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Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white ptTOtographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. Bell & Howell Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 UMI’ RAISING THE MORAL CONSCIENCE: THE ATLANTIC MOVEMENT FOR AFRICAN-AMERICAN CIVIL RIGHTS, 1833-1919 DISSERTATION Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Allison J. Gough, M.A. **** The Ohio State University 2000 Dissertation Committee: Approved by Professor Warren R. Van Tine, Adviser Professor Birgitte So land _ ______________ Adviseif Professor Martha Garland History Graduate Department UMI Number 9982569 UMI* UMI Microform9982569 Copyright 2000 by Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Leaming Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 ABSTRACT This study re-examines the Atlantic movement for African-American Civil Rights from 1833-1919. It explores how a community of British and American activists sustained a crusade first to abolish slavery, and then, after 1863, to promote freedmen's rights in the United States. The study argues, contrary to previous scholarship, that this Atlantic movement continued after the Civil War in the hands of groups that scholars have hitherto neglected. Re­ examination of the ante-bellum Atlantic movement reveals that women and African-Americans in particular were important in sustaining trans-Atlantic activism and that the goals and tactics they utilized in the early nineteenth century dominated the f reedmen ' s rights campaign in the late nineteenth century. While this latter campaign never reached the heights of the ante-bellum crusade, organizations in the later period functioned as abeyance structures until the climate for reform became more supportive to their efforts. Their use of moral suasion in particular lent continuity to the Atlantic movement. Unable and unwilling to use more radical tactics to further equality, American reformers embraced moral suasion as their primary weapon in challenging ii the American racial statue quo. This moral suasion relied both on the maternal relationship between the two nations as well as Britain's position as the first abolitionist nation. Although racism played a role in undermining British support for freedman's relief, it was not the sole, or even most important cause of a decline in aid. Organizational difficulties, jurisdictional disputes, uncertain American leadership, distractions from numerous other competing domestic problems, the gendered nature of philanthropy, and debates within the American reform community over strategy all contributed to a decline in the Anglo-American movement after 1863. By the twentieth century the scope of the Atlantic movement had altered to encompass the world outside the English speaking Atlantic. The Atlantic abolitionist movement helped build the foundations for emerging Pan-Africanist organizations and other crusades to universalize the problem of the "color line" in the twentieth century. The Anglo- Americam crusade never really disappeared, therefore, but evolved into a wider crusade against racism by the outbreak of the First World War. iii Dedicated to Mum, Dad, Liz and Russell iv ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I could not have completed this dissertation without the help and encouragement of many people. The research for this project was financed with the aid of grants from the Alumni Research Foundation and the Ohio State University Department of History. I wish to thamk especially my adviser, Warren Van Tine, for his constant encouragement and, most of all, his patience through what has been a long process. Thanks to all my friends and colleagues at OSU and Southern State who inspired me and badgered me at just the right moments. Above all, thanks to my family who nurtured in me a love of history and who were unwavering in their support of my endeavors however far away from home they took me. Finally, but by no means least, thanks to Russell who put up with me at my most unbearable, refused to let me quit when I was most disheartened, and gently reminded me that screaming at the computer wouldn't achieve anything! VITA October 14, 1967........ B om, Banbury, Oxfordshire, England 1989................... B. A. (Hons) Durham University, England 1992................... M.A. History, Ohio State University 1989-1996.............. Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History Ohio State University 1997-present........... Instructor, Southern State Community College PUBLICATIONS "The Holly Maguires, " and "The Ku Klux Klan" in Encvclonedia of World Terrorism (Armonk, New York: Sharpe Reference, 1997), Vol. 1. FIELDS OF STUDY Major Field: History Vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page Abstract.................................................. 11 Dedlcatxcm.............................. Iv Acknowledgments............................................ v Vita...................................................... vl Chapters : Introduction............................................... 1 1. Exposing the Monster of Darkness to Light: The Atlantic Abolition Movement, 1833-1860........... 16 2. The Atlantic Abolitionist Movement Flounders, 1860-1863............................................ 89 3. "The Genuine Roar of the British Lion So Long Asleep:" The Revival of the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1863-1865.................... 146 4. Fit for Freedom? Jamaica and the Atlantic Freedmen's Aid Movement............................ 192 5. "Overmuch Philanthropy Is a Weariness of the Flesh:" Freedman's Aid after Jamaica, 1865-1880___ 246 6. The AMA and the Campaign of the Jubilee Singers In Britain......................................... 290 7. "I Had to Cry Out for Them, for Us:" Feminizing the Atlantic Reform Community.............333 8. A Door in the Stone Wall of Silence: Ida B.Wells and the Ant 1 -Lynching Crusade In Britain.............391 9. A Pan-Af rIcanlst Post Script......................... 427 Conclusion............................................... 463 Bibliograqphy............................................. 471 vll INTRODUCTION We won a spectacular victory over injustice, oppression, and evil...How wonderful it is to be able to say to the international community that that spectacular victory would have been totally impossible without your help...your commitment to our cause. On behalf of millions of my compatriots it is a great privilege to say, thank you, thank you, thank you. Our victory in a real sense is your victory.^ Desmond Tutu's sentiments at the dismantling of Apartheid in South Africa in the 1990 ' s came 130 years after the demise of slavery in the United States and 160 years after the abolition of black servitude within the British Empire. Though separated by a century or more, these events are obviously and indissolubly linked. They stand along the continuum of colonial and post-colonial struggles for liberation, of the diffusion of the enlightenment ideals of natural aund human rights, and of the national struggles against racial oppression and injustice. Yet these events share a greater connection: they are united by their internationalist character. While Archbishop Tutu and others rightly acknowledge the role the international community played in fighting racial injustice in South Africa, scholars have largely ignored the transnational dimension of the abolitionist and civil rights movements of the nineteenth century. This study moves beyond the national identities ascribed to the antislavery and freedmen's aid movements to reveal that, a century and a half before the liberation of black South Africans, many abolitionists and race reformers of the nineteenth century thought, lived, and acted within an international reform context. Twentieth century historiography has well-documented the history of abolitionism and the freedman's aid movement. Less well charted is the Atlantic dimension of these efforts.^ Since the 1920*s and Reginald Coupland's valuable, albeit brief, study of the socio-cultural dimension of the Anglo- American relationship, little scholarship has studied the role of the Atlantic community in promoting African-American civil rights. This dissertation seeks to fill