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put a chain about the ankle of his fellow man without at last finding the other end fastened about his own neck.” Abolitionists were heating up the debate regarding slavery. Douglass would even go on to work as an adviser to President Abraham Lincoln. The 1830s also brought about the popularity of the Underground Railroad, a process through which slaves could escape to the northern states. Harriet Tubman, a former slave, was a major force in helping slaves escape. In a letter from Douglass to Tubman, he wrote, “The midnight sky and the silent stars have been the witnesses of your devotion to freedom and of your heroism. Excepting John Brown—of sacred memory—I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than you have.” Due to numerous compromises between the northern and southern states, slavery would last until the Civil War ended in 1865. That year, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution was ratified, declaring slavery to be illegal in the United States.

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SLAVE LIFE ON A SOUTHERN PLANTATION