Dr. Marie Stango
Interviewee: Dr. Marie Stango
Interviewer: Johanna Bringhurst
Description: Join Dr. Marie Stango, Assistant Professor - 18th- and 19th-Century U.S.; Women, Gender, and Sexuality; African American and African Diaspora studies at Idaho State University in a talk about the multiple facets of Abolition in the U.S.
Date: 2023-03-17
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Doug Exton: This program is brought to you by the Idaho Humanities Council, with funding provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities. With us today is Dr. Marie Stango from Idaho State University.
Dr. Marie Stango: Hey everyone, I'm Dr. Marie Stango, I'm an assistant professor of history at Idaho State University, and I work on the history of race, slavery, and emancipation in the United States during the 19th century. I'll be talking about rethinking the history of abolition in the U.S.. This is a story that we often think we know. we typically learn about this, in our history courses as students.
But there is a lot that we don't know. And there are a lot of individuals that were really crucial to the abolition movement in the United States, who don't often get the recognition, that they might. So when we think of abolition in the United States, a few names immediately come to mind. For most people, they might think of William Lloyd Garrison, Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin, maybe Frederick Douglass, perhaps the most prominent, formerly enslaved individual, in U.S. history.
But beyond those few names, we usually don't hear about some of these other individuals. and one of the things that I want to highlight in my presentation are the ways in which African Americans themselves were the vanguard of the abolition movement, really began the abolition movement, and grew the abolition movement throughout the 19th century. and so to tell this story today, I'm going to introduce you to a few different prominent individuals and movements within this larger story of abolition.
so I'm going to talk about two key moments in the history of abolition in the US. First, I'm going to talk about the revolutionary era and how the American Revolution spurred the abolitionist movement. And then I'm going to talk about the 19th century abolitionist movement that really comes with the rise of colonization in Liberia. And I'll talk more about colonization, later on.
So before we even get to the revolution, one of the things that I want to highlight is that enslaved people themselves were the first abolitionist. the individual, that is very closely associated with abolitionism, particularly the ending of the transatlantic slave trade, is a lot of Equiano. And Equiano was an enslaved man who was kidnaped, from his homeland in what is now southern Nigeria.
And his ethnicity was Igbo. and he wrote about being taken captive. and put on board a slave ship. and enduring what is known as the Middle Passage. from the African coast to the Americas. And his book, which describes this experience, published in 1789, described the horrors of the transatlantic slave trade. so Equiano, along with other British abolitionists, worked to ban the transatlantic slave trade in 1807, and Britain and in the US, the transatlantic slave trade was banned in 1808.
it's important to note that the ending of the transatlantic slave trade did not ban slavery. It did not end the selling of enslaved people domestically with within the United States. it's simply referring to the, selling of people from the African continent, to the, to to the United States. so this story of abolition and that I'm telling you actually has a long history, and I can point to other examples as well, including the 1739 Stono Rebellion in South Carolina, in which enslaved people, rose up to try to seize their freedom, from their enslavers.
So there's a long history. before we even get to the revolution. We do, however, see a lot of momentum for the abolition movement. during the revolutionary era. Now, some historians see the American Revolution as the largest slave revolt in American history. And they do so because there was around 100,000 enslaved people who liberated themselves during the revolution.
so during the chaos of war, they fled to freedom. Or on the other hand, they literally fought for their freedom. There were about 20,000 African Americans who fought for the British. the British under Lord Dunmore proclamation in 1775, had offered freedom in exchange for military service for those enslaved people owned by, the Patriots or the rebels.
And this was even extended in 1779, in which even more enslaved individuals who had been owned by the patriots, were offered their freedom as well. so, again, about 20,000 African Americans, who allied themselves with the British, are able to secure their freedom during the American Revolution. some of them end up evacuating with the British at the end of the war in 1783.
Some of them go to Nova Scotia in Canada. And among that group? a number of them, go to Sierra Leone in West Africa, which is a British colony. And one of the formerly enslaved men who fights for the British, goes to Nova Scotia and then goes to Sierra Leone, was named Harry Washington. And Harry Washington, as you might expect, had been enslaved by George Washington.
But unlike George Washington, Harry Washington did not fight for the Patriots. He fought for the British, and that's how he secured his freedom during the revolutionary era. We also see some challenges to the institution of slavery. we start to see calls for immediate abolition or the immediate end to slavery. one place where we see this especially is in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Some people petitioned for their freedom. in the 1770s, there's a number of petitions that enslaved people. Right? and they use revolutionary rhetoric to claim freedom as their right. we also see that individuals, including Elizabeth Freeman, who's also known by the name Mumbet, advocates for her own freedom using these same revolutionary ideals. so Freeman overhears a meeting in which local citizens, including her own enslaver, issue what's known as the Sheffield Declaration, which says, quote, mankind in a state of nature are equal, free and independent of each other, and have a right to the undisturbed enjoyment of their lives, their liberty and property.
End quote. So this document, along with the Declaration of Independence as well as the Massachusetts Constitution, from 1780, establish an environment in which enslaved people are hearing about these ideals of freedom and wondering why it doesn't apply to them. So Freeman hears about these ideals, and she seeks the help of a lawyer, Theodore Sedgwick, who helps her sue for her freedom.
In 1781. So she files this freedom suit against the man who had enslaved her. The case was known as Brom and Bett v. Ashley. John Ashley was the name of the enslaver. mum Bette is Elizabeth Freeman. And Brom was another enslaved man. The case was argued via the new Massachusetts Constitution, which stated that all men are born free and equal.
And she actually wins her case. She wins her freedom with the help of this abolitionist lawyer. The case two sets a really important precedent within Massachusetts. A few years later, a man named Quock Walker, who's also an enslaved man, sues for his freedom. the story with with Walker is that he had been promised his freedom at the age of 25.
however, his original enslaver had died, and the widow remarried. And the guy she remarried, named Nathaniel Johnson, refused to free Walker at age of 25. and so because of this, Walker seeks his freedom. There's actually three cases associated with Quock Walker. in each of them, in 1783, it's declared that Walker is free. And this relies on the decision in Elizabeth Freeman's case, and it relies on a reading of the new Massachusetts Constitution.
that again declares, but all men are born free and equal. So this case, Commonwealth versus Jenison, as well as Elizabeth Freeman's case, legally establish the grounds for abolition. And, the abolition of slavery in Massachusetts. What we see in other states throughout the North, though, is a process known as gradual emancipation. Gradual emancipation means that slavery slowly, sometimes over decades, was phased out in that particular state.
the best known example of a gradual emancipation law is Pennsylvania's law from 1780. it's probably the most important of these laws, especially since, the second capital of the United States is in Philadelphia, in Pennsylvania. So it's it's the seat of of the federal government. one thing to note about this law, which was passed in 1780, is that it freed exactly zero people when it, was passed.
So in 1780, the law is passed, but it doesn't free anybody immediately. So this is a very different situation than what happens in Massachusetts. the provisions of Pennsylvania's law are that, no more enslaved people can be imported into Pennsylvania from another state. if they are imported to Pennsylvania and they're for a period longer than six months, then the enslaved person is declared to be free.
Enslaved people also had to be registered annually. And then the law provided for gradual emancipation by saying that children born to enslaved mothers would be free after 28 years of indentured servitude. So this is why the law did not immediately free anybody. It only applied to the children of enslaved mothers born after 1780, after 28 years. so this is a long period, in which these children have to wait for their freedom.
And again, it doesn't apply to their mothers, their parents, anybody born before 1780. The law also doesn't apply to members of Congress. And again, this is this is the capital at the time in Philadelphia. However, the law does apply to the president, George Washington. George Washington, as many people I think know at this point, was an enslaver.
enslaved people worked on his plantation at Mount Vernon. and so when Washington went to Philadelphia, to his assume his duties as president of the United States, he brought enslaved people with him. and what he would do to get around the 1780 law is that every six months, he would take the enslaved people he brought with him to Philadelphia, bring them to a state where slavery was legal, and only then return them to Pennsylvania.
So essentially, he was resetting that six month clock, regularly so that enslaved people still worked in his household in Pennsylvania. We know that while Washington was in Philadelphia serving as president, that some enslaved people ran away from his household. One of these individuals who we know quite a lot about because she gave two interviews towards the end of her life, was on a judge.
So Ona Judge was an enslaved woman, who was brought by Washington to New York and then to Philadelphia when the capital was in New York. And then when the capital was in Philadelphia. and we know that Ona Judge escaped from slavery from Philadelphia. she actually ran away to New Hampshire, New Hampshire in 1796. and Washington tried on multiple occasions to get Ona Judge back.
so he had an advertisement placed in the Pennsylvania Gazette in 1796, to announce that Ona Judge had run away, and offered a reward to anybody who could help him get her back. so he attempts to do so and eventually figures out that she is in New Hampshire. at one point, he sends Martha Washington's nephew to New Hampshire to try to get Ona Judge back.
Ona Judge is luckily warned by, New Hampshire Senator, John Langdon, who was starting to question the institution of slavery. Langdon warns Ona Judge that Washington has sent someone to come for her. And because she's warned, she's able to flee, to go to someone else's house. and avoid being taken back into slavery. So Ona Judge, I think, is a good example of how we see enslaved people during the revolutionary period, apply the ideal ideals of revolution to their own lives and escape with their own freedom.
So Ona Judge's self emancipated. She's never legally emancipated. She never receives any kind of documents that say she's a free woman. So she's in a vulnerable position while she's in New Hampshire. But she lives as a free woman. She marries a free black man, Jack Staines. and she has two children with him, and she dies. As a free woman, she's never taken back into slavery.
So again, when we're looking at these revolutionary era laws, Pennsylvania is one of them. we have to understand that the laws did not abolish slavery, and it did nothing for enslaved people were born before 1780. So, Pennsylvania, for instance, had to pass another law in 1847 to officially abolish slavery in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. so it wasn't 1780 that slavery was abolished in Pennsylvania was actually 1847.
We see some slightly different patterns emerge in the Upper South in places like Maryland and Virginia. Some individual enslavers became to question the institution of slavery, and they often do so on moral and religious grounds. So some religious groups, particularly the Quakers, followed by the Methodists and Presbyterians, start to interpret their faith as prohibiting slavery, or at least, having significant problems with the institution of slavery.
So these religious convictions lead to some enslavers individually, manumitting or freeing the people that they had enslaved. So they gave a legal grant of freedom to the individual people, in their household or in their plantation. Now, depending on the state, this avenue to freedom was closed after the early years of the, revolutionary era into the early republic.
some states started to pass laws that prevented enslavers from manumission or freeing the people that they had owned. Or some states start to pass laws that, require people who are freed, people who are man emitted to leave the state. And if they refused to leave the state, they risk being re enslaved. and this is particularly, challenging for enslaved individuals because sometimes when an enslaved individual was emitted, that didn't mean that their children or their parents or their other kin networks were freed.
so for some individuals, this was a choice between being free, or being removed from, from from your family, from your children. Some of these laws are driven by fears of free black populations growing. this is partly a reaction to the Haitian Revolution from 1791 into 1804. the Haitian Revolution was the largest slave revolt in modern history, in which, the individuals on the French colony of Saint-Domingue overthrow overthrew the institution of slavery and overthrew, the French system of governance, and established a free black republic in the Western Hemisphere.
So some enslavers in the United States were afraid that a revolt like what had happened in Haiti would occur in areas where there were large numbers of free people of color. similarly, in the United States, Denmark Investees rebellion, in Charleston in 1822, which was directly modeled on the Haitian Revolution, caused a lot of enslavers and white populations within the Upper South to really worry about the presence of free black individuals like Denmark Vesey, who planned this revolt.
voices, rebellion was thwarted when the plans for the rebellion were leaked. and so the rebellion never took place. 131 men were arrested, including Vashti, who was tried, convicted, and hanged. In many cities, the free African American population grew after the revolution. And this wasn't through just a man who missions and laws like we saw, in in Pennsylvania, but also through self purchase.
In fact, Vesey was somebody who had purchased his own freedom. He won a, he actually won a lottery and was able to purchase himself. so enslaved people did not receive compensation for their labor, but in some exceptional cases, enslaved people were able to save up enough money on the side through actions that they took, outside of the hours in which they were laboring in the household or laboring on the plantation, to purchase themselves.
And occasionally they were able to purchase the freedom of family members as well. Important centers of free communities emerged throughout the Upper South, as well as the North. So places like Baltimore, Charleston, Richmond, Boston, Philadelphia, these became centers in which, free black communities really thrived. in the early Republic. And it was these free black communities that were really central to the growth of abolitionism in the United States.
We start to see community organizations, become established among these communities in the early decades of the United States. So, for instance, there's the African Union Society, established in Newport, Rhode Island, by Newport Gardner in 1780. And what the African Union Society did, along with a lot of similar societies, was to establish civic organizations like schools, provide for the needs of the community, such as through performing marriages, funeral rites, organizing reform groups like literacy groups, groups that, collected clothing donations, as well as responding to major issues that free black communities found in the North, as well as the Upper South.
so there was a lot of racial discrimination and racism. in the North. free African-Americans were excluded or segregated from jobs, from churches, from schools. So because they weren't allowed to, attend these institutions or, attend them in an integrated way. Groups like the African Union Society established these organizations for free black communities. we even see a masonic lodge emerge in Boston in 1784.
in the midst of all of this, there are a number of free African-Americans living in the North and in the Upper South. who start to, develop arguments for civil rights for African Americans in addition to the abolition of slavery. Most notably, you have David Walker. so David Walker was an African American man born free in North Carolina.
his mother was free. His father was enslaved. And the law in the United States was that the legal condition of the child followed the condition of the mother. So David Walker's mother was free. Therefore he was free. Eventually, Walker moved to Boston, where he started organizing for African American and abolitionist causes. He was one of the founders of the Massachusetts General Colored Colored Association in 1826, which helped fight slavery and racial discrimination.
He's also known for publishing David Walker's Appeal, and the full title is appeal and four articles, together with a preamble to the Colored Citizens of the world. And initially he publishes this in September of 1829. It is a remarkable text because it is not only an abolitionist text, but it's a Pan-Africanist text, and that it calls for people of African descent throughout the world to unite together, to combat both slavery and racial oppression.
and he called for unity among people of African descent in fighting, these oppressions. The appeal is also important because it gives a clear argument against colonization in West Africa. Colonization was the idea of settling free African Americans somewhere outside of the United States. it is closely associated with the American Colonization Society, founded in late 1817.
The American colonization Society, or ACS, went on to establish the colony of Liberia in West Africa in 1822. It's a bit hard to generalize about the membership of the ACS. the ACS was a loosely allied group of white supporters. It included pro-slavery individuals who were afraid that free people of color would help enslaved people rebel. Much like in Denmark, that these rebellion, the ACS also included enslavers in the Upper South, who individually wanted to manumission or free enslaved people, but they did not want to live alongside enslaved people.
so many states in this time period, in the early 19th century, even forced free people of color to leave the state, to be expelled from the state. so even if there was somebody who, opposed slavery, that did not necessarily mean that they believed in racial equality or that they believed that white Americans and black Americans could live in the same space.
So this is where this idea of settling people of color in Liberia comes from. There were also some religious leaders that were part of the American Colonization Society who hoped to send missionaries to Africa. So this is sort of in the early years of African colonization. in the 19th century, Liberia, in many ways a sort of a colonial foothold, for what emerges by the end of the century.
So, like David Walker, the majority of the free black community in the United States opposed colonization. And they opposed colonization because they believed that people of African descent in the United States were American citizens and were, entitled to the rights and obligations, of any American citizen of any color. so I'm going to quote here from David Walker's appeal a bit at length, because I think it makes this argument really clear.
Quote. Well, any of us leave our homes and go to Africa. I hope not. Let them commence their attack upon us as they did our brethren out in Ohio, driving and beating us from our country. And my soul for theirs. They will have enough of it. Let no man of us begrudge one step and let slaveholders come to beat us from our country.
America is more our country than it is the whites. We have enriched it with our blood and tears. The greatest riches and all America have arisen from our blood in tears. And while they drive us from our property and homes, which we have earned with our blood, they must look sharp, or this very thing will bring swift destruction upon them.
End quote. So Walker's appeal made this argument for birthright citizenship for African Americans. And in the quotation I just read, he's referring to the Cincinnati riots from 1829. there was a law passed in Ohio that required African Americans to pay a $500 surety bond, and if they failed to pay this bond, they would have to leave the state within 30 days.
And violence ensued as white mobs attacked black communities in the first Ward in Cincinnati. some of these African Americans in Cincinnati defended themselves. Others fled from this racial violence and had to seek refuge elsewhere, including in Canada. And in part because of the discrimination and racial violence of the antebellum period of the pre-Civil War period, some African Americans did decide to go to Liberia.
many of them were seeking to escape this kind of racial violence and persecution. And so there were about 13,000 African Americans who went to Liberia in the era before the civil war. Some of these individuals were people who had been born free or had been free for decades before going to Liberia. But a lot of them had been enslaved people who were given a choice.
They could remain enslaved in the United States, or they could be freed on the condition that they go to Liberia. so really, this this is an idea of an expulsion or state of exile in exchange for one's freedom. And the idea for colonization might make you think of, the expulsion of indigenous people from the south eastern part of the United States in the early republic, as well.
Right. Known as Indian removal. along the Trail of Tears, for example, much of the same ideology is motivating colonization. And much like indigenous people in the southeast who resist removal. Many African Americans resist this idea of being removed to Liberia. Now, this idea of colonization is debated within the black press. the first black newspaper, which was established in 1827, was known as Freedom's Journal.
And Freedom's Journal, had two men at the helm, Samuel Cornish and John Brown. Russell warm. The journal itself published a lot of, ideas and debates from leaders within African American communities. They discussed colonization. They discussed birthright citizenship. they discussed the issues of civil rights within the United States. So the editor, John Brown Ross Worm, was actually born in Jamaica to an enslaved mother and a white planter father.
and his father actually recognized Ross Murmu as his son, which was more common in the Caribbean than it was in the United States. it certainly wasn't ubiquitous. and Ross Worm actually was able to go to the United States and get an education at a US college, Bowdoin College. there, after being educated, he went into the newspaper business, and that's how he got into working on Freedom's Journal.
some of the things they discussed were questions like, how should black abolitionists work with white abolitionists? Should African-Americans look for a place to live outside the US? and then it also included news, so stories about ministers traveling, different conventions and goings on at churches. it advertised goods for sale in black owned businesses and also included things like marriage records, births, deaths, etc..
Now, Freedom's Journal initially had opposed colonization in Liberia. However, in 1829, John Brown Ross Worm, who had been the editor, changes his mind. Ross Worm decides to migrate to Liberia in 1829, and this is highly controversial. So the newspaper had largely opposed colonization, and here's one of the editors deciding to participate in colonization. this is so controversial that he's actually burned an effigy in Philadelphia because the free black community in Philadelphia, is so opposed to this idea of colonization and advocating for birthright citizenship instead.
Russell, goes to Liberia and has a very interesting career there. He edits the Liberia Herald, which is the newspaper in Monrovia, Liberia, Liberia's capital. and then later on, in 1836, he moves down the coast to another settlement, in what will eventually become Liberia. the settlement of Maryland in Africa, which was established by the Maryland Colonization Society and in 1836, he becomes the first black governor in what will become Liberia.
so he takes on this leadership position in Liberia. that would not have been open to him in the United States. So I mentioned Russell Wurm had been burned in effigy in Philadelphia. and I'm actually going to spend some time now talking about Philadelphia more substantially. So Philadelphia was a crucial site of organization and abolitionism. as I mentioned, the anti colonization movement was really strong within Philadelphia.
And it's that anti colonization movement that really grows into the abolitionist movement. so for free black Americans living in Philadelphia or living throughout the United States, colonization represents an existential threat. The fear of being removed, to a different country entirely, to a different continent entirely. and they had real reason to fear that this might happen again, because states were passing laws that prohibited free black Americans from living there.
And because African Americans knew about what was going on in the southeastern part of the US. with the expulsion of indigenous people, from from the, the southeast. So this was a real threat, removal to Liberia. And this is why the abolitionist movement grows so quickly within Philadelphia. The abolitionist movement grows out of a few institutions.
Most important, Lee churches in Philadelphia and in other free black communities throughout the US becomes centers of political engagement and debate within Philadelphia. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones established what's known as Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal, or A.M.E. church in 1794, and Mother Bethel and the AME church in general grow quite rapidly. much like I was talking about, and other American cities like Newport, the AME church had grown out of a free African society that was established around the time of the American Revolution.
And again, these societies provided, community support for free black individuals. And in the case of Philadelphia, support for individual Jews who were fleeing from slavery. So fugitives from slavery. this community organization was crucial. They responded to racial violence, to racism, discrimination. they started to establish resources for black communities in the United States. So again, things like clothing donation, help, finding jobs.
education was a huge part of this, too, in most parts of the United States. in the South, the enslaved or free African Americans were legally prohibited from learning how to read or write. So many African Americans were not, legally allowed to learn how to read or write. And one of the things that these community organizations do is establish schools within Philadelphia.
There is a free black middle class that emerges. so individuals like James Forten, who was a sail maker. so ships, sailing ships. she was one of the wealthiest individuals within Philadelphia. white or black. there were other individuals, including, Robert Purvis. who rose to prominence within these communities in Philadelphia. So it was a really thriving middle class that emerges kind of by the 1820s and 1830s in Philadelphia.
so propertied black men in Pennsylvania have the right to vote if they could meet the property qualification, they were able to vote. But in 1838, Pennsylvania amends its constitution, and when it amends its constitution, it takes away voting rights for black men. So black men had the right to vote in Pennsylvania, and then it was taken away in 1838.
the Pennsylvania Constitution inserted the word white into the voting qualifications when the new constitution was ratified. And Robert Purvis, along with other members of this black middle class in Philadelphia, petitioned the legislature not to do this, to not take away their voting rights. and unfortunately, they're unsuccessful in getting their voting rights restored. Also, within this middle class community in Philadelphia, we start to see some of the first integrated abolitionist societies emerge.
So, as I mentioned when I was talking about Liberian colonization, just because a, say a white, evangelical from Pennsylvania supported abolition did not always mean that they supported racial equality or integration. So, strangely enough, many abolitionist organizations were segregated organizations. The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery society, founded in 1833, was an integrated organization. It had both white members and black members.
so this interracial group included some of the most important abolitionists of the antebellum period. Lucretia mott and Angelina Grimké, as well as James Forten's wife Charlotte and his daughters, Margaretta, Sarah and Harriet. And the Pennsylvania or Sorry, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery society. petitioned Congress to abolish slavery. They raised money to aid poor African Americans and supported fugitive slaves.
And this was actually some of the first political activism by women in the United States. and again, it was this integrated group that does this political work of advocating for civil rights, as well as abolition. Many of these women had been highly educated in some of these schools that were established by institutions like the Free African Society during the revolutionary era.
one of these women, Sarah Mapps Douglass, is worth talking about in detail. Sarah Douglass did a lot in her life. She was an educator who eventually ran a school for African American girls in Philadelphia. She was one of the founders of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery society. She established a female literary society which was there to help educate and promote reading and writing among free women of color.
this organization, the Literary Society, also wrote original works of literature as well as artistic works. So Sarah Mapps Douglass, was very interested in botany and the sciences, and some of her watercolor paintings, like, for instance, a watercolor of a butterfly that appeared in a friendship album of one of these other, women, middle class women in Philadelphia.
was one of the first signed works done by an African-American female artist. So, Sarah Mapps Douglass, is again highly involved in this middle class community in Philadelphia and is making these arguments about the equality of the races as well as the equality of the sexes. The American Anti-Slavery society, which was founded in 1833 as well, is perhaps better known than the Philadelphia female Anti-Slavery society.
And that's in part, I think, because the American Anti-Slavery society was founded by William Boyd Garrison and William Lloyd Garrison was a crucial white abolitionist. and when many Americans think about abolitionism in this history, in the United States, they think of William Lloyd Garrison. He was one of the more radical white abolitionists who advocated for an immediate end to slavery.
Rather than gradual emancipation. And garrison is also known for his newspaper, The Liberator which circulated abolitionist stories. abolitionist news about meetings, was a site of political organizing for the abolitionist movement. and initially, garrison had supported the idea of colonization in Liberia, but he started to change his mind after spending some time in Baltimore among black abolitionists.
perhaps most importantly, William Watkins. And it was through these conversations with Watkins that garrison became convinced that the Colonization Society was not an abolitionist society, that it did not support an anti-slavery, but rather, he believed the ACS supported the institution of slavery. So, again, Douglass is perhaps a member of the more radical wing of abolitionism, calling for an immediate end to slavery.
And he's deeply influenced by black abolitionists, including, William Watkins, James Fort, and Robert Purvis. all of these individuals helped garrison, establish his his politics. Abolitionism was controversial, even within the North. Most whites did not support an immediate end to the institution of slavery. They tended to support gradual emancipation or colonization. So even Harriet Beecher Stowe, who we often think of as an abolitionist, is somebody who's better described as a colonization ist.
So Stowe was a white woman from Connecticut who's best known as the author of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was first serialized in 1851 and then published in two volumes in 1852. wrote this very important novel, Uncle Tom's Cabin. which convinced a lot of maybe more moderate northerners to oppose the institution of slavery. Stowe's politics are more closely aligned with the colonization aspects.
And you can even see this in Uncle Tom's Cabin itself. If you think about the ending of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The novel ends with the free black characters living in Liberia not living in the United States. so that novel ends with this idea that free black Americans should live somewhere outside of the United States. and this reflects Stowe's own political leanings, concerning the institution of slavery.
Instead of calling Uncle Tom's Cabin an abolitionist novel, we might more properly call it a colonization as novel. Another example of the limited support abolitionism had, even within the North is the story of Pennsylvania Hall. Pennsylvania Hall was built in Philadelphia, in 1837 into 1838 as a temple of free discussion. It was a space where lectures were held.
It was funded by the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery society. And the idea was, is that it was a meeting place where people could exchange ideas, particularly about causes like abolitionism, like women's suffrage. and it took $40,000 to build this structure. Well, very shortly after it opened, on May 14th of 1838. it came under fire, literally. So on May 14th of 1838, there were a number of speeches held at Pennsylvania Hall, as well as a wedding, the wedding of Angelina Grimké, who was a white female abolitionist and Theodore Dwight Weld, who was also a white abolitionist.
So Angelina Grimké and Theodore Dwight Weld hold their marriage there. the grim keys. so, Angelina Grimké and her sister, Sarah Moore Grimké, were daughters of, wealthy enslaver from South Carolina. And the two sisters had converted to Quakerism, and became abolitionists and moved to the north. So Grimm, she was a white abolitionist woman marrying a white abolitionist, a man.
However, there were black Americans in attendance at the wedding. And this idea of having interracial attendees was objectionable to many of the people living in Philadelphia at the time. So, again, she's she's a white woman marrying another white man. But because she has African Americans in attendance at her wedding, it raises the concern or the fear or the worry about interracial marriage.
And a lot of Philadelphians at the time oppose that idea of interracial marriage. She is actually giving a speech in Pennsylvania Hall, when a mob is a attacking Pennsylvania hall. so the mob starts to gather the night of May 16th. it continues, to roar outside during her speech. And then Pennsylvania Hall is burned. the night of May 17th, in a riot, the firemen in Philadelphia refused to put the flames out.
And the next few nights, there is rioting. And black institutions throughout Philadelphia are attacked. An orphanage for black children is burned. the, Bethel AME church that I was talking about earlier is attacked. thankfully, it was saved by a guard of citizens who refused to let it be burned. but I think these incidents in Philadelphia, which we often think as the center of abolitionism in the United States, remind us that abolitionism was not supported by many northerners and in many ways was a marginal position.
so when abolitionists did their work, publish their newspapers, gave lectures, they were doing so at extreme risk to themselves.
Pennsylvania is also associated with the Underground Railroad. And this is a story that I think many of us Americans are familiar with. so the Underground Railroad refers to the network of safe houses by which enslaved people escaped to free territories. so they would escape to places like Philadelphia, to places that had abolished slavery, like Canada or Mexico, and seek freedom.
So some of these individuals who escaped from slavery on the Underground Railroad, risked their lives to spread information about the horrors of slavery. And perhaps the best known fugitive from slavery, from this era is Frederick Douglass. Frederick Douglass is an important orator, abolitionist, women's suffrage advocate, civil rights advocate. who was born enslaved in Maryland, and he escaped from slavery in 1838 with the help of his wife, Anna Murray Douglass, who was a free woman.
and she was a free woman who provided him with a uniform, which he then used to escape from slavery with. So he disguised himself. Douglass is known for giving a lot of speeches about his experiences as an enslaved man and his fight for freedom. He's also known for his three autobiographies, the first of which was published in 1845.
Narrative in the Life of Frederick Douglass, in which Douglass lays barer the violence and terror of slavery in the United States. And it's through his narrative and through his orations and discussions of his experiences as an enslaved man that encourages some white Americans, particularly in the North, to oppose the institution of slavery. So formerly enslaved people or fugitives from slavery, talking about their experiences giving that first person account is what convinces a lot of more moderate northerners to start to support the anti-slavery cause.
Of course, there's other individuals like, like Douglass who are involved with the Underground Railroad or with escaping slavery. William still is one of the most important figures when we're talking about the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania. William still helped over 700 enslaved people escape, to get their freedom. And notably, he recorded their names in his documents. So he kept a ledger, with the names of the individuals that he helped escape from slavery.
And his office, operated as a kind of information center that helped people who fled from slavery reunite with family members who had also run away, sometimes years prior. He was a close collaborator with somebody else very much associated with the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman so still story is quite remarkable. His father had been able to free himself.
though Still's mother was enslaved. Still's mother ran away with two of her youngest children, to seek freedom. Unfortunately, she had to leave two of her children behind when she arrived in new Jersey after she ran away. She gave birth to William Still. so he was born into freedom, and William still was working in his office.
And he came across a man one day in his office who told him his story of escaping from slavery and from listening to this story. William still began to realize the man in front of him in the office was actually his brother. One of the brothers that his mother had been forced to leave behind when she fled her enslavement.
so really remarkable reunification of part of Still's family. unfortunately, the other brother who had remained enslaved, when their mother ran away, died, enslaved. He was whipped to death for leaving the plantation to visit his wife. so still himself, like many of the people that came to his office, had known the horror and suffering.
experienced by enslaved people. Harriet Tubman story is probably better known in the United States. she, like Frederick Douglass, had been enslaved in Maryland and, emancipated herself. there's a few other things about Tubman's life that don't get discussed as much as her involvement in the Underground Railroad. Tubman had suffered from a disability for most of her life.
She had been hit in the head with a weight while she was an enslaved woman. the weight had been thrown at another man, and it hit her in the head. She suffered seizures for the rest of her life as a result of this injury. so she escaped on the Underground Railroad to Pennsylvania. And she's really well known because she returned to Maryland routinely over the next decade and helped another 70 or so slaves escape from Maryland.
Tubman's also known for her work during the Civil War. she was a spy. She was a nurse. and she planned and implemented the Columbus River raid in South Carolina, in which she traveled into Confederate held territory along the company River to recruit enslaved people to fight for the United States. she as well as these 700 individuals who she convinced to escape the plantations and join with the U.S. troops, destroyed plantations along the river.
so it was a very successful, military enterprise that Tubman orchestrated, and implemented. So all of these individuals that I've talked about, over the course of, of the past few minutes were people who continued to be active of even after slavery was abolished or even after the beginning of the Civil War, I should say, during the 1850s.
There's a number of significant political changes within the United States that lead to the coming of the Civil War. in 1850, for instance, there's the compromise of 1850, which led to the fear among northerners of a southern slave power in Washington, and a fear that Southerners and slave owners had corrupted the federal government. There was significant anger and outrage about the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which required citizens to assist in the return of fugitives from slaves.
So suddenly it became even more dangerous to be a fugitive from slavery in Philadelphia than it had been before, because now everybody else in Philadelphia was compelled by this law to to assist in the return of fugitives. the Fugitive Slave Act, which was not the first act in the United States. There had been a fugitive slave act on the books since 1793.
But this new Fugitive slave act had more teeth than the previous one. Not only did it require citizens to assist in the return of fugitives. if somebody was, deemed to be a slave, they did not have to appear before a judge. federal commissioners were appointed to enforce the act, and anyone who assisted in finding runaways, could be compensated for doing so.
similarly, anybody who assisted runaways, who did not return them could be forced to pay $1,000 in fines or spend six months in prison. the Fugitive Slave Act, resulted in people who were legally free being taken into slavery, as well as fugitives who had escaped slavery being taken back in chains. In 1854, in Boston, this happened with a man named Anthony Burns, who had ran away from enslavement in Virginia, owned a store in Boston.
and slave catchers eventually found him in Boston. He was dragged to prison in chains. a mob gathered outside of the Boston jail to demand his release. in the process, a deputy U.S. marshal was shot. Boston was placed under martial law, and the military had to be sent in. Burns was taken from this Boston prison to Virginia.
Later on, abolitionists paid $1,300 to purchase his freedom, but the incident itself provoked outrage among northerners and radicalized more white abolitionists who had been moderate beforehand. So, as I mentioned, many of these abolitionist, like Harriet Tubman, continued their work during the Civil War. the same networks that had supported free black communities and fugitives from enslavement mobilized to support the war effort.
The war created many refugees as enslaved people sought their freedom. and many of the same family networks and community networks that had been active, during the abolitionist movement and continued to fight for civil rights for African Americans during and after the war. Charlotte Forten Grimké is a good example of one of these individuals. And as you can probably guess based on her name, she was part of that Philadelphia forten family that was part of the black middle class.
Her grandfather was the sail maker. James Forten and her aunts were the founders of the Pennsylvania Female Anti-Slavery society. Charlotte Forten later married Frances James Grimké, who was the enslaved nephew of Sarah and Angelina Grimké from South Carolina. The two white abolitionist sisters. Their brother had fathered children with an enslaved woman. and Frances James Grimké was one of these children.
So Charlotte Forten Grimké. was educated as a teacher. she had been part of an anti-slavery society in Salem, Massachusetts. She had known the leading abolitionists and people like garrison, in addition to her own family members. And during the war, she went to Beaufort, South Carolina, to establish a school for some of these refugees from slavery.
And this Beaufort, South Carolina, in the South Carolina Sea Islands. hosted what was known as the Port Royal Experiment, in which freed people, established schools, established civic organizations in many ways. It was a rehearsal for reconstruction which followed after the Civil War. So again, Charlotte Forten Grimké. She had been educated by these abolitionists, had been part of that movement.
And then during and after the war and after the abolition of slavery with the 13th amendment continues those same strategies, that same kind of community organizing to fight for civil rights. even after the abolition of slavery.