US History
The stance of slaves in the South of the US was different, depending on the specific features of economy of the place there used to live. The Deeper South relied mostly on the agriculture and large-scale crop gathering. Consequently, on the large plantations the slaves were performing all kinds of work for their owner. For the sugar fields of Louisiana such situation was typical, and the conditions there were the harshest in the South, since the harvest demanded round-the-clock labor to prevent the crop from being spoiled. The working conditions in the malaria swamps were dangerous for people who worked there. Also, a high potency of the Southern economy made it strong in resisting the abolition.
At the same time, the Upper South had some industry centers and more diversified economy, which stipulated for the urban growth. Thus in the cities the stance of the slaves was easier. They were often employed in the industries as unskilled laborers or skilled artisans, and also served as cooks, servants and domestic force. Some slaves were even allowed to work as individual contractors for another people independently of the employers and live on their own. However, such situation could change if a slave was sold to the countryside to prevent him from becoming too independent.
William Lloyd Garrison was an American social activist and abolitionist who was working as the publisher of anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator and became one of the most prominent figures in the abolitionist movement of the US. Garrison is considered the most prominent abolitionist of the American nation. At the young age he joined the abolitionist movement and got engaged in the promotion of anti-slavery ideas. He advocated the immediate emancipation of slaves, thus gaining the reputation of one of the most radical abolitionists.
The most notable feature of Garrison was being uncompromising in moral issues. His principal antislavery rhetoric made slave owners, especially those in the South, outraged. However, even under pressure, being hated by rich slave owners and their supports, he continued his advocating activities. He even blamed the church for its refusal to consider slavery inhumane, which caused his disagreement with some other abolitionists. Garrison was a proponent of non-violent means of action, the idea which was later adopted by Gandhi and Martin Luther King. Subsequently, Garrison supported Abraham Lincoln and his Emancipation Proclamation, and stopped publishing The Liberator after the end of War in 1865. His pamphlet Thoughts on African Colonization managed to persuade the majority of foes of slavery that African-Americans have to be integrated, not shipped overseas as aliens.Garrison and his supporters have changed the existing conceptions of race in the US.
They believed that the races were equal, and free African-Americans could efficiently be integrated into the US society. Such view was critiqued even by those who were not the slaveholders, since it was largely believed that slaves are unlikely to efficiently integrate into American society. Though it is …
