Abolitionists Were Bullied from a Case Study Christian Philanthropists in Britain the Moment They First Stuck Their and America Got Deeply Involved Heads Up
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
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 Lewis Tappan had in demanding and dangerous work 1832 leased a tatterdemalion old that required guile, endurance, theater in lower Manhattan 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 New York 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 New York City 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 (Arthur Tappan 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 George Washington 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.