Why did William Lloyd Garrison became an abolitionist

From the beginning, his mother, a devout Baptist, struggled to provide for him and his siblings. In an effort to provide for him, he was sent to live with a Baptist deacon acquainted with his family. While there, he received a rudimentary education.  At 8 years old, he was reunited with his mother and family.  Soon after William became an apprentice to a shoemaker, but the work proved too physically demanding. Instead he tried his hand at cabinetmaking but again was unsuccessful.  Though unorthodox today, at just 13 years old, he was appointed to a seven-year apprenticeship as a writer and editor under Ephraim W. Allen, the editor of the Newburyport Herald.  “It was during this apprenticeship that Garrison would find his true calling.” (“William Lloyd Garrison Biography,” n.d.)

Garrison pursued positions in papers that specifically championed the social issue of abolition, because he of his strong feelings on the subject.  William is quoted as saying, “Enslave the liberty of but one human being and the liberties of the world are put in peril.”  (“William Lloyd Garrison,” n.d.) He believed and advocated for the immediate emancipation of slaves and the provision of equal rights for every human being.

In 1830, at the age of 25, Garrison started his own abolitionist paper, The Liberator. As published in its first issue, The Liberator’s motto read, "Our country is the world—our countrymen are mankind." Further on in the issue, he stated,  "I am in earnest — I will not equivocate — I will not excuse — I will not retreat a single inch — AND I WILL BE HEARD." (Sparks, 1980).

Not content with the status quo, in 1832, William moved to action helping form the New England Antislavery Society. After taking a short trip to England in 1833, Garrison founded the American Antislavery Society, a national organization dedicated to achieving abolition.  He pressed his cause through articles, lectures, pamphlets, handbills and posters.  Though a self- professed pacifist, he was convinced to support the Civil War with the hopes to speed his dream of immediate emancipation of all American slaves.   With the Emancipation Proclamation and the conclusion of the Civil War, he finally was able to witness the fruition of all his efforts to win the emancipation of all American slaves.    

Though the road was not smooth William Lloyd Garrison continued to be a tireless crusader for justice, for the full rights of the emancipated slaves as well as for women’s rights and other injustices throughout the rest of his life.

Sources used & additional reading:

Biography.com Editors. ( n.d. ) William Lloyd Garrison Biography. A&E Television Networks. Retrieved      February 13, 2016, from           http://www.biography.com/people/william-lloyd-garrison-9307251 

Guyatt, N. (2007). Providence and the invention of the United States, 1607-1876. Cambridge, UK ; New York : Cambridge University Press

Rohrbach,A. (2002). Truth stranger than fiction : race, realism, and the U.S. literary marketplace.. NY: Palgrave

Sparks, R. (1980). William Lloyd Garrison Papers. Massachusetts Historical Society. Retrieved February 13, 2016, from http://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0278.

ushistory.org.(n.d.) William Lloyd Garrison and the Liberator. U.S. History Online Textbook. Philadelphia, PA:   Retrieved February 13 , 2016, from http://www.ushistory.org/us/28a.asp

William Lloyd Garrison. (n.d.). Retrieved February 13, 2016, from           http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/w/william_lloyd_garrison.html

William Lloyd Garrison was born in Newburyport, Massachusetts, in 1805. His family lost their fortune, and his father, a merchant sailor, deserted the family. Garrison went to work selling homemade molasses candy and delivering firewood. At age thirteen, he became an apprentice to a printer. In printing, writing, and publishing, he found a voice for his life's work.

At age twenty-five, Garrison joined the abolition movement. First he joined the American Colonization Society, an organization that tried to help free African-Americans resettle in Africa. When he realized that this society did not want to end slavery, he left it.

Garrison wanted to end slavery. So did other abolitionists. But Garrison wanted to end it immediately. Not many agreed with this view, which they considered extreme. What would happen to all the suddenly free African-Americans? Where would they go? What would they do? Garrison did not worry about these issues. He spoke out about the injustice of slavery, comparing it to a house on fire.

His passion got him into trouble. When he called a slave ship owner a highway robber and a murderer, Garrison received a jail sentence of six months. His friends raised money to bail him out after seven weeks. Later in Boston, an angry mob dragged him through the streets with a rope around his neck. The mayor put him in jail for disturbing the peace.

In 1831, Garrison began publishing his own newspaper, The Liberator. He so angered some people in the South that they offered a $1500 reward for the arrest of anyone distributing The Liberator. They offered $5000 for the arrest of Garrison himself. But he won the respect of others in the abolition movement, especially its black leaders.

Garrison helped to organize a number of anti-slavery societies. He wrote and lectured on the subject tirelessly. He did not believe in violence. He did not believe in a political solution to the problem. He believed that citizens have an obligation to disobey laws that are unjust. To make his point, he even burned a copy of the Constitution because it failed to end slavery.

When President Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation, Garrison welcomed it. He stopped publishing The Liberator with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, which ended slavery. In the last fourteen years of his life he took up other causes: woman's rights and temperance. He died in 1879.

What did William Lloyd Garrison think about slavery?

What influenced William Lloyd Garrison?

Why was William Lloyd Garrison important?