"I have observed this in my experience of slavery,—that whenever my condition was improved, instead of its increasing my contentment, it only increased my desire to be free, and set me to thinking of plans to gain my freedom... I have found that, to make a contented slave, it is necessary to make a thoughtless one." — Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, 1845
Slave narratives like Douglass's most directly contributed to which 1840s development?
- A
The expansion of the American Colonization Society
- Bcheck_circle
The growth of the antislavery lecture circuit and abolitionist publishing
- C
The repeal of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793
- D
The founding of the Republican Party
Explanation
Slave narratives became a powerful genre fueling abolitionist lecture tours and publications, with Douglass and others using firsthand testimony to mobilize northern public opinion against slavery.