedom Exhibit | Ellicott City, MD 21043

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