Chapter: Abolitionists, Free Blacks and Runaway Slaves: Surviving Slavery on Maryland's Eastern Shore

Author: Clara L. Small

Map Questions: Utilizing the map below, answer the following:

1. Name the four border states that did not secede.

a. _________________________ c. _________________________

b. _________________________ d. _________________________

2. In 1861, there were 15 southern states. Eleven of the southern states withdrew from the Union and formed the Confederate States of America. Name the last four to secede.

a. _________________________ c. _________________________

b. _________________________ d. _________________________

3. Why did the border states not secede?

Critical Thinking:

When in 1846 friends in England purchased Frederick Douglass' freedom, an abolitionist from New York objected suggesting that the act of buying Douglass' freedom, "violated the principle that every man has a natural and unalienable right to himself." Douglass' response was, "The error of those, who condemn thistransaction, consists in their co-founding the crime of buying men into slavery, with the meritorious act of buying men out of slavery, and the purchase of legal freedom with abstract right and natural freedom."

Explain Douglass' and abolitionist's reasoning:

Main PointsMain Points

Critical Thinking Essays:

1. Why might many white women have been sympathetic to the struggle to end slavery?

2. List four of the great African American abolitionists of the mid-1800s.

3. How did Douglass and Tubman broaden the struggle beyond the abolition of slavery?

4. Douglass once remarked, "justice to the Negro is safety to the nation." Explain what you think he may have meant by this comment.

5. It has been said that the pen is mightier than the sword. Do you think that abolitionists would have achieved more through armed rebellions than they did through anti-slavery writings? Explain.

Key Terms, Concepts, and Events:


Research Topics:

The stops on the Underground Railroad that travels through Delaware and Maryland's Eastern Shore.

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Last Updated: July 9, 1997