In America, opposition to slavery started with acts of defiance such as “slave resistance”, where African American slaves would rebel in several ways to attain greater freedom. While this “revolution” gathered steam, with slaves often running away from their masters and finding shelter in swamps, lakes or in cities that believed in their cause, more organized forms of opposition, led by reformers like William Garrison (Document E), who founded The American Anti-Slave Society, also started gaining traction. The growing opposition to slavery, by both slaves and their white sympathizers, eventually culminated in a determined abolitionist movement that highlighted the plight of so many and galvanized public opinion against an appalling institution.
The abolitionist movement (the organized opposition to slavery) gained momentum in the late 1700s as state after state in the north abolished slavery (Document A), starting with Vermont in 1777. In Massachusetts, the court case, “Commonwealth of Massachusetts v. Nathaniel Jennison, 1783” effectively ensured slavery was a thing of the past as it finally abolished slavery in the state ("…slavery is in my judgment as effectively abolished as it can
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His “Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave”, (Document G) makes emotional reading (lurid descriptions like "bitterest dregs of slavery" or "broken in body, mind, and soul" elicited reactions of disgust and dejection, which is the what abolitionists were hoping for) and showed that ultimately a slave, long thought to be a possession and less than human, was very much a person with reason and intellect. It provides unsurmountable proof that like any man, a slave deserved a life of dignity and liberty. His work shed light on the constant hard-working and abusive lifestyle that slaves