The Early Abolition Movement
Read the petition from the Germantown Quakers and the excerpt from Equiano’s autobiography and answer the following questions:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1afu9vEKq2xcM-QSDhV1GqbLU4-qRZQo58PpJMahapC0/edit
A. Provide an overview of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). What are the major tenets of this denomination? What beliefs led this particular church to be so active in the abolition movement?
B. Who is Olaudah Equiano? What was the purpose of writing his autobiography?
C. What were some of the reasons for early colonists to oppose slavery? Are their concerns reflected in Equiano’s testimony of slavery in the West Indies?
D. Rather than being outlawed, the practice of slavery expanded in the British empire in the century between the petition and Equiano’s narrative. What contributed to that spread? How did the abolitionist movement grow between 1690-1800?
