Abolitionism In Sojourner Truth

Improved Essays
The United States was built on slavery and our “Founding Fathers” overlooked the harsh cruelties of it’s nature to advance the developing country. Slavery was immoral , and had to come to an end , but this could not happen overnight . Overtime , people stood up and started to voice their opinions on abolishing slavery , these people were called abolitionist . In this time period , a man or woman would have to be extremely courageous to speak out against slavery, especially with the gag-rule , which prohibited speaking out in public about the matter . These courageous individuals paved the way for a new way of life in this country. Abolitionist were the main influence on the ending of slavery , and even with all the negativity they received …show more content…
Unlike our “Founding Fathers” who believed that slavery was justified by the Bible , abolitionist knew that slavery was immoral and someone had to stand up against it despite the consequences that came with it . Sojourner Truth was one of many abolitionist that influenced the ending of slavery . She experienced a great deal of adversity with her “Ain 't I a Woman” speech , which wasn 't only an abolitionist speech but also a speech addressing women 's rights . In Frances Dana Gage’s account of Truth 's speech she noted“ A buzz of disapprobation was heard all over the house, and there fell on the listening ear, “An Abolition affair!” Women 's rights and niggers!” . The energy towards Truth was negative , nobody wanted to hear an African American woman stand up and talk about slavery and women 's right . Truth, being a woman and a former slave , made it hard for her to stand up , but she did it anyway because she felt as though her voice needed to be heard …show more content…
White women already had nowhere near as much say as the white man in this time period and for Welds to stand out and let her voice be heard, had to take a great amount of courage. Welds let her opinion be heard to the people of Pennsylvania Hall with her speech addressing the “dark side of slavery”. In her speech she said , “ Many persons go to the South for a season, and are hospitably entertained in the parlor and at the table of the slaveholder. They never enter the huts of the slaves; they know nothing of the dark side of the picture” . With Welds speaking to ignorant Northerners she knew she had to address what Northerners did not see. Northern slave life was completely different compared to Southern Slavery . Northern slaves were more likely to work in factories , when slaves in the southern states worked in the hot fields picking cotton . There was a strong demand for cotton in the south , so that made a strong demand for slave labor , so the slave population was higher in the south . With a high population of slaves on a particular plantation , someone had to police these slaves . Not all Plantation owners had time to worry about what was going on in the field , so they hired poor whites to patrol slaves on a plantation . The poor whites or overseers would police the slaves and

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