The very first was in 1688, when Quakers in Germantown, Pennsylvania wrote a two-page condemnation of the practice and sent it to the governing bodies of their Quaker church.The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage was the first American abolition society; it was formed in 1775, primarily by Quakers in Philadelphia. Rhode Island Quakers, associated with Moses Brown, were among the first in America to free slaves.Thomas Paine wrote one of the first articles advocating the emancipation of slaves and the abolition of slavery in 1775, titled "African Slavery in America".The US constitution stated that no amendment regarding slavery or direct taxes could be permitted until 1808. This was mostly to give the states time to decide what to do about the matter before an amendment to the Constitution was made.One of the first to attempt to abolish the slavery trade in the American colonies was Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson included strong anti-slavery trade language in the original draft of the Declaration of Independence, but other delegates removed it. As President, Jefferson signed the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves on March 2, 1807, which took effect in 1808 (which was the earliest it could have came into effect). However, whether or not Jefferson was a true abolitionist is debatable, as Jefferson kept hundreds of slaves himself. He privately struggled over the issue of slavery. See this Wikipedia page for more details concerning this issue.Through the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, the Congress of the Confederation prohibited slavery in the territories northwest of the Ohio River. By 1804, abolitionists succeeded in passing legislation in most states north of the Ohio River and the Mason-Dixon Line that would eventually emancipate the slaves.One notable person was Robert Carter III of Virginia, who freed more than 450 slaves by "Deed of Gift", filed in 1791. This was more slaves than any other single American had freed or would ever free.Here is an excerpt from Wikipedia regarding the founding of Liberia:
During the 1820s and 1830s the American Colonization Society (A.C.S.) was the primary vehicle for proposals to return black Americans to freedom in Africa. It had broad support nationwide among white people, including prominent leaders such as Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay and James Monroe, who saw this as preferable to emancipation. . . . There was however, considerable opposition among African Americans, many of whom did not see colonization as a viable or acceptable solution to their daunting problems in the United States. After a series of attempts to plant small settlements on the coast of West Africa, the A.C.S. established the colony of Liberia in 1821–22. Over the next four decades, it assisted thousands of former slaves and free black people to move there from the United States.
William Lloyd Garrison led a radical shift in the 1830s; he demanded slave-owners to repent immediately, and set up a system of emancipation.A very important part that cannot be left out is Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe. Outraged by the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, Stowe emphasized the horrors that abolitionists had long claimed about slavery.Nat Turner led the most successful slave rebellion in U.S. history in 1831. The rebellion was suppressed, but only after many deaths.Isabella Baumfree, a former slave, changed her name to Sojourner Truth and began preaching for the abolition of slavery in 1843.John Brown led a famous raid in 1859, and seized federal Harpers Ferry Armory, which contained tens of thousands of weapons. Brown believed that the South was on the verge of a gigantic slave uprising and that one spark would set it off. However, he was eventually hung in 1859. He was a major cause of the Civil War.
