For ten days in June 1840, abolitionists from both sides of the Atlantic met together at the World Antislavery Convention in Freemason’s Hall in London, England. The purpose of the convention was to better organize and unite international abolitionist forces in the fight for emancipation. Ironically, while championing the freedom of black slaves, the convention reinforced a different type of...
“You son of a bitch: If you ever send such papers here again, we will come and give you a good Lynching…” wrote the Lynch Club of Charleston, South Carolina, to newspaper publisher William Lloyd Garrison, “So you had better keep them at home.” This was one of two letters that Garrison published in his paper, The Liberator, on February 15, 1839, sarcastically titled, “Polite Letters from...
Tension over slavery and race was high in the United States when Harriett Martineau, a famous English writer, came to visit in 1834. Martineau later wrote about her two year trip to America in a book called “Retrospect of Western Travels”, Volumes 1 and 2, which was published in 1938. In a chapter titled “First Sight of Slavery", Martineau wrote about an incident with an American woman in...
While most northern newspapers were printing articles celebrating the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, the Daily National Intelligencer published a sobering editorial that focused on the challenges still facing the nation. This editorial, printed on February 1, 1865 in response to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment by Congress, recognized the great accomplishment but also pointed out that...
As many northerners opposed slavery, some certainly did not. The idea of the abolition of slavery became the central political issue in the North as well as the South during the 1850s. In 1853, Doctor John H. Van Evrie of New York explained, “Gigantic efforts are now being made to convince the people of the North that the overthrow of the present relations of black and white races in the South, or...
This portrait of John Brown, the leader of the Raid on Harper’s Ferry in October of 1859, was drawn by an artist named David Hunter Strother after John Brown’s execution. and was published in Harper’s Weekly in June of 1866 and April of 1868. This was seen as important because it caused remembrance of the situation of Harper’s Ferry and how it was a key event in the Abolition of Slavery and...
In 1851, Hungarian revolutionary Louis Kossuth became an international celebrity who found himself trapped in the divisive slavery politics of the United States. He gained notoriety worldwide as a brilliant crusader for the liberty of his country, and upon announcing a tour around the United States to enlist support for his cause, Kossuth was met with the enthusiasm of the American media. The New York...
Slave-trading was not fully unlawful in Baltimore by June of 1841, and slave-owning was still considered befitting to the community, particularly on the plantations. Slave-dealing was conducted openly here. While public attitudes were changing about the institution, the local Christian community seemed too complacent to push for change. They instead attempted to show their pious and benevolent...
In the mid-19th century, the changes in the public mindset towards slavery had not yet been fully reinforced by law but the distaste with which other countries had viewed the institution for some time was clear. Blatant racism was still plainly evident, yet the abolition movement was now growing and the public response to prejudice was now becoming very different. After recent written accounts...
All that John Gornith heard as he stood tied to an oak tree in the Virginia woods was the crack of the whip. In 1851, the Vigilance Committee of Grayson County, Virginia arrested Gornith for spreading abolitionist propaganda. The Committee forced Gornith, a friend of an Ohio abolitionist, to renounce his abolitionist sentiments and leave the state, but not before tying him to a tree to "receive a dozen...