Project One: Putting Slavery Under the Microscope

As we (hopefully) all know, the U.S. took people from Africa in the 18th century and put them into the slave trade, making slavery a common practice for over 100 years. These innocent souls were abducted and brought over to live lives that they could neither expect nor affect, much to the happiness of U.S. farmers. This whole process was represented through a movie series called Roots, which I've provided a link for a clip below:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jW-jH7iaPYw

Starting in the 1820's, journalism helped raise the consciousness of the American citizens and really act as a catalyst for the process of abolition. Two major forces of journalism that did this were the St. Louis Observer and The Liberator.

Elijah P. Lovejoy was born in Maine in 1802. In 1834, Lovejoy's desire to reform the wrongs of society influenced him to start a Presbyterian newspaper called the St. Louis Observer. Slavery soon emerged as the paper's most controversial topic; He often called slavery a 'sin that those who participate must repent'. He felt that slave owners so be sorry and regret their choices and to end slavery immediately.

Lovejoy's views were met with very harsh criticism from his fellow Southerners. The Missouri Republican argued that Lovejoy's paper should be silenced because commercial operations in the South would refuse to do business with Missouri if the state allowed Lovejoy to continue preaching against slavery. They also said that every Missouri citizen had an obligation to stop Lovejoy in order to protect his or her finance as well as their neighbor's.

Despite the destruction of his first printing press, Lovejoy created another and continued to preach against slavery on a national level. His second one was soon destroyed as well, and when he created his third that one met the same doom. As angry Southern protestors continued their crusade for silence by going after Lovejoy's fourth press, the revolutionary writer became a martyr when he was apathetically shot in 1837. This martyrdom and extreme case of abolitionism helped propel thousands of converts in tho the Abolition Movement, showing that Lovejoy did not die in vain.

Widely revered as the most influential abolitionist editor, William Lloyd Garrison founded and became the chief prophet of the American abolitionist crusade during the early 19th century. He was born in Massachusetts in 1805 as a poor boy whose lack of money forced him to leave school at age ten. Helping Benjamin Lundy edit his Genius of Universal Emancipation in Baltimore set the foundation of his ant-slavery beliefs.

In 1829, Garrison set his first attack on Francis Todd, a man who took slaves to Louisiana plantations on his ship, appropriately named the Francis. Todd sued for libel and Garrison was found guilty, which led him to a 49-day jail sentence. This didn't stop him, in 1831 he moved to Boston and created The Liberator.


Through his publication Garrison demanded the immediate emancipation of all slaves. He once wrote "I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice." Garrison's intelligence seemed to be unparalleled, he would exchange his paper for those of 100 other editors, most of whom were pro-slavery. Garrison's paper usually contain such strong demands that these editors would write about it in their papers, giving him an even bigger stage to perform and giving his paper the advantage of rebuttal. His nationwide exposure didn't lead to nationwide popularity, which is clearly evidenced by the $5,000 bounty the state of Georgia offered for him as well as the $20,000 bounty that a group in Mississippi offered. Our nation's capital restricted blacks from reading the paper and U.S. mailmen supported the act of men who went through official mail sacks in order to destroy copies of the Liberator.


In 1835 Garrison was almost killed by an angry mob of over 100 people until an equally angry mob of 100 supporters helped rescue him. Stunts like these enhanced Garrison's radicalism and in 1844 he urged non-slaveholders to secede from the union. He said it was "a religious and political duty" where "the banner of Freedom should be, NO UNION WITH SLAVEHOLDERS." His persistence helped gain more advocators in the 1850's despite having a circulation of only 2,500 readers. Once the Civil War ended and slavery was a thing of the past, Garrison ceased the publication of The Liberator.


These two men's efforts were recognized and eventually vindicated, which proves to power of journalism. In Mightier Than The Sword by Rodger Streitmatter, he suggests that both the Revolutionary War and the Civil War occurred in the same vain. Both had two different economic groups fighting for unity and power that was ultimately fueled by the press' control of the American consciousness. I completely agree with this sentiment and use it to illustrate to non-believers how powerful journalism can be. When the wealthy British were taxing the poor Americans, it was the journalists' stress on oppression and unfairness that drove the minutemen to leave their homes and fight the biggest army in the world at the time. When the wealthy Northerners were impatiently waiting for the South to industrialize and become more profitable it was the journalists' stress on the cruelty of slavery that made citizens get involved and a war occur.

All information in this post was found in the aforementioned book by Rodger Streitmatter.