Garrison

Garrison, William Lloyd (1805-1879), a noted American abolitionist, was born at Newburyport in Massachusetts. His father, a sea-captain, disappeared, and his mother was left in poor circumstances. The boy tried his hand at shoemaking and at cabinet-making, and eventually was engaged in the printing department of a local newspaper, for which he wrote anonymously, and he also wrote some political articles for the Salem Gazette. In 1829 he went to Baltimore, and joined with a Quaker philanthropist, Mr. Lundy, to advance the cause of emancipation. Mr. Lundy was in favour of gradual emancipation and the foundation of a free colony in Africa, but Garrison was more uncompromising, and advocated immediate and total emancipation and the bestowal on the blacks of full citizenship. In the course of his efforts he rendered himself liable for libel, and was imprisoned. In Boston he started the Liberator newspaper, and suffered much privation in the early days of the paper. In 1833 he visited England for the first time, and was warmly received by Wilberforce and the other opponents of slavery. Garrison may be looked on as one of the chief causes of the final abolition of slavery in 1864.