Chapter 8

Religion Sparks Reform – The 2 nd Great Awakening  The 2 nd Great Awakening was a religious- driven reform movement that began in earnest in the early 1830s…  Rejected Puritan notion of predestination  By improving yourself and performing good deeds, you could earn your salvation

Church Reform  Revivalism  Transient preachers spoke to large groups in informal settings  Church membership increased 2 and ½ times

2 nd Great Awakening brought Christianity to slaves on a large scale SUSTAINING  Bible sanctions slavery  Whites on God’s mission to help and protect the “inferior” races of the world  Separate churches provided slaves a diversion that slave owners used as a reward; carrot and stick approach SUBVERSIVE  Learn to read the Bible  All are God’s children  Gave slaves life skills – preachers, organizers  Baptist/Methodist camp meeting open to all Did Christianizing slaves sustain or subvert the institution of slavery?

Slavery and Abolition  Slavery is contradictory to the stated reasons for the creation and promise of America…  In the 1820s, about 100 anti-slave societies advocated resettlement...”inferior” races could not coexist with whites  Free blacks considered America home; few returned to Africa

William Lloyd Garrison  the most radical white abolitionist…editor of The Liberator (1831); called for immediate emancipation with no payment to slaveholders  attacked the church and government for not doing enough to end slavery  “Is there not cause for severity? I will be harsh as truth, as uncompromising as justice…I will not retreat a single inch – AND I WILL BE HEARD” The Liberator

Frederick Douglass  Maryland slave born in 1817  Taught to read by the wife of his owner; understands the power of reading and education  becomes a big supporter of Garrison and The Liberator  Garrison hears Douglass speak and is greatly impressed by his oratorical skills; Garrison sponsors Douglass as a speaker on tour for his antislavery society  Garrison uses Douglass to convince whites that blacks are not innately inferior

Frederick Douglass  Douglass believes slavery can end through political action  separates from Garrison in 1847  starts own liberation newspaper called The North Star  Roughly 2 million slaves in 1830, almost doubled from 1810…most slaves now born in America since the slave trade ended in 1808

Nat Turner  slave born in 1800 in Virginia  a gifted leader, Turner believed he was chosen by God to lead his people out of bondage  Eclipse of the sun is a signal for Turner to act in August, 1831…  Turner leads 80 followers and attacks four nearby plantations…

Nat Turner’s Rebellion  Turner and his group kill whites, men, woman and children; escaped capture and hid out for several weeks  Turner and associates eventually all captured; Turner and many others hung; whites kill up to 200 blacks in retribution, many of them innocent  Turner portrayed by southerners as crazy/possessed

Reaction to Turner’s Rebellion  Created more repressive conditions for slaves (slave codes)  no education, no reading, no more preaching unless “respectable” whites were in attendance  Free blacks in the South lost several rights including right to own guns, to assemble in public, to purchase alcohol and testify in court  argument for emancipation as only way to prevent future incidents

Summary  Religions sparks a number of reform movements, including the abolitionist movement.  As slavery comes to the forefront of the national debate, both abolitionists and slaveholders increase their activism.