Britannica Student Encyclopedia - 2010

part of the year in permanent villages

and part of the year in hunting camps.

Their houses were cone-shaped wigwams

made from a wooden frame covered

with bark.

In the early 1600s Europeans began

arriving in Abnaki territory. Most were

traders who offered metal tools and

other European goods in exchange for

furs. But the Europeans also brought

diseases such as smallpox that killed

tribespeople by the thousands.

The coastal city of Abidjan is an important

business center of Cote d’Ivoire.

Abnaki Native Americans perform a traditional

dance in Vermont.

10 Abnaki BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA

 

After the American Revolution (1775–

83) the Americans took over much of

the tribes’ territory.Without land, the

Abnaki could no longer live in their

traditional way. Some managed to

change their way of life and survive. In

the late 20th century about 1,000

Abnaki lived in Quebec, Canada. More

than 6,000 Abnaki lived in the United

States.

#More to explore

Native Americans

Abolitionist

Movement

In the late 1700s people who were

opposed to slavery began a movement to

abolish, or end, the practice. This was

called the abolitionist movement. Followers

of the movement were known as

abolitionists.

Europeans had begun using Africans as

slaves in the late 1400s. After Europeans

discovered the Americas they set up

colonies there. Soon many Africans were

being shipped to the Americas to work

on the sugar and cotton plantations in

the colonies.

In the 1600s certain people in the British

colonies of North America condemned

slavery on religious grounds.

There were few other protests, however,

until the 1700s. Slowly but steadily,

more and more people became opposed

to the idea of holding other human

beings as private property.

Antislavery Efforts Around

theWorld

The first formal organization to emerge

in the abolitionist movement was the

Abolition Society, founded in 1787 in

Britain. By 1807 Britain had abolished

the slave trade with its colonies. By 1833

all slaves in the British colonies in the

Western Hemisphere were freed. Other

countries in Europe soon followed this

example. France outlawed the slave trade

by 1819, and in 1848 slavery was

banned in all French colonies.

Slavery was abolished country by country

in South America. In Chile the first

antislavery law was passed as early as

1811. Slavery finally ended in South

America when Brazil passed an antislavery

law in 1888.

United States

In the United States the slave trade was

officially abolished in 1807, but the

smuggling of slaves continued until the

CivilWar. As cotton plantations devel-

An antislavery meeting is pictured in London,

England, in 1840.

BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA Abolitionist Movement 11

 

oped in the South, the demand for

slaves increased. The Southern states

thus supported slavery. In contrast, by

1804 all of the states north of Maryland

had abolished slavery. The North

became the center of the abolitionist

movement in the United States.

The best-known leader of this movement

was William Lloyd Garrison. He

founded the American Anti-Slavery

Society in 1833. The U.S. abolitionists

did not always agree about how to end

slavery, however. Some wanted the government

to pass laws to end slavery.

Others tried to help individual slaves

gain their freedom. They established the

Underground Railroad to help escaping

slaves reach places of safety in the North

or in Canada.

The abolitionist movement gained

strength as more and more people

learned about the evils of slavery. People

were disgusted by the cruelty of the slave

hunters who brought escaped slaves back

to their owners. Harriet Beecher Stowe’s

novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852) presented

powerful descriptions of how

slaves were mistreated. The book became

extraordinarily popular.

In November 1860 Abraham Lincoln

was elected president of the United

States. Lincoln opposed the spread of

slavery. The South felt threatened. Over

the next three months a series of Southern

states separated from the United

States and formed the Confederacy. This

led to the American CivilWar (1861–

65). During the fighting, in 1863, Lincoln

issued the Emancipation

Proclamation. This document freed all

slaves in the Confederate states. In 1865

the Confederacy was defeated. Then

slavery was abolished in the United

States by the 13th Amendment to the

Constitution.

#More to explore

American CivilWar • Brown, John

• Emancipation Proclamation • Lincoln,

Abraham • Slavery • Stowe, Harriet

William Lloyd Garrison Beecher • Underground Railroad

An abolitionist

named John

Brown stole

weapons from

the U.S. government

in

1859. He

wanted to start

a slave rebellion.

He was

killed but

became an

abolitionist

hero.

Cassius Marcellus Clay worked to end slavery

even though he was from a slaveholding

family in the South.

12 Abolitionist Movement BRITANNICA STUDENT ENCYCLOPEDIA

 

Aboriginal

Peoples

Aboriginal peoples, or aborigines, are

groups of people who have lived in one

area for many thousands of years. In the

past, aborigines lived in areas far from

other cultures. They were unknown

until outsiders came into their lands.

Today there are only a few places left in

the world where outsiders have not