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Abolition
The image of a chained and kneeling male slave at right is the well-known symbol of abolition, first used by the major English abolition society in the 1780s and later adopted by American abolitionists, as seen in the female slave image engraved in 1835 by Patrick Reason, "A Colored Young Man of the City of New York." The names of black abolitionist leaders are well known to students of American history, including Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, Harriet Tubman, Henry Highland Garnet, William Wells Brown, and Samuel Cornish (co-founder of the Colored American; see Theme III: COMMUNITY, #6, The Black Press). The first selection here presents excerpts from a variety of abolition speeches delivered by free blacks to audiences in churches, city halls, state fairs, and if necessary to elude white mobs, farmers' log cabins. What consistent messages do they deliver? What variants do they use, and for what purposes?
What led many free African Americans to be active in the abolitionist movement? The answer may seem obvious, but to lose the security of anonymity and "go public" as a spokesman for a polarizing issue was daunting. In the selections here from abolitionists' accounts of their experiences on the "lecture circuit," we read of being cursed by whites, egged and stoned by mobs, finding one's horse mutilated, and barely escaping re-capture and lynching.
The next selections are publications produced by abolition societies formed by black and white leaders. The first is a twelve-page pamphlet (here in digital images) entitled Facts for the People of the Free States, published in 1847 by the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (which had broken off from the American Anti-Slavery Society in opposition to its more radical views and its inclusion of women activists). The second is a collection of "songs for anti-slavery meetings" compiled by William Wells Brown in 1848 to spur the abolition movement.
From this index page, we recommend that you read the preface and read/sing these songs ("Air" refers to the music to which the lyrics should be sung). (xx pages)
"Ye Sons of Freeman" (sung to "La Marseillaise," the French national anthem)
"Spirit of Freedom, Wake" (sung to "America")
"I Am an Abolitionist" (sung to "Auld Lang Syne")
"Fling Out the Anti-Slavery Flag" (sung to "Auld Lang Syne")
"A Song for Freedom" (sung to "Dandy Jim [of Caroline]"; see Supplemental Links)
Discussion questions
- What aspects of the abolition speeches are familiar to you? Which are unfamiliar?
- What consistent messages do you find in the speeches? What variants do you find, and what purposes do they serve?
- How do abolitionist leaders deal with the dangers of their activism?
- How does the pamphlet's almanac-like format affect its anti-slavery message? For whom is the pamphlet published?
- Judging from William Wells Brown's preface and selection, what value are the anti-slavery songs to the abolitionist movement?
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Framing Questions
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How did enslaved African Americans construct communities over time? What were their principal characteristics? |
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What obstacles did slaves confront in constructing communities? |
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How did white Americans respond to the collective behavior of African Americans? |
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How was autonomy exercised through community by antebellum African Americans? |
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Printing
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Supplemental Sites
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| *PDF file - You will need software on your computer that allows you to read and print Portable Document Format (PDF) files, such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you do not have this software, you may download it FREE from Adobe's Web site. |
Images:
-Engraving depicting a female kneeling slave, by Patrick Reason, "A Colored Young Man of the City of New York, 1835" (caption at base of engraving). Massachusetts Historical Society. Permission pending.
-Woodcut depicting a kneeling male slave captioned "Am I Not a Man and a Brother?" from the 1837 broadside publication of John Greenleaf Whittier's anti-slavery poem, "Our Countrymen in Chains,"; image originally adopted as the seal of the Society for the Abolition of Slavery in England in the 1780s. More information at http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3j00250. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division (LC-USZC4-5321).
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