here have been principled Leaders of the charity brilliantly objections to slavery for orchestrated massive shifts in Tas long as there has been public sentiment. slavery—which is to say, from the first days of human history. Organizing culture change But hatred of enslavement didn’t Culture change is not for cowards, become a mass conviction until and abolitionists were bullied from A case study Christian philanthropists in Britain the moment they first stuck their and America got deeply involved heads up. Changing Society through Civil Action in popular campaigns to expose As part of their broader effort to slavery as an ugly, immoral, and refine Americans through worship, sinful activity, utterly incompatible education, discussion, and service, with life in a free land. This was Arthur and had in demanding and dangerous work 1832 leased a tatterdemalion old that required guile, endurance, theater in lower and commitment, courage, managerial converted it into a church. The genius, and money. The movement building “squatted in the midst 64 got all of these things from leaders of the slums” next to Five Points, Abolition like Arthur and Lewis Tappan. a neighborhood notorious for Fired by their deep evangelical its gangs and grog shops. During Christian convictions, the Tappan recent years the theater had been brothers were leading providers of home to a circus, and with his strategy and funding to the cause sharp nose for drama and public of abolishing slavery. (They also interest, Lewis noted that “the powered many other important sensation produced by converting social reforms. For some biography the place with slight alterations on the men, see the last third of into a church will be very great, the case study on the Second Great and curiousity will be excited.” Awakening.) Arthur was the lead The Tappans placed their funder and visionary, and Lewis the Chatham Street Chapel at the vital organizer, behind creation of disposal of Charles Grandison the American Anti-Slavery Society. Finney—a powerful public speaker, Starting from nothing in 1833, the former lawyer, and Presbyterian AASS quickly became the largest minister who had recently led and most effective culture-change a series of phenomenally large organization in American history. and passionate religious revivals across upstate and other a group of opponents posted parts of the country, bringing handbills and gathered a crowd the boiler of the Second Great for a counter-meeting. Whipped Awakening to its peak steam. In into a frenzy by speechifiers, addition to the large services the assemblage turned to angry attracted by Finney, the chapel was protest. They streamed out of made available to other groups Tammany Hall, where they had of black and white worshipers, convened, and surged a few blocks as a venue for religious music to the Chatham Street Chapel, concerts, and as a public lecture where they broke up that inaugural and meeting location for various meeting of anti- charitable associations the slavers. At least one drunken rioter Tappans supported, including the pursued Arthur and Lewis Tappan first national convention of the into the darkness with a lantern U.S. Sunday-school movement (see and dagger, but allies hustled the companion case study) and many reformers away. abolitionist gatherings. The brothers were not cowed. Large-scale organizing of ­anti- Arthur funded a new abolitionist This painting depicts slaves waiting to be sold. The fact that slavery 65 slavery societies began, as things newspaper called the broke up families was one of the arguments used to turn hatred of often do in America, at the state Emancipator. He provided grants enslavement into a mass conviction. level. The New York Anti-Slavery to set up anti-slavery societies Society was created at a meeting in other states. He and Lewis the Tappan brothers arranged at were sparkplugs behind the Chatham Street Chapel on October convening of the first national 2, 1833. And before the charity was convention of abolitionists. At American philanthropists engineered two hours old, a riot broke out. that gathering, in Philadelphia, a range of popular campaigns that The new society was having a Declaration of Sentiments was a respectably dull democratic approved, and the American exposed slavery as an ugly, immoral, birth—written constitution Anti-Slavery Society was adopted, officers elected launched to coordinate civil and sinful activity, utterly incompatible ( was chosen as actions aimed at ending human president)—when a mob tried bondage on our shores. with life in a free land. This was to snatch up the baby and bash Philanthropists across the its brains out. When they heard country started to publicize demanding and dangerous work. that an anti-slavery association simple moral arguments against was being organized in the city, enforced servitude: • It’s immoral that slaves Whittier. But slavery apologists should be blocked from had infiltrated the balcony, and practicing organized faith. now they rained down prayer books and hymnals from above. A great crusade had begun. Stomping, hissing, and fighting, they drove the worshipers away. Violence against freedom The pro-slavery press As prominent merchants, famous celebrated the action, and backers of benevolent groups, and published more calumny about now chief donors and organizers what the Anti-Slavery Society of slavery-fighting charities, the and its backers were up to. A few Tappan brothers had a high profile days later, bullies were back at in New York City. Vicious rumors the chapel, throwing benches, were spread about their aims trashing the premises, and beating and practices, and those of their bystanders. They traveled a short philanthropic allies. It was claimed distance across lower Manhattan that Arthur Tappan had divorced to Lewis Tappan’s home at 40 Rose 66 his wife and taken up with a Street and yelled for him to come black woman. It was said that out, before finally dispersing. abolitionists wanted to dissolve The next evening, a mob of The Tappan brothers acquired an old circus theater and turned it into an the Union, that they sought “racial several thousand people gathered evangelical church where people of all races and persuasions were gathered to mongrelization,” that they were on the streets and began to worship, and to fight for social reforms like temperance, Sunday schooling, and going to violate the Constitution. maraud. The violence was observed the abolition of slavery. It became a flash point for violent opponents. On a hot July 4, seven and even orchestrated by some months after the founding of leading citizens. A well-dressed the American Anti-Slavery man on a horse led the crowd back • No one, they insisted, has • Husbands and wives Society, Lewis Tappan opened to Tappan’s house on Rose Street. the right to buy and sell should be legally married the Chatham Street Chapel to Lewis was warned that trouble was other human beings. and protected from a racially mixed congregation on the way and he and his family • It is wrong for slaveowners involuntary separation. for a special worship service. fled. The rabble broke down his to be able to severely • The pattern of planters Tappan himself gave a “forcible front door, smashed windows, and punish and even kill a slave making concubines of slaves and impressive” presentation of entered and vandalized the home. without trial. is sinful and abusive. abolitionist principles. Then white They dragged all of the family’s • Parents should never have • Laws prohibiting education and black choirs began to sing a personal possessions—clothing, their children taken away of the enslaved must new anti-slavery hymn written for pictures, furniture, personal papers, from them and sold. be repealed. the occasion by John Greenleaf and so forth—into the street and set them on fire. Arthur observed three-story warehouse and store the destruction of his brother’s run by the Tappan brothers at 122 domicile from the nearby shadows. Pearl Street, on Hanover Square, Some observers suggest the where they beat police trying to house was saved from even more guard the premises, pummeled the complete destruction by a spasm of building with rocks, and attempted rectitude among the rabble. It seems to batter in the front door with a portrait of a street pole. But it was a heavy was one of the items torn from the granite building, and Arthur family walls and handed out to the Tappan had holed up inside with street. Someone observed that it some clerks and friends—to was an image of the father of our whom he handed out 36 muskets, country and shrieked, “for God’s with orders to shoot low and sake, don’t burn Washington.” The disable anyone entering. When a cry rippled through the ranks of watchman told the attackers as the brawlers: “For God’s sake, don’t he was being stabbed and beaten burn Washington!,” and there was that the building was full of armed a lull in the violence. A later writer men, the invasion halted. In the anti-abolition riots that swept New York City in 1834, 67 recorded that “in an instant, the Other rioters sought out Arthur thousands of ruffians, egged on by slavery apologists in city government, spirit of disorder was laid, and the Tappan at his lodgings, but found the media, and commercial classes, attacked a range of targets: portrait handed carefully from man the premises guarded by soldiers. philanthropists, their homes, and their places of business; to man, til, at length, the populace By now the Tammany Democrats black residents; and churches, including the Chatham Street Chapel. carried it to a neighboring house for who had helped foment the anti- safety,” attended by an honor guard abolitionist uproar were concerned of rioters. About then, a group of that the violence was out of control watchmen and firefighters arrived, and could threaten prosperous and the mob was driven off. allies, so they belatedly called But the next day they were in cavalry troops and infantry, Within months of the founding of out again, smashing black and and placed the city under martial white abolitionist churches, law. Police and soldiers flooded the American Anti-Slavery Society, beating blacks on the street, Manhattan. They were told to deal and threatening to destroy leniently with the ruffians, though, rioters were attacking the homes and Chatham Street Chapel, offices and most of the 150 leaders of of abolitionist publications, and the multiday violence who were businesses of its charitable backers. homes of other white donors and arrested got quickly released by

Image of Draft Riot depicting street scene comparable to Abolition Riot. to scene comparable street Riot depicting of Draft Image leaders. They roared up to the political authorities. The great mailing campaign the 27th Regiment of Infantry had New York’s political establishment been clubbed, stoned, or stabbed. and pro-slavery elements of the This became national news. press initially tried to airbrush Descriptions of how white and black this anti-abolitionist violence. The advocates of ending slavery were destruction of Lewis Tappan’s home being violently persecuted spread was described in the Courier and across the country. The same stories Enquirer newspapers as a peaceful outlined the principles of the new demonstration by some gentlemen, national and state-level Anti-Slavery in the course of which a window was Societies, and precisely how their broken. To put the lie to this false members hoped to change America. reporting Lewis announced he was Despite their narrow escapes, going to leave the ruined shell of his both of the Tappan brothers were house, strewn with his destroyed undeterred. Arthur immediately personal possessions and those of put up the money to have 15,000 his wife and children, exactly as the copies of a special installment of attackers left things, to serve as a the Emancipator circulated. One 68 “silent anti-slavery preacher to the ally observed that in the aftermath crowds who will flock to see it.” With of the riots Arthur Tappan’s “whole his vivid sense for public sentiment, soul never seemed so enlisted.” he recognized that his personal Lewis too was invigorated by the misfortune provided an opportunity danger. His only defensive reaction to advertise his cause, and the was to start carrying a copy of cruelty of those who opposed it. His the in his breast wife, Susan, was similarly brave and pocket. After one of the Manhattan stoic, joking with her husband as she pro-slavery newspapers suggested viewed the wreckage that the events that local residents were ready “to had pared away some furnishings he give him a second lesson in public This 1834 map of lower Manhattan shows some of the sites where had never liked anyway. manners,” he wrote that “the marauding gangs attacked abolitionists and their religious, commercial, The final accounting from the Lord, we trust, will overrule this and charitable institutions. The star labeled 1 is the Chatham Street riot, though, was no joke. Seven ‘madness of the people.’” Chapel, where some of the earliest attacks began. The star labeled 2 is churches and a dozen houses had In the weeks after the 1834 Lewis Tappan’s house, which was demolished by the mob, including been wrecked. Fires smoldered riot, the two brothers and their almost all of his family’s personal possessions. The star labeled 3 is the Tappan brothers’ silk business, where Arthur saved the building from across southern Manhattan. Scores abolitionist allies resolved to fight destruction by holing up inside with 36 friends armed with muskets. of private citizens had been beaten, back. Except they would use words Other sites are churches or homes that were assaulted. and many police and members of rather than battering rams and stones. They made a plan to flood American Anti-Slavery Society’s the U.S. with anti-slavery mailings. publications committee, headed by These philanthropists founded, Lewis Tappan, had the first batch of expanded, and subsidized a host of newspapers, magazines, journals, weekly and monthly publications and pamphlets ready—175,000 devoted to popularizing separate items delivered to the main arguments against enslavement. New York City post office in large CHURCH These included high-circulation piles. From then on, at least 25,000 newspapers, a children’s magazine copies of each publication rolled off (which Lewis Tappan headed up the presses each week, and over the himself as it was being created), next ten months the society mailed a more philosophical journal, out a total of more than a million and a heavily illustrated monthly. pieces of anti-slavery literature. With extensive volunteer labor, these publications and others Speaking and authoring were churned out in volume on This mail blitz was just the most new steam-powered presses, and visible prong of the moral suasion then staged at New York City campaign. At the same time, the 69 post offices to be hurried across American Anti-Slavery Society the country. The campaign was launched special efforts to woo powered by $30,000 of personal ministers. Anti-slavery materials donations pledged to the American were printed up for use by the Anti-Slavery Society. Sunday schools beginning to The abolitionists called this burgeon across the land. Among their effort in “moral suasion.” the hundreds of thousands of new The National Postal Museum has Christian converts then being described it as America’s first- mobilized by Charles Finney and ever direct-mail campaign. It was other revivalists, the society certainly one of the most ambitious promoted the idea that slavery polemical blitzes ever conducted and complicity with slavery is a in our country. The main targets sin. Scores of church associations of the mailings were ministers, and denominational groups went local legislators, businessmen, and on record with that position, and This historic drawing, from the archives of the Museum of the City of New York, depicts thousands of rioters (the tiny black dots) as they pillage an abolitionist judges living all across the country, evangelical Christians began to church on Spring Street and other sites, despite efforts to secure the nearby including in the South. Barely shift en masse into the “immediate street intersection made by 27th Regiment soldiers (who were belatedly called

Museum of the City of New York. 29.100.2984 York. Museum of the City New one year after the 1834 riots, the abolition” camp. out by the mayor, and are depicted in double bayoneted lines). Meantime, the Tappans As soon as he got his public and other leaders of the AASS speakers dispatched across small- created a program that hired town America, Theodore Weld gifted lecturers to go on public- jumped into another project funded speaking tours across the country by the American Anti-Slavery presenting the case against Society’s donors. He methodically slavery. To coordinate the effort combed through thousands they enlisted a brilliant young man of installments of Southern named Theodore Weld, whom the newspapers, public speeches, and Tappans had previously funded to facts and figures to collect true establish schools in upstate New accounts of the real-life treatment York and then for training of slaves. How are they disciplined? the next generation of Christian What about if they become ill? reformers. Weld and three other What happens to their families men undertook so dense a when they are sold? Runaways get schedule of public speeches that what sort of treatment? within two years he had damaged Weld condensed his 70 his voice for life. documentary snippets into a When it became clear how simple but repellently rich book effective the itinerant speakers entitled American Slavery As It Is: were, Weld was charged with Testimony of a Thousand Witnesses. recruiting and training a full cadre The volume made waves after it of 70 lecturers and then sending was published by the AASS in 1839 them roving across the nation. and distributed from the charitable He did his job well, and these 70 society’s headquarters on Nassau orators—described by Lyman Street in New York. And it had an Beecher as the “he-goat men… even more climactic effect when butting everything in the line of it became the major background their march…made up of vinegar, source for the bestselling novel aqua fortis, and oil of vitriol, Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The cultural with brimstone, saltpeter and power of that work by Harriet charcoal to explode and scatter the Beecher Stowe is captured in The Slave’s Friend was a magazine for children created by Lewis Tappan and corrosive matter”—soon became Lincoln’s description of her, when other philanthropists after his house was demolished by slavery apologists. It was one part of a massive campaign to print and mail abolitionist arguments famous for helping bring this first they first met, as “the little woman to families and opinion leaders all across the country. bloom of abolitionism to a climax who wrote the book that made this during 1836 and 1837. great war.” Opponents—and government— potential of civil society in lash out check…watchfully curbing any This moral-suasion campaign trend which might contribute to absolutely maddened apologists the development of alternative, for slavery. In particular, the independent power bases.” But circulation of abolitionist now they were faced with a savvy arguments through the federal mail and well-funded mass charitable hit a nerve. Anti-slavery mailings campaign that educated people began to be methodically pulled and mobilized volunteers in out of post offices and burned. opposition to their interests. Threats were floated against So when this flood of anyone who subscribed. The U.S. exhortation in favor of freedom Postmaster General gave aid and crested across the country, the comfort to local postmasters who enemies of abolition lashed out. abetted these acts of censorship Arthur Tappan was hung in effigy and intimidation. Indeed, U.S. in town squares, as torches were President Andrew Jackson put to piles of newspapers and actively encouraged postal magazines. Lewis was mailed a 71 authorities to suppress deliveries slave’s ear, a hangman’s rope, and of all abolitionist documents, or many written threats. A Virginia at least look the other way while grand jury indicted him and others did. In his 1835 message other members of the American to Congress, Jackson called for a Anti-Slavery Society. Offers national censorship law that would of $30,000 and $50,000 were shut down the charitable mailings made for delivery of Arthur’s of “incendiary” writings, and or Lewis’s head to Louisiana. severely punish the men organizing A South Carolinian raised the them. Legislation was not passed, bid to $100,000 for Arthur. After but the officially encouraged hearing of these prizes, Arthur vigilante actions effectively halted was reported to have said in an Harriet Beecher Stowe’s bestselling novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin had a the distribution of abolitionist uncommon moment of humor that powerful effect on U.S. public opinion, leading President Lincoln to arguments within the South. “if that sum is placed in a New describe her as “the little woman who wrote the book that made this Up to this point in American York bank, I may possibly think of great war.” She drew most of her background material from the non- history, historians like Kathleen giving myself up.” The mayor of fiction exposéAmerican Slavery As It Is, created and published by the McCarthy note, defenders of Brooklyn stationed police patrols American Anti-Slavery Society with charitable donations. slavery had “kept the leavening in front of Arthur’s house to deter their organizing was damaging the business of merchants who depended on southern trade. “You demand that I shall cease my anti- slavery labors?” spluttered Arthur. “I will be hung first!” The Tappans weren’t hung, but they did become financial martyrs to their cause. Starting in Charleston, dry-goods dealers organized a boycott of the Tappan wholesaling operation. This was one of the first organized attempts to damage a national business because of the moral and political convictions of its proprietors. It would not be the last. A “vigilance committee” in Nashville 72 and newspapers in Virginia urged local businessmen and citizens to punish the Tappan’s firm in every way possible. Southern buyers walked away from their debts to Arthur Tappan and Company, and Southern lawyers refused to pursue the delinquents in court. The massive “moral suasion” effort assassins, and a military force nemesis of slavery’s defenders was that philanthropists funded to blizzard was organized at the Brooklyn philanthropist Arthur Tappan. Many Victims, and victors abolitionist literature across the country Navy Yard to prevent kidnappers establishment figures without a There were many other serious is described by the National Postal Museum as America’s first-ever direct-mail campaign. from carrying him away in a pilot strong position on slavery also put victims. A seminary student It unhinged defenders of slavery, boat headed for the South, as had pressure on the Tappan brothers to named Amos Dresser was publicly whose backlash led to invasions of the mail been rumored. stand down for expedient reasons. whipped in Nashville when he was (above), rewards for killing Arthur Tappan, “Frequently in times of crisis, At one point a delegation of city discovered to be carrying a copy of and attempts at censorship by members of hatreds focus upon a single dignitaries and leaders of the the Emancipator in his luggage. For government extending all the way up individual who comes to symbolize New York Chamber of Commerce “circulating Tappan papers,” Dr. to President Andrew Jackson. These brutal reactions turned many Americans all that is thought evil,” comments trooped into the Tappan store Reuben Crandall was thrown in jail permanently against slavery. Wyatt-Brown. For a period, the arch to complain to the brothers that in Georgetown, then a separate city in the District of Columbia. Blacks of freedom is everywhere—free in many places were attacked government, free men, free people, without provocation. Elizur free schools, and free churches. Wright, who edited several of the Hollow counterfeits all!…Rome’s publications mailed by the AASS, loudest shout for liberty was when was besieged in his house by a she murdered it…. Free! The word mob that aimed to kidnap him and and sound are omnipresent masks, whisk him off to North Carolina. and mockers! An impious lie!” Publisher , son of founding had to be locked by the mayor father and first U.S. Supreme Court inside the jailhouse to save chief justice , commented him from violence at the hands of on how dramatically the abolition a raging pack. Abolitionist donors struggle had been transformed by and Lewis Tappan the Southern backlash against the were harassed while in Utica. Tappans’ mailing campaign. For publishing the anti-slavery Philanthropist in Cincinnati, printer We commenced the present James Birney had his press thrown struggle to obtain the William Jay, son of Founding Father John Jay 73 into the Ohio River. When a mob in freedom of the slave; we are and himself a prominent jurist and philanthropist, Philadelphia discovered abolitionist compelled to continue it to noted that the violent rebuffs of slavers materials on a wharf awaiting preserve our own. We are now to charitable attempts at persuasion shipment, they dumped them contending, not so much with pushed defenders of “liberty of speech, of into the Delaware River. In Alton, the slaveholders of the South the press, and of conscience” into sympathy with the abolitionist cause. Illinois, a local printer of abolitionist about human rights, as with literature named Elijah Lovejoy was the political and commercial of speech in American precincts, apologists. The pro-slavery response shot and killed while defending his aristocracy of the North for the attempts to have the Tappans to the great mailing campaign, wrote press. At one of the large churches the liberty of speech, of the and other advocates extradited to , “has done more than he had established in New York City, press, and of conscience. the South, the many acts of thuggish could have been by the arguments Lewis Tappan organized a memorial violence by slavery apologists— of a thousand agents to convince the service for Lovejoy, and a special Though elites remained skittish, these actions turned large chunks sober and disinterested” of slavery’s 40,000-copy edition of Human Rights, the hearts and minds of many of public opinion, especially among vicious effects on all who traffic in it. an AASS periodical, was published to middle-class Northerners were won Northern churchgoers, firmly against The rioters and mail burners catalogue the crime. by the anti-slavery forces amidst this slavery. The South’s refusal to even who were hoping to suppress the Theodore Weld thundered struggle. The attacks on the New tolerate discussion on slavery was American Anti-Slavery Society and against the censure and lynchings York City homes and churches, the exposed for the first time, along intimidate its charitable backers and intimidation. “The empty name violation of the mail, the suppression with the ugly behavior of slavery had exactly the opposite effect. In the year after Lewis Tappan’s home The techniques of advocacy was invaded, 15,000 Americans that Lewis and his allies bought new subscriptions to pioneered and then employed AASS publications. Anti-slavery to great effect changed the societies began to spread like country in many ways in the three wildfire all across the country. decades prior to the Civil War. There were 200 chapters in 1835, Creating associations, sponsoring then 527 a year later, and 1,400 petitions, distributing handbills, just two years further on. In an era holding conventions, circulating of difficult communications, the ideas for sermons, organizing American Anti-Slavery Society had nationwide speaking tours, by then enrolled 250,000 paying creating Sunday schools and their members—a full 2 percent of our curricula, publishing periodicals national population. In comparative and pamphlets in large numbers terms, that made the AASS bigger and then distributing them by than today’s Boy Scouts, or National a combination of subscription Rifle Association, or Chamber and free mailing to culture- 74 of Commerce. For the first time, influencers—these and other philanthropists had turned abolition techniques fueled by a mix of into a major popular crusade, devoted volunteer time and and slavery was now a subject no steady private donations had American could ignore. deep effects on both grassroots and establishment opinion. Philanthropists created a host of The techniques of Before he shifted his patriotic abolition advocacy energies (in concert with many new advocacy techniques— Lewis Tappan received a letter other evangelical businessmen of from his brother Benjamin, whose his time) from often-frustrating steam printing, lecture tours, politics and faith were quite political action to the more different, complaining about a entrepreneurial work of culture cultivation of pastors, fundraising billboard-style campaign against change, Lewis had been involved as problem drinking that Lewis and a young man in Federalist politics. craft shows, monthly concerts, and other evangelicals had sponsored. He learned during that foray to so forth—to move public opinion. Lewis replied with good-humored avoid negativity, snobbery, and vigor that “you infidels should keep obstructionism. Such techniques, he up with the age. This is a century found, annoyed and felt unpatriotic of inventions.” to many average Americans. So instead, inspiring monthly ministers in person was one of concerts and prayer meetings for the the important duties of the roving enslaved were organized in parlors lecturers that the AASS hired as and churches all across the country agents working across the country. on the first Monday. Very popular While Lewis Tappan was the fundraising bazaars were organized main supervisor of the printed by and for women, where handcrafts publications that gave the AASS would be created and sold, often its intellectual backbone, Arthur bearing anti-slavery slogans. Special Tappan was officially in charge school lessons and social events and of the lecture agents. Both men magazines were created for children, became quite good at uncovering and they were organized to collect and recruiting talented thinkers and pennies to prepare for the day when arguers to work as writers, editors, those in bondage might go free. or speakers. Many abolitionists The vast majority of active became convinced in the mid-1830s abolitionists were volunteers and that the roving agent-lecturers part-timers. They were busy with were the most important element jobs and family responsibilities, in their campaign, on account 75 and had to grab opportunities of their ability to reach the rural for informing and captivating masses. Though he was himself an the wider public whenever and editor of several of the abolitionist wherever they came along. They journals, mathematician Elizur chimed in at church meetings Wright believed that living, spoken and business gatherings. Chapter words were even more important leaders were asked to collect and than written words at reaching send in the names of “inquiring, “the country places” that were the candid, reading men who are key to abolitionist success. “The not abolitionists” so that these great cities we cannot expect to candidates could be mailed carry till the country is won,” he persuasive materials. Special concluded. Repeatedly, farmers and efforts were made to reach the agricultural population rose up ministers and enlighten them on to protect abolitionists threatened issues surrounding slavery, on the by urban mobs, and “no city proved Donors paid for a massive Valley Campaign that flooded our grounds that “ministers are the in future years as strong in abolition frontier Midwest with circuit preachers, public speakers, Sunday-school teachers, and others bearing messages of Christian uplift as well as hinges of community, and ought sentiment as rural areas,” as opposition to human bondage. to be moved.” Calling on local historian Whitney Cross put it. Betting on middle America As mentioned, the Tappans built up a network of evangelical churches in New York City which they hoped could become a power-pack for abolition and other types of social reform. They had some success in this, creating large and active congregations of prosperous individuals, featuring young men’s societies, female auxiliaries, and some impressive pastors. But even in the city, it was discovered, the men and women most devoted to the anti-slavery cause were transplanted country people. Building on this lesson, Arthur Arthur Tappan personally built from nothing into an excellent school and hotbed of social reform. Tappan and other philanthropists 76 In 1858, a group of Oberlin students and administrators freed an escaped slave who had been snatched up in town by slave catchers. He was sheltered in the home of the college president for several days, then spirited away, became passionate advocates for a causing 21 Oberlin men to be jailed for three months for resisting the Fugitive Slave Law. They were visited in lock-up push to build reform energy among by hundreds of sympathizers, including Sunday-school children, and published their own newspaper with rural people living along our nation’s donated funds while behind bars—creating a bonanza of sympathetic coverage of the abolitionist cause. western frontier (which at that point included the states and territories stretching from Missouri up to the Wisconsin region, then east to Ohio). The donor-funded Mississippi Valley Campaign Arthur was a heavy funder of this effort to bring evangelical culture turned our Midwest into an anti-slavery bastion. to a vast swath of land that was fast filling up with the next generation of This cultural metamorphosis could later be seen in Americans. This became known as the Mississippi Valley Campaign. the avenging actions of William Sherman’s Cincinnati—the “London of the West”—was initially picked western army during the Civil War. as the regional headquarters, and Arthur hired an impressive group

of evangelizers, thinkers, writers, Archives Photo Courtesy College of the Oberlin and speakers to relocate there Arthur Tappan annually put tens and set to work. These included of thousands of dollars into Oberlin , Theodore Weld, for years. Soon, it was not only a and Charles Finney. Arthur thought well-functioning college but a kind of of these as the movement’s “best training academy for activists who generals” who “should occupy subsequently fanned out all across the very seat of Western warfare.” the developing American heartland. Extensive work was also done “Oberlinites spread an influence, down in the trenches. A mechanics’ ‘unseen and unsuspected,’ over the lyceum, Sunday schools, lending Western Reserve and in hundreds of libraries, and evening classes were Western communities,” summarized established to spread literacy and Wyatt-Brown. From that moment, new ideas to laborers, farmers, the area we now call our Midwest and free blacks. Prayer sessions became tightly allied to upstate New and sermon series were organized. York and as the heat- Schoolteachers were transported and power-generating reactors of from the East, and publications of abolitionism. The avenging actions of all sorts were circulated. William Sherman’s Midwestern army 77 Parts of the Cincinnati during the Civil War were one later establishment, however, were sign of this cultural metamorphosis. scandalized by the mixing of races these activities encouraged, and Legal defense the activists were chased out of A final technique of the Tappan the city. Very quickly, the center organizational genius was their Lewis Tappan almost singlehandedly of Western abolitionism shifted to marshaling of important legal- the new college Arthur Tappan had defense efforts. By this means orchestrated the Amistad courtroom established in 1833 at Oberlin, Ohio. they were able to protect pioneer Tappan wooed Charles Finney to run activists. They established vital struggle into widespread revulsion the new institution, and poured his precedents in courtrooms. And personal funds into building it up. they used high-profile proceedings against slavery. Abolition turned a “If you will go to Oberlin and take to educate Americans on the hold of the work,” he told Finney, realities of slavery and get them huge corner toward a wide popular “I will pledge myself to give my involved in righting the wrong. entire income, except what I want Arthur Tappan’s first foray into following for the very first time. to provide for my family, till you are legal defense came in 1830. Very

Photo Courtesy of the Oberlin College Archives Photo Courtesy College of the Oberlin beyond pecuniary want.” early in his career as an abolitionist The leader of the Amistad uprising, Cinque, stands in court while Arthur Tappan listens to whispers 78 from one of the lawyers that he and Lewis Tappan engaged to defend the kidnapped Africans.

publisher, some of William Lloyd Arthur also got involved in a (though public pressure forced her Leone were being transferred across Garrison’s reporting on the trade legal case in 1833, in defense of a to close nonetheless). Cuba in a ship called in slaves within the U.S. got him schoolmistress who The most dramatic Tappan when the captives took over the sued for libel by a shipowner, and enrolled a black girl in one of her courtroom drama began to unfold ship, killed the captain, and ordered convicted of criminal charges by classes, only to have the state in 1839. Though the British Navy remaining crew members to sail the state of Maryland. Garrison was legislature pass a law shutting was then enforcing a ban on the them back to Africa. Instead, the sent to jail for six months. When down her school. Not wanting this international slave trade, rogue navigators landed the ship near Long Tappan heard of his travail, he paid precedent to become established slavers continued to run Africans Island. The Africans were taken into Garrison’s fine and court costs, in New England jurisprudence, into the Americas—sometimes custody and charged with murder. and got him released after seven Tappan wrote to offer unconditional protected by false papers As soon as he heard of the case, weeks behind bars. He then gave support: “Consider me your banker. supplied by corrupt U.S. or foreign Lewis Tappan leapt into action. He the editor $100 to help him set up a Spare no necessary expense. government officials, assistance from scoured the New York docks and new weekly anti-slavery newspaper Command the services of the Southerners, and the indifference found a cabin boy who could speak called the Liberator. These were ablest lawyers.” Upon appeal to of much of the American public. the dialect of the defendants; he the first of many subsidies Arthur the Connecticut Supreme Court, Several dozen Africans recently was hired to serve as translator.

provided to the reformer. the schoolmistress won her case kidnapped from the nation of Sierra Lewis clothed and fed the prisoners Alabama. Talladega, College, Talladega Collection of 72 x 240 inches. oil on canvas, 1939, Amistad Captives, of the Trial The 1900–1980), (American, Woodruff Aspacio Hale Harholdt Peter Photo: College. Talladega © with his own money and donations Lewis Tappan had almost single- enslavement. Abolition turned from other abolitionists. While they handedly orchestrated this defense a huge corner, for the first time, were held in New Haven, Lewis (on an entirely volunteer basis, while toward a wide popular following. arranged for Yale students to tutor continuing to attend to his business The most consequential social the Africans in English, American responsibilities). He engineered the change in the history of the social practice, and . communications and reporting that United States had begun. And He engaged a first-rate legal team transfixed many Americans. He hired two philanthropist brothers were to defend them in court. And he the legal horses. He attended every at the center of it. Combining launched a journalistic and public- day the courts were in session. Some abundant generosity with high relations effort to use the case as months later he raised the donations principle, personal passion, and a teachable moment for informing needed to return the Africans to a genius for organizing, they Americans on the realities of slavery. their native lands. “The captives powered a national tide shift that It took two years for the case are free…thanks in the name of would never be reversed. to wend its way though the courts. humanity and justice to you,” wrote Amidst many legal twists, the case Adams to Tappan after the trial. became a national and international “By some peculiar alchemy, cause célèbre, drawing large Tappan had made the Amistad crowds and banner headlines over case a ‘safe’ cause,” comments 79 many months. As in their great Wyatt-Brown. All across America, mailing campaign a few years the courtroom struggle aroused earlier, the Tappans had to battle a revulsion against the victimization U.S. President and the weight of the of innocents. “Such bloodhound federal government—lower-court persecutions of poor defenseless verdicts exonerating the Africans strangers cast upon the shores were appealed all the way to the should call down the manly and U.S. Supreme Court by Martin scorching rebukes of universal Van Buren (spurred by Southern civilized man,” concluded one interests). At that point, Lewis Ohioan. New disgust with human Tappan convinced former President bondage, mistrust of government to join the all- and sectional apologists for star legal team for the final appeal. slavery, sympathy for those held Our highest court ultimately ruled in captivity, and appreciation for Philanthropists who fueled the abolitionist charities recruited highly talented activists to run their journals, organize their societies, and create inspiring art. that the Africans were kidnap freedom fighters erupted across Poet was one of these creative masterminds. Here is the victims, not property, with a right the country. Thousands of people first publication of his poem “Our Countrymen in Chains.” The violence at the to defend themselves. They were donated money. More subscribed to Chatham Street Chapel that grew into the 1834 anti-abolition riots declared wholly free. journals making arguments against was sparked by hymn-singing of some of Whittier’s verse. Click here to read the fourth of our four case studies on how culture change was done through American history.