Biracial Abolitionism in the Heart of Slavery's Republic

Stanley Harrold. Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828-1865. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003. xv + 280 pp. $26.95, paper, ISBN 978-0-8071-2838-1. Reviewed by Michael Pierson Published on H-SHEAR (December, 2003) Biracial Abolitionism in the Heart of Slavery's yond simple alliance or teamwork and actually Republic forged a "community." All of these conclusions Stanley Harrold's new book continues his on‐ warrant further elaboration. going efforts to shift the attention of abolition Before examining the book's analytical points, studies southward. While the people of Boston, however, it is worth noting the factual scope of Peterboro, and points in between fgure in this the book. While it starts with the Gag Rule debates book, Harrold's focus is on Washington, D.C., and and their context, it really picks up steam in the there he fnds a surprising amount of abolitionist 1840s. There is an excellent chapter about Charles activity. By tracing the actions of these borderland Torrey and Thomas Smallwood's underground abolitionists, Harrold fashions three challenging railroad in the nation's capital. According to Har‐ conclusions. First, studying these abolitionists rold, it helped perhaps four hundred fugitives be‐ changes our perceptions of the entire antislavery tween 1842 and 1844. Facing constant opposition, movement, especially if we have spent too much their efforts eventually came to a crashing end time thinking about the Bostonians. Second, he amid a hail of slavecatchers' bullets and Torrey's posits that these men and women, by operating in fatal imprisonment. Other chapters about the the presence of slavery's political elite, significant‐ Pearl incident and Myrtilla Miner's school for ly influenced sectional politics. Third, Harrold African-American girls offer arguably the best finds in the abolitionist community of Washing‐ secondary accounts of those important but ne‐ ton, D.C., a significant amount of interracial coop‐ glected topics. As with the story of Torrey and eration. The group, he writes, could only function Smallwood, Harrold's chapters illuminate events as it did if blacks and whites cooperated on rela‐ and people who have previously occupied a sec‐ tively equal terms. Nor was it just a marriage of ondary place in the history of abolition. This is a convenience; Harrold argues that the white and welcome change, and not just because it redresses black abolitionists of the nation's capital went be‐ historiographic imbalances. Events like the Pearl H-Net Reviews incident, in which blacks and whites chartered a gressmen and caused southern politicians real ship, docked it in Washington, loaded seventy-sev‐ angst. These abolitionist subversives, he writes, en fugitive slaves on board, and sailed for Phila‐ made southern congressmen alarmed about the delphia only to be becalmed and captured at the safety of slavery in the United States. "The percep‐ last moment, cannot but excite the reader. Such tion among southern congressmen that slavery chapters are the stuff of successful undergraduate was under attack on its northern periphery," Har‐ classes. They are also enough to make even a sea‐ rold writes of southerners negotiating the Com‐ soned historian glad for the reminder that aboli‐ promise of 1850, "had a significant role in the sec‐ tionism was not all writing, speaking, praying, tional crisis that led to the compromise proposals" and holding conventions. (p. 164). Certainly slavery and the slave trade in Reclaiming such strangely neglected aboli‐ Washington, D.C., were big issues in the Compro‐ tionists and their actions allows Harrold to argue mise of 1850. And who can blame the southern for new understandings of the antislavery move‐ congressmen for being concerned? In another ment. Over the course of three earlier books, Har‐ dramatic attempt to help fugitives, white aboli‐ rold has tried to re-focus abolitionist historiogra‐ tionist William Chaplin and a free black abolition‐ phy on the places where freedom invaded slavery ist, Warner Harris, began to head north with two and vice versa. Whether it is his biography of slaves, Allen and Garland. These men were the Gamaliel Bailey (1986), his monograph Abolition‐ body servants of Congressmen Alexander ists and the South (1995), or his co-edited book of Stephens and Robert Toombs of Georgia. The fact essays Antislavery Violence (1999), Harrold lo‐ that they were apprehended after a "desperate cates abolitionists in places outside of the Boston- struggle" (p. 147) probably only partially re-as‐ upstate New York-Oberlin triangle. What he fnds sured the two southerners. Harrold argues that by there changes our picture of abolitionism. In the pressing slavery at its political nexus, the aboli‐ border regions, abolitionist men are aggressive, tionists there convinced "the South's white leaders not pacifist. Noting that Charles Torrey and that they had to take extraordinary measures to African Americans such as Thomas Smallwood as‐ defend slavery in the borderlands" (p. 256). When sumed "that they were tougher than the slave‐ Lincoln's election meant that steps to protect slav‐ holders" (p. 87), Harrold argues persuasively that ery in the capitol could no longer be taken, seces‐ the war against slavery along the freedom-slave sion seemed like a necessary step to protect slav‐ border pushed abolitionist gender ideologies to‐ ery from the aggressively antislavery community ward an "aggressive masculinity" that had more in Washington. After all, would a Republican ap‐ in common with John Brown than William L. Gar‐ point a police chief for the capital who would en‐ rison. In addition, abolitionism in Washington, in force the Fugitive Slave Law, as the previous ad‐ contrast to the North, was a more masculine com‐ ministrations had done? If they did not, who munity in terms of simple demographics; obvious‐ would guard against the future likes of Chaplin, ly, women played important roles, but they were Torrey, and the host of African Americans who la‐ not the majority that they represented farther bored with them? Harrold's study, by placing abo‐ north. lition literally under the noses of the southern po‐ litical elite, re-invigorates the claim for abolition‐ Harrold claims that the abolitionists in Wash‐ ism's importance. ington made a direct impact on sectional politics. Rather than a group of thinkers who indirectly in‐ Harrold's claim that there was an interracial stigated political conflicts, the abolitionists of community in Washington is timely and contro‐ Washington dealt directly with antislavery con‐ versial. Harrold argues that black and white aboli‐ tionists did more than just work together towards 2 H-Net Reviews a common goal. He writes that white and black ton's black leadership and by emphasizing their men and women formed a community based "on active role in recruiting white abolitionists sta‐ physical proximity and on a shared opposition to tioned in their city to their practical antislavery slavery" (p. 36). Drawing on sociology, Harrold de‐ measures, Harrold makes the claim for an interra‐ fines this biracial community as "relational," a cial community that is essentially initiated by community in which "empathy and altruism pre‐ blacks. They provide the physical and emotional dominate" (p. 38) rather than a temporary or ex‐ context for the city's abolitionist movement, and pedient alliance. This goes farther toward a claim one senses that whites such as Torrey and Chaplin for abolitionism as a true biracial community were brought into a pre-existing black community than historians usually go. Harrold does see limits as essential but minority elements of the move‐ to this biracialism, but he is adamant about study‐ ment. Perhaps the clear superiority of black orga‐ ing the subversives "as an example of how pro‐ nization in the city compelled white abolitionists gressive interracial cooperation ... could exist for to recognize the black community as both an inte‐ an extended period in a slaveholding region of gral part of abolition and as a necessary source of nineteenth-century America" (p. 255). emotional and social resources. It is Harrold's Harrold is careful to place limits on his claim. study of black abolitionists that makes his claim Interracialism, he notes, fell on hard times with to have unearthed a truly biracial community a the arrival of Free Soilism, and it deteriorated plausible interpretation for the 1840s and to a steadily over the 1850s and especially during the lesser degree the 1850s. Civil War years (pp. 169, 225-251). In addition, Like Harrold's other works focusing on the white abolitionists often worked only with the abolitionist campaign along the Mason-Dixon line, city's black "middle class," with whom they this book will challenge and sometimes enthrall shared values and Christianity. Black Washingto‐ its readers. It should also substantially redirect nians such as the Edmondsons--part white and abolition studies in a number of ways. very refined--were most frequently the recipients of white attention. But there were affinities, Har‐ rold writes, beyond those of class and culture. Ac‐ cording to Harrold, antislavery whites on the bor‐ der experienced external pressures that helped to forge interracial bonds. White abolitionists wit‐ nessed slavery's brutality frsthand, and the joint risks, triumphs, and social exclusions they shared with black abolitionists created emotional bonds between the two groups (pp. 45, 60). The presence of stronger interracial communities than aboli‐ tionist historians usually fnd, in other words, is yet another way that studying those who attacked slavery from within the institution itself changes our understanding of the movement as a whole. Harrold's study further strengthens its argu‐ ment for a biracial community by uncovering a great deal of evidence about the city's black aboli‐ tionists. By creating a rich portrait of Washing‐ 3 H-Net Reviews If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at https://networks.h-net.org/h-shear/ Citation: Michael Pierson.

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