When reviewing The Death of Slavery: The United States, 1837-1865 (Elbert B. Smith), George Shepperson of the University of Edinburgh wrote, ‘it is regrettable, however, that, in a book which is forced to deal with the American anti-slavery movement, there should be so very little on black abolitionism. Is not Frederick Douglass, that outstanding black American, worth a mention in a book of this kind?’ Frederick Douglass - born a slave on a Maryland Plantation, sent to Baltimore to work as a servant and as a laborer in the shipyard, somehow learnt to read and write in 1830 despite the laws against slave literacy, and at twenty-one, in the year 1838, escaped to the North, settling in Massachusetts - became “the most famous black person in the world” (David Blight, 1993) during the nineteenth …show more content…
Having seen slavery and racism, David Walker - born in Wilmington, South Carolina as a free African American (while his father had been enslaved, his mother was free, meaning he therefore was free also) yet still witnessing the oppression of fellow blacks - wrote an 1829 pamphlet: ‘An Appeal ...to the Coloured Citizens of the World…’ that, similarly to Frederick Douglass’ work years later, urged African Americans to fight for freedom and equality. While Walker was decried for inciting violence, his impact was significant to the abolitionist movement and thus on the demise of slavery. Following Walker’s pamphlet a $10,000 reward had been offered in Georgia to anyone who would deliver him alive or a $1,000 reward for Walker’s death following Southern slaveholders’ infuriation with the