antislavery literature

In the US abolitionist movement, works published from around 1820 that promoted the end of slavery. Books, newspapers, pamphlets, poetry, published sermons, songs, slave narratives, and other forms of literature spread the abolitionist message throughout the North, and enraged and threatened the South. Key abolitionist newspapers were David Walker's Appeal, William Lloyd Garrison's The Liberator, and Frederick Douglass's The North Star.

Slave narratives (personal accounts of what life in bondage was like), gave northerners an idea of the reality of slavery and countered the more idyllic proslavery portrayals written by white slaveholders. Bestselling slave narratives included Frederick Douglass' Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (1845), William Wells Brown's Narrative, and Solomon Northrup's Twelve Years a Slave. Many were translated into French, German, Dutch, and Russian. Slave narratives also facilitated antislavery lectures when their authors went on tour in the USA and abroad.

The most widely read antislavery novel was Uncle Tom's Cabin (1851–52), by the white pro-abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe. Its sentimental portrayal of meek Christian slaves confronted by the evil of the institution of slavery won increased support for the abolitionist movement and sparked a series of adaptations to the stage which played to enthusiastic audiences throughout the world.

The earliest antislavery publications were probably the church sermons that preached against the institution of slavery. By the 1830s Christian morality became politicized as the American Anti-Slavery Society began to produce a monthly pamphlet of abolitionist poems, songs, and stories for children called The Slave's Friend, encouraging younger readers to collect money for the antislavery cause. Each year the Anti-Slavery Society also distributed an almanac containing poems, drawings, essays, and other abolitionist material. Antislavery almanacs generally urged readers to boycott slave-produced goods, such as cotton, rice, sugar, molasses, and tobacco; to form debating societies and write pro-abolition letters in mainstream newspapers; to petition for abolition; and to help freed slaves find education and employment.

On 1 January 1831 the radical abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison founded the newspaper The Liberator, published weekly from Boston until 29 December 1865. It advocated immediate emancipation for the millions of African Americans held in bondage in the South, and urged for constitutional reform. Frederick Douglass, born a slave, established the abolitionist paper The North Star on 3 December, 1847 in Rochester, New York. In so doing he marked his independence from Garrison and other white abolitionists. The North Star not only denounced slavery but advocated the emancipation of women and other oppressed groups and achieved a wide international circulation. In 1851 The North Star merged with the Liberty Party Paper of Syracuse, New York, later renamed Frederick Douglass' Paper in 1860.

The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass Douglass' narrative was published in 1845 and almost immediately became a bestseller, although its success forced him to move temporarily to England, fearing for his property and livelihood. A story of the triumph of courage and self-reliance over the degradations of the slave system, it is a sermon on how slavery corrupts the human spirit, and won Douglass international fame. As well as detailing the horrors and brutality of slavery, slave narratives provided important accounts of African-American culture, expressed through family life, music, folktales, and religion.

Uncle Tom's Cabin Harriet Beecher Stowe's romantic novel, published in serial form between 1851 and 1852, sought to create a further humanizing account of African-American life. By the end of its first year 300,000 copies had been sold in the USA and 200,000 in England making it an astonishing success. The firmly Christian character of Uncle Tom, who refuses to betray his fellow slaves at the cost of his life, moved readers and helped convince them that slavery was a moral outrage. Uncle Tom's Cabin was widely slandered in the South, and Stowe received many threatening letters, including a package containing the severed ear of an African American. Abolitionists and African Americans, however, regarded the book as a tremendous help to their cause, although some critics complained that Uncle Tom's character was too submissive, and that Stowe failed the cause by making her strongest characters emigrate to Liberia.