How Did Harriet Tubman Contribute To The Abolitionist Movement

As opposed to Abraham Lincoln, who only began his active movement against slavery after his presidential inauguration, abolitionists and enslaved people themselves fought courageously to end the inhumane practice from the very beginning. More than seventy years before Lincoln was elected, the Quakers were already leading the early abolitionist movements, as they believed slavery violated the law of God and human rights. The indispensable factor in the eradication of slavery was not the political leadership of Abraham Lincoln, but rather the actions of the abolitionists and enslaved people themselves.

The abolitionists were an important political force in the Civil War antebellum period, and they paved the way to the ratification of the Constitution’s

Harriet Tubman, only shortly after her own escape from slavery, became involved with the abolitionist movement by working as an agent on the Underground Railroad. She traveled to the South nineteen times, rescuing approximately three hundred African-Americans from bondage (Maxwell 15). A $40,000 bounty was offered for her capture by slaveholders, proving how valuable she was to the abolitionist movement (Maxwell 16). Frederick Douglass took a different approach, using a pen and his voice to move thousands of people to support the abolition of slavery. He authored and published Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass in May 1845, which quickly gained popularity and gave a firsthand account on the cruelty and inhumanity of slavery. However, not only did he write his highly influential autobiography, but Douglass also created the North Star, which he stated in the first edition was "solemnly dedicate(d)... to the cause of our long oppressed and plundered fellow countrymen… it shall boldly advocate emancipation for our enslaved brethren". This newspaper succeeded in its mission, as its message of emancipation reached thousands of readers (Sawinski 41). Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were just two of the formerly enslaved persons who greatly contributed to the end of slavery, more so than

In addition, what many consider to be Lincoln’s crowning achievement, the Emancipation Proclamation, was simply a document with “all the moral grandeur of a bill of lading” (Hofstadter 67). It granted freedom to slaves, but only to those in the areas still in rebellion. It applied to neither border slave states, although they were all loyal to the Union, nor the areas of the Confederacy that the Union had already regained control of (Pruitt 5). This was because Lincoln hoped to keep the white slaveholders living there content, meaning he valued their happiness over the slaves’ freedom, which is racist and morally wrong. Therefore, Lincoln was never truly committed to abolishing slavery, as the quote shows, and the Emancipation Proclamation was simply propaganda with no real contribution to the end of