Topic Exploration: Abolitionist Movement

1) The abolitionist movement in the United States was the movement to end all forms of slavery throughout the states. I plan on focusing on the 1830's -1860's where the movement took its most stance against slavery. The ideas of abolition came shortly after the independence of the United States of America in 1776, with several laws being placed to restrict the trade of slavery. By the early 1800's most of the northern states had given up slavery and were sending more intense messages to the south to end their slavery as well. The forms of protest of slavery became greater, including different forms of art, and the underground railroad. This protest culminated among other things in the American Civil War which eventually put the cause to rest since slavery was abolished at the end of the war. Geographically, abolitionist movements were taking place all over the world during this time, with many other countries abolishing slavery slightly earlier, and some slightly later. I am going to only focus on the abolitionist protest and rhetoric that took place within the United States and for the United States.

2) The identity is of those people who felt slavery was immoral and needed to be ended throughout the United States. It is clear that the people pushing for this movement, felt united in their desire to end slavery no matter where they were from or what specific reasons they felt it needed to be stopped. The identity held by the movement feels the need for the immediate abolition of slavery for a multitude of reasons that include morality and religion. The movement holds the identity of those who called for an immediate, unconditional and total abolition of slavery. This does not include many anti slavery activists such as Abraham Lincoln, who called for the gradual ending of slavery.

3) The abolitionist movement took many different avenues for protest. One of the most prevalent being helping in the underground railroad. Abolitionists and those supporting the freedom of slaves, would help escaped slaves out of the south and into free areas in the north. Other than this, there were legal actions taken place in which international slave trade was made a crime. Black abolitionists such as Frederick Douglass made great attempts at using rhetoric to make others see the actions of slavery as immoral. The novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin, is another example of this form of rhetoric, which passionately and intimately described the injustices and atrocities taking place in the south. The tactics were focused at showing the humanity of the black people and the inhumane ways that they were being treated.

4) I am mostly worried about the scope of this assignment. There are so many things to bring together that I am not entirely sure where to begin. I feel that I will be able to assign an identity fairly well and will be ok in finding enough sources as well. I just feel that it will be tough to talk about the movement as a whole and yet focus on individual parts and really discuss the rhetorical and historical value that they hold in the movement. I think the hardest part will be just putting all of the information together in a way that I feel comfortable that I've actually fully explained everything I want to.