Antebellum Era
Chapter 4
I. Rise of 19th Century Reform Movement
How did Religion Revivals Inspire Social Justice Reform?
Edward Williams Clay, Methodist Camp Meeting (1836) National Museum of American History, Behring Center.
The market revolution led to significant social changes. Industrialization, while offering potential upward mobility for many Americans, pushed others into demeaning and arduous labor. As a result, Americans began exploring alternatives to life in industrialized cities, fueling greater interest in westward expansion. Further, the influx of immigrants hired to work the factories prompted many white Americans to discuss the limits of democracy. As the increase in textile production led to an increase in southern slave labor, slavery as an institution became increasingly protected. In response to the social concerns, many Americans turned to religion to appease their anxieties.
The Second Great Awakening was a Protestant revival that provided solace to many Americans caught up in the social anxieties of the day. This event swept across America in the early 19th century and promised to bring social reform, but only as a product of individual salvation and moral righteousness. Evangelical preachers, such as George Whitfield called for personal introspection and inward renewal. If Christians took charge of their moral destinies, then societal improvement seemed within their reach. As a result, the Second Great Awakening prompted the reform movements that dominated 19th-century America.
19th century reform movements site to address many of the social ills of the day. For example, women's rights reformers such as Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cary Stanton, and Sojourner Truth sought to secure, legal, social, and political equality for women. An offshoot of the women's movement was the temperance movement, where the Women’s Christian Temperance Movement (WCTU) and the Anti-saloon League heavily reduced or outright eliminated the consumption of alcohol. Proponents such as Frances Willard argued that alcohol abuse led to various social problems, especially within domestic realms.
Advocates also prioritized other agendas in the name of social progress .Labor reformers also emerged among activists where organizations like the Knights of Labor in the American Federation of Labor organized strikes and advocated for legislative reforms in the workplace. Prison reformers such as Dorothea Dix sought to improve the treatment of prisoners and the penal system arguing for rehabilitation rather than mere punishment, advocating for better living conditions, education, and vocational training for inmates. Horace Mann led education reform movements to expand educational access and improve the quality of U.S. schooling. [1]
II. Abolitionism
How did Abolutionists Argue against Slavery?
The Liberator, April 17, 1857. Masthead designed by Hammatt Billings in 1850. Metropolitan State University.
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A photograph of Frederick Douglass from a series of "Carte de Visites" produced from his visit to Hillsdale College on January 21, 1863. Hillsdale College Arhives
Abolition became the single greatest reform movement during the Antebellum period. The religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening deeply influenced prominent abolitionist leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick Douglass. Garrison, a fervent Christian, framed his anti-slavery activism in moral and religious terms, often invoking biblical principles of justice and equality. He founded the newspaper "The Liberator," which served as a platform for his abolitionist views and helped galvanize public support for the anti-slavery cause. In a speech, Garrison characterized his labor towards the abolition of slavery in the following way: “I am a non resistant and I not only desire, but have labored unremittingly to effect, the peaceful abolition of slavery, by an appeal to the reason and conscience of the slaveholder; yet, as a peace man -an ‘ultra’ peace man- I am prepared to say, ‘Success to every slave insurrection at the South, and in every slave country.’” [2]
Similarly, Frederick Douglass, a former slave turned abolitionist, drew upon his own experiences and the religious teachings of the Second Great Awakening to argue passionately against slavery. He became a powerful orator and writer, using his eloquence and moral authority to denounce the institution of slavery as incompatible with Christian values. Douglass chided the association with American Christianity along with its complicity in slavery when he said, “We have men sold to build churches, women sold to support the gospel, and babes sold to purchase Bibles for the poor heathen! all for the glory of God and the good of souls! The slave auctioneers bell and the church-going bell chime in with each other, and the bitter cries of the heart-broken slave, are drowned in the religious shout of his pious master. Revivals of religion in revivals in the slave trade go hand in hand together.” [3]
The Second Great Awakening helped mobilize thousands of Americans, both black and white, to join the abolitionist movement. Churches became important centers for anti-slavery activism, hosting meetings, organizing petitions, and providing support for escaped slaves. The religious fervor of the Second Great Awakening contributed to the growth of the abolitionist movement and played a significant role in shaping public opinion on the issue of slavery in 19th-century America. [4]
III. Indian Removal
How were Native Americans Systematically Displaced from their Lands?
Map of the initial nations of the Iroquois Confederacy, from History of the Five Indian Nations Depending on the Province of New-York, by Cadwallader Colden, 1755. Library of Congress, Rare Books Division, Washington, D.C.
Map of the route of the Trails of Tears — depicting the route taken to relocate Native Americans from the Southeastern United States between 1836 and 1839. Washburn (Hrsg.), Wilcomb E. (1988) Handbook of North American Indians, 4: History of Indian-White Relations, Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press
Tom Torlino—Navajo, “As he entered the school in 1882” and “As he appeared three years later” from Souvenir of the Carlisle Indian School, 1902. Courtesy of the Carlisle Indian School Digital Resource Center.
By the nineteenth century, Europeans and Americans no longer saw social, class-based hierarchy as fixed but malleable as was characteristic of the Old World. With the rise of a capitalist society and the ability for individuals to rise from poverty, Americans placed a priority on private property and sought to remove any barriers from land acquisitions as expansion was viewed as a sign of growth.
Meanwhile, the idea of socioeconomic upward mobility was incompatible with indigenous groups. For natives, such concepts were not prevalent. Rather, one’s status in a given society was more or less fixed, as with other primitive civilizations. As such, there is no priority on private possession of land nor was there any mandate that land be possessed or cultivated in a certain way.
The U.S. rationalized native land acquisitions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries through treaty systems. Treaties were negotiated agreements between the US government and Native American tribes that established boundaries, recognized tribal sovereignty, and outlined various rights and obligations for both parties. However, these treaties were often marred by coercion, manipulation, and broken promises on the part of the US government. [5]
For example, the Treaty of Fort Stanwix (1784) was signed between the United States and Iroquois Confederacy. It resulted in the cessation of large portions of Iroquois land in present-day New York and Pennsylvania to the U.S. However, the treaty was negotiated under duress, as the Iroquois had been weaked by the Revolutionary War and threatened by military force if they did not comply.
At times, the US would encompass the surrounding territory of a native tribe and allow the natives to function as a sovereign nation. However, increasing pressure from locals usually eroded the boundaries between native and U.S. property as in the case of the Cherokee. The Treaty of New Echota (1835) was signed between the United States and a faction of the Cherokee Nation. However, ultimately the arrangement led to the forced removal of the Cherokee from their ancestral lands in Georgia to present-day Oklahoma along the infamous "Trail of Tears." The treaty was not supported by the majority of the Cherokee people and was negotiated by only a small group of Cherokee representatives without proper authority. Despite protests and legal challenges, President Andrew Jackson and Congress ratified the treaty, leading to the tragic displacement of thousands of Cherokee people.
In his Second Annual Message delivered in 1830, Jackson justified Indian removal. Jackson believed that displacing Indians away from the “immediate contact with settlements of whites,” would “enable them to pursue happiness in their own way and under their own rude institutions.” “It will retard the progress of decay,” he continued, “…and perhaps cause them gradually, under the protection of the [U.S.] Government and through the influence of good counsels, to cast off their savage habits and become an interesting, civilized, and Christian community.” He continued with a sobering reality and confessed that “the tribes which occupied the countries now constituting the Eastern States were annihilated or have melted away to make room for the whites. The waves of population and civilization are rolling to the westward, and we now propose to acquire the countries occupied by the red men of the South and West by a fair exchange, and, at the expense of the United States, to send them to a land where their existence may be prolonged and perhaps made perpetual.” [6]
The response of many Cherokee, as was the case with other tribes, fell into one of two categories. Those who chose to relocate who would uproot and plant their lives in a foreign land. Others, resisted while their children were forced into boarding schools where administrators would pride themselves on the progress of “civilizing” the savage as illustrated. [7]