Major leaders of Abolition/Emancipation Reform

Major leaders of Abolition/Emancipation reform and their accomplishments

The most radical white abolitionist was William Loyd Garrison. Garrison started his own paper, The Liberator, in 1831. His message was immediate emancipation, the freeing of slaves without any recompense to the owner. As other people started to follow his ideas, he started the Anti-Slavery society in 1832. Another leader was David Walker, a freed black. He advised blacks to fight for freedom rather than wait for the slaveowners to end slavery. Also, Frederick Douglass had been taught to read and write by his owners wife. Douglass believed that "knowledge was the path from slavery to freedom. By 1838, Douglass had a skilled job as a ship caulker, but could not keep any of his wages. He decided to escape borrowing the identity of a free black sailor. He became an active reader of The Liberator and Garrison actually supported him as a lecture to spread the message. Douglass thrilled huge audiences. In 1847 he broke from The Liberator and started his own paper, The North Star. Nat Turner was a gifted preacher who believed that he had been chosen to lead his people out of bondage. In August, 1831 he judged an eclipse of the sun as his signal and led 80 followers killing about 60 whites. After hiding out, Turner was eventually tried and hanged. This act made owners enforce new harsh rules on their slaves and whites killed as many as two hundred innocent blacks who mostly had nothing to do with the rebellion.