Unit Introduction:

The Fight To Abolish Slavery

Unit Highlights

In this unit, students will analyze primary and secondary sources to explain the early and steady attempts to abolish slavery and to realize the ideals of the Declaration of Independence. Students will be able to:

  • Classify leaders of the Abolition movement.

  • Explain the abolition of slavery in early state constitutions.

  • Explain arguments over slavery when adding Texas and California to the Union.

  • Sequence the gradual struggle over abolition.

Unit Vocabulary

  • Benjamin Franklin

  • Bleeding Kansas (1854-1861)

  • The Compromise of 1850

  • The Dred Scott v. Sandford decision (1857)

  • Frederick Douglass

  • The Fugitive Slave Act (1850)

  • Harriet Tubman

  • John Brown

  • John Q. Adams

  • The Kansas-Nebraska Act (1854)

  • The Lincoln-Douglas debates (1858)

  • The Missouri Compromise (1820)

  • States' Rights

  • Theodore Weld

  • The Underground Railroad

  • William Lloyd Garrison

  • The Wilmot Proviso (1846)

Activity 1: The fight to abolish slavery Pre-Test

Using your prior knowledge, brainstorm, list, and/or draw what you know about the fight to abolish slavery in a thinking map. Complete this assignment on the Thinking Maps Learning Community or on paper. You may include:

  • Information you know or kind of know about the fight to abolish slavery.

  • Guesses about the fight to abolish slavery.

  • Questions you have about the fight to abolish slavery.

  • Information you would like to know about the fight to abolish slavery.

  • What comes to mind when you think of the fight to abolish slavery.