who were the abolitionists?

The abolitionists were a small minority of Americans who advocated for the immediate emancipation of slaves and equal rights for African Americans. They mainly came from the Northeast and Old Northwest, including successful businessmen, ministers, former slaveholders, and particularly religious women and men, many of whom were Quakers or Baptists. Most abolitionists were deeply convinced that slavery violated divine law and were committed to moral ideals of equality. They actively opposed slavery through various means, including antislavery petitions, newspapers, helping slaves escape, and promoting integrated churches and communities. The movement was part of a broader 18th- and 19th-century social effort in Europe and the Americas to end the transatlantic slave trade and chattel slavery. Key figures in the American abolitionist movement included Frederick Douglass, William Lloyd Garrison, and the Grimké sisters, among others. The abolitionists' work laid the foundation for the eventual legal abolition of slavery in the British Empire and the United States during the 19th century.