Different Strategy for the Abolitionists

Hi all - This is a thought that I have been working on for some time and it really boggles me.
Basically, WI the abolitionists of America opted for a different stratagy in their drive to end slavery?
IOTL, they thought nothing of helping slaves to escape via an Underground Railway or arming them to forment insurrection. Unfortunately the slaveowners saw this as breaking the law, either theft of property or inciting rebellion.
So, What If the abolitionists take a different tack and decide to work within the law to help end slavery.
With a PoD that starts at the birth of the nation itself, some abolitionist leaders like Franklin and others of his time decide that instead of stealing the slaves from their masters, they should buy them. Thus, they send slave buyers down to the south to attend auctions and buy as many of the children and women as possible. Once bought they are removed north where they are put up in either foster homes or educational facilities to be taught a trade, skill or profession. They would then give one-half of their earnings for a set period of time to the abolitionists to further purchase (rescue?) more of their brethern and bring them to freedom.
If these purchases were made quietly, at least at first so the slaveowners didn't get wind of their plan (and raise the cost of the slaves), could it work at all, work to a degree, or would it fall flat?
Or were most or the abolitionists simply long on talk about how the other half should live and short on the gravitas to get it done? :confused:
 
Hi all - This is a thought that I have been working on for some time and it really boggles me.
Basically, WI the abolitionists of America opted for a different stratagy in their drive to end slavery?
IOTL, they thought nothing of helping slaves to escape via an Underground Railway or arming them to forment insurrection. Unfortunately the slaveowners saw this as breaking the law, either theft of property or inciting rebellion.
So, What If the abolitionists take a different tack and decide to work within the law to help end slavery.
With a PoD that starts at the birth of the nation itself, some abolitionist leaders like Franklin and others of his time decide that instead of stealing the slaves from their masters, they should buy them. Thus, they send slave buyers down to the south to attend auctions and buy as many of the children and women as possible. Once bought they are removed north where they are put up in either foster homes or educational facilities to be taught a trade, skill or profession. They would then give one-half of their earnings for a set period of time to the abolitionists to further purchase (rescue?) more of their brethern and bring them to freedom.
If these purchases were made quietly, at least at first so the slaveowners didn't get wind of their plan (and raise the cost of the slaves), could it work at all, work to a degree, or would it fall flat?
Or were most or the abolitionists simply long on talk about how the other half should live and short on the gravitas to get it done? :confused:


The problem was money. The abolishinists could not raise that kind of cash. A slave was worth at least hundreds if not thousands of dollars (depending on how useful the slave was) and there were at least hundreds of thousands (If you do so early enough) to millions. You are talking tens of millions if not billions of dollars and that is before increased demand (from your purchases) raises the price.
 
A problem with such a strategy is that it would boost the black population in the Free States. Many abolitionists were abolitionists exactly because the did NOT want black people around in the first place, so risks of backlash are high; abolitionism may be a far less popular idea in the North if it is seen as something that brings more blacks in, rather than trying keeping them out.
Not to mention that freedmen asked to work for their liberators in order to free more slaves, while noble and good at first glance, might come to be unpleasantly close to industrial slavery over time, causing lower wages in the North if the system takes place; Workers Unions may antipathize abolitionism for that.
 
The problem was money. The abolishinists could not raise that kind of cash. A slave was worth at least hundreds if not thousands of dollars (depending on how useful the slave was) and there were at least hundreds of thousands (If you do so early enough) to millions. You are talking tens of millions if not billions of dollars and that is before increased demand (from your purchases) raises the price.

This is why I suggested buying the children as they were generally untrained as yet and would be a cash-drain for their owners for a number of years. The women would be less so, but their purchase would do to have someone to take care of the kids and they might be less expensive that the "sturdy field hand". Plus, they couldn't (and wouldn't buy everyone that they saw, just as many as they could afford per trip (say two or three trips over a period of forty years to build up a stockpile of freedmen to help free their kinfolk.

A problem with such a strategy is that it would boost the black population in the Free States. Many abolitionists were abolitionists exactly because the did NOT want black people around in the first place, so risks of backlash are high; abolitionism may be a far less popular idea in the North if it is seen as something that brings more blacks in, rather than trying keeping them out.
Not to mention that freedmen asked to work for their liberators in order to free more slaves, while noble and good at first glance, might come to be unpleasantly close to industrial slavery over time, causing lower wages in the North if the system takes place; Workers Unions may antipathize abolitionism for that.

And that's why I thought about a fixed period of about ten years, after which, the freedmen would be free to migrate west to segregated communities in the Kentuckies, the Great Plains or further west as time went on.
Also, it seems to me that a lot of the prominent abolitionists were well-to-do whites, men of arts and letters, or industerialists. Couldn't some of them see the freedmen as a source of manpower who weren't likely to unionize? Sorry for my cynicism.... :eek:
Also, getting back to the freedmen's communities for a moment. Let's assume that these were founded and allowed to grow and mature, what would they look like in the next fifty to one hundred years? Could they be successful?
 
Almost no abolitinnists advocated violent slave revolt.

Working within the law was virtually impossible. They were essentially right to try to de llegitimize slavery
 
It would be hard to motivate a large cadre of abolitionists in 1790 because the cruelty of mid-19th century slavery was not envisioned. George Washington thought slavery would become obsolete because it was costly to landowners and the tobacco industry had leveled off, allowing many to be freed. As young Abraham Lincoln grew up, he saw slaves working in the fields, but he also saw a larger number of white people working under the same conditions. He himself was no stranger to hard labor. It took a trip to New Orleans and a look at the slave market to turn Abe into the abolitionist who changed history. My point is that the cruelty of the practice was not visible to most northerners. It would take decades for that cruelty to progress from bad to horrendous, and reach a breaking point.

The mildest way to end slavery might have been to allow the children to be born free, not an easy challenge. You need a scenario where the supply of slaves shrinks before the corporate cotton plantations can rely on them as a primary source of labor.
 
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