The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition

824 Pages·2016·18.98 MB·English

by  Manisha Sinha

THE SLAVE’S CAUSE
THE SLAVE’S CAUSE
A History of Abolition
Manisha Sinha
Yale
UNIVERSITY PRESS
New Haven & London
Published with assistance from the Annie Burr Lewis Fund.
Published with assistance from the foundation established in memory of James Wesley Cooper of the Class
of 1865, Yale College.
Copyright © 2016 by Manisha Sinha. All rights reserved. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in
part, including illustrations, in any form (beyond that copying permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the
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10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
For Karsten, My German Philosopher
But while endowing her imaginary heroes with every perfection under the sun,
Jo was discovering a live hero, who interested her in spite of many human
imperfections. . . . There were lines upon his forehead, but Time seemed to have
touched him gently, remembering how kind he was to others.
—Louisa May Alcott, Little Women (1868)
CONTENTS
Acknowledgments
List of Abbreviations
Introduction: The Radical Tradition of Abolition
PART I. The First Wave
ONE. Prophets Without Honor
TWO. Revolutionary Antislavery in Black and White
THREE. The Long Northern Emancipation
FOUR. The Anglo-American Abolition Movement
FIVE. Black Abolitionists in the Slaveholding Republic
SIX. The Neglected Period of Antislavery
PART II. The Second Wave
SEVEN. Interracial Immediatism
EIGHT. Abolition Emergent
NINE. The Woman Question
TEN. The Black Man’s Burden
ELEVEN. The Abolitionist International
TWELVE. Slave Resistance
THIRTEEN. Fugitive Slave Abolitionism
FOURTEEN. The Politics of Abolition
FIFTEEN. Revolutionary Abolitionism
SIXTEEN. Abolition War
Epilogue: The Abolitionist Origins of American Democracy
Notes
Illustration Credits
Index
Illustrations follow Chapter 6
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This book has taken me ten years to write, and my debts are numerous. Perhaps
the largest is the one I owe to my research home away from home, the American
Antiquarian Society, where this project began during a yearlong National
Endowment for the Humanities fellowship. I have done the bulk of the research
for this book there, enjoying the luxury of reading abolitionist newspapers in
print and the excitement of coming across pamphlets personally signed and
donated to the society by the black abolitionist Martin Delany. I thank the AAS
community, for whom I became a fixture: Joanne Chaison, Ellen Dunlap, Paul
Erickson, Babette Gehnrich, John Keenum, Marie Lamoureux, Elizabeth Pope,
Caroline Sloat, and the numerous staff members who assisted me. Jaclyn Penny
generously reproduced many of the illustrations that grace this book. I am
thrilled that President Barack Obama has recognized this national treasure with a
National Humanities Medal. I also thank the librarians and staff at the Boston
Public Library, the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Library of Congress,
the Historical Society of Pennsylvania, the New-York Historical Society, the
Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public
Library, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the Rare Book and Manuscript
division of Butler Library at Columbia University, the Houghton and Widener
Libraries at Harvard University, and the W. E. B. Du Bois Library at the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, for their assistance. Nicole Joneic and
Krystal Appiah of the Library Company of Philadelphia also provided invaluable
assistance gathering images. Chris Densmore of the Friends Historical Library at
Swarthmore College shared his expertise on Quaker history with me.
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and its director, James
Basker, who shares my passion for all things antislavery, Deborah Schwartz of
the Brooklyn Historical Society, and Pamela Green of the Weeksville Heritage
Center, who hired me as the lead consultant for the exhibition In Pursuit of
Freedom on Brooklyn’s abolitionists, facilitated my research trips to New York
City. Above all, I would like to thank the benefactor of many of the institutions
mentioned above, Sid Lapidus. A delightful visit to his personal library of early
antislavery literature was the highlight of my research.
Much of the writing of this book was done at the AAS, during a faculty
fellowship year at the Charles Warren Center for Studies in American History,
Harvard University, and a sabbatical supported by the Howard Foundation at
Brown University and the University of Massachusetts. I thank all the fellows:
Daniel Carpenter, Dorothy Sue Cobble, Cornelia Dayton, Francoise Hamlin,
Maartje Janse, Albrecht Koschnick, Daniel Kryder, Cindy Lobel, Christopher
Lukasik, Lisa Materson, Timothy McCarthy, Lisa McGirr, Lisa Tetrault, and
Susan Ware. Dan Carpenter’s tremendous project of digitizing all known
abolitionist petitions will long prove a boon to scholars of antislavery. I thank
Nicole Topich for sending the entire database to me and Jennifer Fauxsmith of
the Massachusetts Archives for permission to reprint a petition gratis.
I want to acknowledge my professional home of nearly twenty years, the
University of Massachusetts, Amherst, where this book was conceived and
written. I cannot possibly name them all, but my colleagues in the Afro-
American; American; Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies; and History
Departments deserve special mention. I thank all those who attended my
presentations at the Five Colleges History Seminars, one at the start and the
other at the end of this book project: Chris Appy, Joyce Berkman, Joye
Bowman, David Glassberg, Jennifer Heuer, John Higginson, Margaret Hunt,
Bruce Laurie, Laura Lovett, Lynda Morgan, Kym Morrison, Brian Ogilvie,
Mary Renda, Leonard Richards, James Smethurst, Susan Tracy, Robert Weir,
and all the graduate students. Neal Salisbury’s comments at the first presentation
and Frank Couvares’s at the last were much appreciated. The Massachusetts
Society of Professors and the College of Humanities and Fine Arts provided me
with a generous budget for acquiring images.
I am particularly grateful to those who took the time to read my manuscript
when it was well over a thousand pages, truly a labor of friendship: Eric Foner,
who has always been there for me and who invited me to contribute to his
anthology Our Lincoln, and Graham Russell Hodges and James Sidbury, both of
whose work on early African American history I greatly admire. All three gave
me excellent advice on how to trim the manuscript and asked good questions.
John Stauffer has been a superb coadjutor, as the abolitionists would say. I value
his unstinting support.
I thank other scholars who supported me, sent me their work, solicited my
input, commented on parts of the book at conferences, and invited me for talks:
A. J. (Amy) Aiseirithe, Erica Ball, Edward Baptist, Ira Berlin, Robin Blackburn,
David Blight, Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham, Steve Bullock, Chris Cameron, the
late Stephanie Camp, Erik Chaput, Robert Churchill, Mathew Clavin, A. Glenn
Crothers, David Brion Davis, Andrew Delbanco, Allison Efford, Daniel Feller,
Sharla Fett, Barbara Fields, François Furstenberg, Sarah Gronningsater, Leslie
Harris, Stanley Harrold, Mischa Honeck, Martha Jones, Prithi Kanakamedala,
Jeffrey Kerr-Ritchie, Ethan Kytle, Drew McCoy, Richard Newman, James
Oakes, John Quinn, Patrick Rael, Stacey Robertson, the late Christopher
Schmidt-Nowara, David Smith, Mitchell Snay, Elizabeth Strodeur-Pryor, Kristin
Waters, and Michael West. Sam Haselby and Adam Rothman made me shorten
the title. I thank my current and former graduate students: Sean Alexander,
Kabria Baumgartner, Julia Bernier, Emahunn Campbell, Alex Carter, Nneka
Dennie, Crystal Donkor, Vanessa Fabien, David Goldberg, Erin Judge, Michael
Landis, Christopher Lehman, David Lucander, Zebulon Miletsky, Johanna
Ortner, Ousmane Power-Greene, Rita Reynolds, David Swiderski, Crystal
Webster, Robert Williams, and Peter Wirzbicki.
I owe a lot to my agent extraordinaire, Sandra Dijkstra, and to John Donatich,
the director of Yale University Press, for acquiring this book. The advice of my
wonderful editor, Christopher Rogers, was always stellar and consistently
encouraging. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with him. Erica Hanson,
Susan Laity, and Lawrence Kenney expertly shepherded the manuscript into
production.
My personal debts are also many. My ninety-year-old father and eighty-nine-
year-old mother, Srinivas and Premini Sinha, are still looking out for me. I value
the good cheer and support of my extended family, friends, and neighbors,
especially Abha “Bunty” Sawhney, Jean DiPanfilo Hahn, Malini Sood, Al and
Suzanne Thomas. I dedicate this book to my partner of over thirty years, Karsten
Stueber. There really is no other. Our sons Sheel and Shiv have lived with this
book. It has nearly spanned Sheel’s school years and Shiv’s entire life. Sheel
worked with the illustrations and read the proofs on the eve of his departure to
college. Shiv learned well from the abolitionists. He added a whipping post and
auction block to his school project on slavery. I could have finished this book a
bit earlier if I had not watched all their soccer, basketball, and baseball games.
But I wouldn’t have it any other way.
ABBREVIATIONS
AASS American Anti-Slavery Society
ACS American Colonization Society
AFASS American and Foreign Anti Slavery Society
AMA American Missionary Association
AMHL Anti-Man Hunting League
AMRS American Moral Reform Society
BFASS Boston Female Anti Slavery Society
British & Foreign ASS British and Foreign Anti Slavery Society
BVC Boston Vigilance Committee
CA Colored American
CFASS Concord Female Anti Slavery Society
DAS Delaware Abolition Society
ENYASS Eastern New York Anti Slavery Society
GCA General Colored Association
KAS Kentucky Abolition Society
LNYCASS Ladies New York City Anti Slavery Society
MAS Maryland Abolition Society
MASS Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society
NASS National Anti Slavery Standard
NCMS North Carolina Manumission Society
NEASS New England Anti Slavery Society
NHASS New Hampshire Anti Slavery Society
NYASS New York Anti Slavery Society
NYMS New York Manumission Society
OASS Ohio Anti Slavery Society
PAS Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery
PASS Pennsylvania Anti Slavery Society
PFASS Philadelphia Female Anti Slavery Society
PVC Philadelphia Vigilance Committee
RIASS Rhode Island Anti Slavery Society
SEAST Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave
Trade
TMS Tennessee Manumission Society
UGRR Underground Railroad
VC Vigilance Committee (various)
WASS Western Anti Slavery Society
WNYASS Western New York Anti Slavery Society