The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Emancipation
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34. [Bacon], “Report of the Committee,” 303–4, 309.
35. Ibid., 309–10.
36. In the 1820s, American free blacks became increasingly aware that emigration to Liberia had resulted in the literal death of many of their brethren.
37. Memoirs of American Missionaries, 13–14, 217–19; P. J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement, 1816–1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961), 18–19, 28, 37–47; [Bacon],“Report of the Committee,” 307, 309, 312, 316.
38. Lawrence B. Goodheart, Abolitionist, Actuary, Atheist: Elizur Wright and the Reform Impulse (Kent, Ohio: Kent State University Press, 1990), 37, 44, 46, 56, 80. Wright, who like most abolitionists of his generation had once supported the colonization movement, wrote to Bacon in 1837: “I put it to your inmost soul Bacon: you know you were wrong in that whole miserable humbug of colonization. …Now take my advice and come out like a man—a true Christian—and confess your sin.” Ibid., 37.
39. Theodore Bacon, Leonard Bacon, 187; Staudenraus, African Colonization Movement, 77–78, 117.
40. [Bacon], “Report of the Committee,” 313.
41. Ibid., 306, 312.
42. Ibid., 307, 314–15.
43. Samuel H. Cowles to Leonard Bacon, Feb. 9, 1825, part 1, box 1, folder 19, Bacon Family Papers.
44. Cowles to Bacon, Feb. 9, 1825; David E. Swift, Black Prophets of Justice: Activist Clergy before the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), 19–23.
45. Cowles to Bacon, Feb. 9, 1825; D. Greene to Leonard Bacon, April 25, 1824, part 1, box 1, folder 16, Bacon Family Papers.
46. Greene to Bacon, April 25, 1824.
47. Cowles to Bacon, Feb. 9, 1825.
48. Ibid.
49. Ibid.
50. Ibid.; Julie Winch, Philadelphia’s Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation, and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787–1848 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 29–38.
51. Cowles to Bacon, February 9, 1825.
7. FROM OPPOSING COLONIZATION TO IMMEDIATE ABOLITION
1. John Hepburn, The American Defence of the Christian Golden Rule, or An Essay to Prove the Unlawfulness of Making Slaves of Men (Philadelphia: Andrew Bradford, 1714), 23–43.
2. Yet, some eighty years before Congress outlawed the slave trade in 1808, America’s slave population began to benefit from rapid natural growth. North America absorbed no more than 5 percent of the African slaves transported to the New World.
3. Gary B. Nash, Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community, 1720–1840 (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 1988), 101. James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community, and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700–1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1997), 179. George E. Brooks, “The Providence African Society’s Sierra Leone Emigration Scheme, 1794–1795: Prologue to the African Colonization Movement,” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 7, no. 2 (1974): 185–86.
4. This vague sense of Africa and the importance of the Sierra Leone model is demonstrated in a recently discovered source. See Richard S. Newman, Roy E. Finkenbine, and Douglass Mooney, “Philadelphia Emigrationist Petition, circa 1792: An Introduction,” William and Mary Quarterly 64, no. 1 (Jan. 2007): 162.
5. For the Edwardsean antislavery tradition, see Kenneth P. Minkema and Harry S. Stout, “The Edwardsean Tradition and the Antislavery Debate, 1740–1865,” Journal of American History 92, no. 1 (June 2005): 52–55, and passim. For Hopkins and his role in Providence among the black population, see Brooks, “The Providence African Society’s Sierra Leone Emigration Scheme,” 185–86; Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 179. For a general account of Hopkins’s life, see Joseph A Conforti, Samuel Hopkins and the New Divinity Movement: Calvinism, the Congregational Ministry, and Reform in New England Between the Great Awakenings (Grand Rapids, Mich: Christian University Press, 1981).
6. Nash, Forging Freedom, 101.
7. Ibid.; Brooks, “The Providence African Society’s Sierra Leone Emigration Scheme,” 187; Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 179.
8. Sheldon H. Harris, Paul Cuffe: Black American and the African Return (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972), 15–17.
9. Ibid., 58.; Lamont Thomas, Rise to Be a People: A Biography of Paul Cuffe (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986), 4, 73–74, 88–91.
10. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 186.
11. I rely heavily on Julie Winch’s excellent biography of James Forten, A Gentleman of Color: The Life of James Forten (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002), 177–97; Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 177–87.
12. From 1800 to 1810, the free black population increased by 72 percent. Calculated from the table in Remarks on the Colonization of the Western Coast of Africa by the Free Negroes of the United States, and the Consequent Civilization of African and Suppression of the Slave Trade (New York: W. L. Burroughs Steam Power Press, 1850), 9. For a thorough and modern demographic analysis of free black population patterns in the major cities of the United States see Leonard P. Curry, The Free Black in Urban America, 1800–1850: The Shadow of the Dream (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981).
13. Nash, Forging Freedom, 242.
14. Quoted in Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 188.
15. Winch, A Gentleman of Color, 182.
16. Thomas, Rise to Be a People, 118, 118n18.
17. Winch, A Gentleman of Color; Isaac Van Arsdale Brown, Biography of Robert Finley (Philadelphia, 1819), 99–102, quoted in William Loren Katz, introduction to William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization (New York: Arno Press and the New York Times, 1968), vii.
18. As early as January 10, 1817, a meeting of blacks in Georgetown expressed their unwavering opposition to African colonization but indicated a willingness to consider a settlement on the Missouri River. Winch, Gentleman of Color, 189–90.
19. Ibid., 189–91.
20. Nash, Forging Freedom, 237.
21. Quoted in ibid., 237–38.
22. Katz, introduction to Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization, ix.
23. William Lloyd Garrison, Thoughts on African Colonization: Or, an Impartial Exhibition of the Doctrines, Principles and Purposes of the American Colonization Society. Together with the Resolutions, Addresses and Remonstrances of the Free People of Color (Boston: Printed and published by Garrison and Knapp, 1832), Part 2, 9.
24. Ibid. Part 2, 10.
25. Ibid., Part 1, Introductory Remarks, 40, 6.
26. Ibid., Part 2, 11.
27. Ibid.
28. Ibid., 11–12.
29. In fact, many black abolitionists would subsequently remember the anticolonization protest as the “Spirit of 1817.” Julie Winch, Philadelphia’s Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation, and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787–1848 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), 38.
30. Between 1804 and 1808, there was a significant increase in the number of African slaves imported into the South, mainly South Carolina. Most of the 40,000-plus imports were legal and were brought in response to the demand created by the Louisiana Purchase and the knowledge that importations would soon be prohibited.
31. David Brion Davis, Challenging the Boundaries of Slavery (Cambridge, Mass.; Harvard University Press, 2003), 35–36.
32. For a discussion of why this occurred, and the meanings surrounding “African” see Ira Berlin, “Time, Space, and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on British Mainland North America,” The American Historical Review 85, no. 1 (Feb. 1980): 53; Craig Steven Wilder, In the Company of Black Men: The African Influence on African American Culture in New York City (New York: New York University Press, 2005), 158.
33. Quoted in ibid.
34. This opposition to the ACS had the unintended effect of opening black lines of communication from Canada, the West Indies, Africa, and all along the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. These new international connections were further strengthened as bl
ack denominations, such as Richard Allen’s African Methodist Episcopal Church, began to conduct missionary activity abroad. Laurie F. Maffly-Kipp, Setting Down the Sacred Past: African-American Race Histories (Cambridge, Mass: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010), 50–51.
35. Daniel Walker Howe, What Hath God Wrought: The Transformation of America, 1815–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007), 263.
36. Horton and Horton, In Hope of Liberty, 194.
37. Ibid., 195.
38. John Brown Russwurm, “Condition and Prospects of Haiti,” John Brown Russwurm Papers, Bowdoin College Archives, Brunswick, Maine.
39. Weekly Anglo-African, Jan. 12, 1861. The staying power of affection for Haiti throughout the antebellum period and beyond is rather phenomenal given the numbers of returned emigrants. The symbolism of what Haiti represented to American blacks clearly outweighed the setbacks of emigration. For a thorough analysis of this “legacy” in the nineteenth century, see Philip N. Edmondson, “The St. Domingue Legacy in Black Activist and Antislavery Writings in the United States, 1791–1862” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, College Park, 2003).
40. Richard S. Newman, The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2002), 96.
41. Ibid., 99, 103.
42. Bella Gross, “Freedom’s Journal and the Rights of All,” The Journal of Negro History 17, no. 3 (July 1932): 245.
43. For Cornish’s early life and work I rely heavily on Christopher Allison, “Floating on the Stream of Prejudice: The Making of the Religious Activism of Samuel Cornish” (M.A. thesis, Yale University, 2010); the first significant biographical treatment is Howard Nathaniel Christian, “Samuel Cornish: Pioneer Negro Journalist” (M.A. thesis, Howard University, 1936). A concise and critical chapter (with a few biographical errors) is “The Negro Conservative: Samuel Eli Cornish” in Jane H. and William H. Pease, Bound with Them in Chains; a Biographical History of the Antislavery Movement, Contributions in American History, no. 18 (Westport, Conn: Greenwood Press, 1972), 140–61. For an excellent analysis of Cornish’s interactions with other abolitionists and reformers, white and black, see David E. Swift, “Black Presbyterian Attacks on Racism: Samuel Cornish, Theodore Wright and Their Contemporaries,” Journal of Presbyterian History 51 (Dec. 1, 1973): 433–70; Swift, Black Prophets of Justice: Activist Clergy Before the Civil War (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1989), especially chapters 3, 4, and 5.
44. Sandra Sanford Young, “John Brown Russwurm’s Dilemma: Citizenship or Emigration?” in Prophets of Protest: Reconsidering the History of American Abolitionism, ed. Timothy P. McCarthy and John Stauffer (New York: New Press, 2006), 92 and passim.
45. Ibid.
46. For a good exposition of antiblack sentiment, in print and in public in the 1820s, leading up to the publication of Freedom’s Journal, see Shane White, Stories of Freedom in Black New York (Cambridge, Mass: Harvard University Press, 2002), 46–51; Swift, Black Prophets of Justice, 32.
47. David Brion Davis, “The Emergence of Immediatism in British and American Antislavery Thought,” in Davis, From Homicide to Slavery: Studies in American Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1984), 238–57; previously published in Mississippi Valley Historical Review 49, no. 2 (September 1962): 209–30.
48. The result of this refusal to print black protest meant that most whites were largely ignorant of the fact that there was significant black opposition to colonization. Thus, when Garrison published The Liberator, accusations that Garrison had tainted the people of color against colonization were natural. There would only be pockets of whites who were aware of black opposition prior to the 1830s. Swift, Black Prophets of Justice, 26.
49. Ibid., 40. Cornish and Russwurm seemed to have been substantially more optimistic about the exposure of the Journal among the black populace, despite the obvious barriers of literacy: “interesting fact that there are FIVE HUNDRED THOUSAND free persons of colour, one half of whom might peruse, and the whole be benefited by the publications of the Journal.” Freedom’s Journal, March 16, 1827.
50. The assessment that Cornish was the more dominant voice during the first six months of Freedom’s Journal has been affirmed by most close observers of Cornish’s life and Freedom’s Journal. See Swift, Black Prophets of Justice, 30; Christopher Allison, “Floating on the Stream of Prejudice,” 32; Gross, “Freedom’s Journal and the Rights of All,” 247–48. Timothy Patrick McCarthy, “ ‘To Plead Our Own Cause’: Black Print Culture and the Origins of American Abolitionism,” in McCarthy and Stauffer, Prophets of Protest, 131. Also, in Cornish’s departure note he indicates his dominance as well: “Six months of our Editorial labours having expired; by mutual consent, and good wishes for the prosperity and usefulness of each other, our connection in the ‘JOURNAL,’ is this day dissolved, and the right and prerogatives exclusively vested in the Junior Editor, J.B. RUSSWURM.” “To Our Patrons,” Freedom’s Journal, Sept. 14, 1827.
51. “To Our Patrons,” Freedom’s Journal, March 16, 1827.
52. Allison, “Floating on the Stream of Prejudice,” 2.; “Colonization Society,” Freedom’s Journal, June 8, 1827. In this same article he expresses his careful deference, but firm disagreement: “There are many friends of colonization, whom we respect, and for no consideration, would we be guilty of treating their opinions lightly. Their objects are emancipation; the salvation of Africa; and the extermination of the slave trade. Nothing could be more worthy the philanthropist, and the Christian. …In soliciting patronage to our Journal among Colonizationists, we expressed ourselves to many of them, as opposed to colonization in any shape, unless it be merely considered as a missionary establishment; yet, if we were wrong, our minds were open to conviction, and we wished to see the subject discussed; they were generally pleased with the idea. If the Colonization Society possess any merits, it cannot lose by investigation; but if the motives of its founders will not bear investigation, it ought to sink: every good man will say the same.”
53. Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), 184.
54. Walker’s Appeal reserves his praise for two individuals in The Appeal, Cornish and Richard Allen. Theodore Wright: “The press came out against us, and we trembled. Maryland passed laws to force out the colored people. It was deemed proper to make them go, whether they would or not. Then we despaired. Ah, Mr. President, that was a dark and gloomy period. The united views and intentions of the people of color were made known, and the nation awoke as from slumber. The ‘Freedom’s Journal,’ edited by Rev. Sam’l. E. Cornish, announced the facts in the case, our entire opposition. Sir, it came like a clap of thunder!” ADDRESS. of the Rev. Theodore S. Wright, “BEFORE THE CONVENTION OF THE NEW YORK STATE ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY, ON THE ACCEPTANCE OF THE ANNUAL REPORT, HELD AT UTICA, SEPT. 30,” Colored American, Oct. 14, 1837.
55. “Colonization Society,” Freedom’s Journal, June 8, 1827.
56. Allison, “Floating on the Stream of Prejudice,” 33. Cornish writes of his response to Russwurm’s departure: “… the sudden change of the late Editor of ‘Freedom’s Journal’ in respect to colonization, has excited much astonishment, and led to many inquiries; to me the subject is equally strange as to others, and I can only dispose of it, by classing it with the other novelties of the day.” He encouraged his readers to “dispose” of their feelings over what had transpired and support the new venture. See “TO OUR PATRONS, AND THE PUBLICK GENERALLY” Rights of All, May 29, 1829. Others were less civil: “This John B. Russworm is known, I presume, to every one of us; his ingratitude is but too deeply stamped on the minds of many … which neither time nor space will obliterate. After he subverted the pledge he made to his colored brethren, he left, to our satisfaction, his country—suffused with shame—and branded with the stigma of disgrace—to dwell in that land for which the temptor MONEY caused him to avow his preferment.… we will pray God, that his notions of no
bleness may never enter our hearts, and that we will not be contented with our condition, but will make it better in this our native home.” “To the Editor of the Liberator” The Liberator, April 16, 1831, quoted in The Mind of the Negro as Reflected in the Letters Written During the Crisis, ed. Carter G. Woodson (New York: Russell & Russell, 1969), 161.
57. “Colonization,” Freedom’s Journal, March 14, 1829.
58. “The Old Hobby Colonization,” Rights of All, Sept. 18, 1829.
59. Russwurm’s defection to Liberia haunted The Rights of All from the start. The Rights of All was initially supposed to be a continuation of Freedom’s Journal, with Cornish back at the helm. But Cornish was forced to change the name to distance himself from the scandal and to incur a lot of debt to keep the paper going; he was apologetic to his readers in the inaugural edition of The Rights of All over both the slippage in quality of Freedom’s Journal and the opinions of its late editor. By October of 1829, recurrent sickness and insurmountable financial obstacles led to the closure of Cornish’s second paper; once again Cornish was finished after only six months. Allison, “Floating on the Stream of Prejudice,” 32–33.
60. Newman, Transformation of American Abolitionism, 97.
61. David Walker, Walker’s Appeal, in Four Articles; Together with a Preamble to the Coloured Citizens of the World, but in Particular, and Very Expressly, to Those of the United States of America, Written in Boston, State of Massachusetts, September 28, 1829, Third and Last Edition with additional notes, corrections, &c. (Boston, Mass.: David Walker, 1830), 76.
62. Garrison acknowledged The Rights of All and called Cornish “a colored gentleman of intelligence and spirit.” See Genius of Universal Emancipation, Feb. 5, 1830, vol. 4, issue 22. He reprinted original pieces from Freedom’s Journal (a Lundy tribute from the March 21, 1828, issue) in the Philanthropist, though it is unknown if he read any of the journal in 1827 when Cornish was senior editor. Henry Mayer, All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery, 1st ed. (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1998), 54. Garrison called Walker’s Appeal one of the most “remarkable productions of the age” with an “impassioned and determined spirit.” He thought Walker’s call for retributive justice was “injudicious” but recognized that his call to resistance was the right of a free people. “WALKER’S APPEAL NO. I,” The Liberator, January 8, 1831, 1:2.