Training Antebellum Children for the Abolition of Slavery Erik A
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Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Graduate Theses and Dissertations Dissertations 2018 Children with a cause: Training antebellum children for the abolition of slavery Erik A. Stumpf Iowa State University Follow this and additional works at: https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation Stumpf, Erik A., "Children with a cause: Training antebellum children for the abolition of slavery" (2018). Graduate Theses and Dissertations. 16673. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/16673 This Dissertation is brought to you for free and open access by the Iowa State University Capstones, Theses and Dissertations at Iowa State University Digital Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Graduate Theses and Dissertations by an authorized administrator of Iowa State University Digital Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Children with a cause: Training antebellum children for the abolition of slavery by Erik Andrew Stumpf A dissertation submitted to the graduate faculty in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY Major: Rural Agricultural Technological and Environmental History Program of Study Committee: Kathleen Hilliard, Major Professor Pamela Riney-Kehrberg Brian Behnken John Monroe Amy Slagell The student author, whose presentation of the scholarship herein was approved by the program of study committee, is solely responsible for the content of this dissertation. The Graduate College will ensure this dissertation is globally accessible and will not permit alterations after a degree is conferred. Iowa State University Ames, Iowa 2018 Copyright ©Erik Stumpf, 2018. All rights reserved. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS iii ABSTRACT vi CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION 1 CHAPTER 2: WHY CHILDREN? 29 CHAPTER 3: WHAT CHILDREN COULD DO, OR 53 THE ABOLITIONIST CHILD CHAPTER 4: GOD, CHILDREN, AND SLAVERY, OR 87 THE TRUE CHRISTIAN CHAPTER 5: SHATTERED INNOCENTS AND 132 SHATTERED INNOCENCE CHAPTER 6: CHILDREN OF THE CAUSE 190 CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION 229 WORKS CITED 233 iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The work before you began as a moment of inspiration born from pure desperation. As I prepared for my final semester as an M.A.student, I faced a dilemma. How could I manage to combine my interests in the abolition movement with a class requirement to write a research paper about something related to childhood? Sensing that failure was imminent, even weeks before that final semester, I spent days futilely trying to find a way to accomplish that task without humiliating myself before a professor respected in our department and far beyond. The answer one day struck as quickly as a lightning bolt. If evangelical people today and then wanted to instill their beliefs into their children, and abolitionists tended to be evangelicals, then would it not be the case that abolitionists would have the goal of training their children to be abolitionists as well? With this germ of an idea, a project spanning the next several years began. I owe a great debt to two institutions that have provided me with tremendous educational opportunities at different stages of my life, Faith Baptist Theological Seminary and Iowa State University. Faith accepted me as a graduate student who was not yet certain that he had the ability to do or excel at graduate work and worked with me through some tumultuous times in the early 2000s, as seemingly every unit in the Iowa Army National Guard faced immediate deployment, and I managed to be connected to most of those deployments. My professors there managed to be simultaneously comforting and challenging. Three professors stand out needing recognition here. John Hartog III, the seminary dean at the time, constantly poked and prodded me to seriously consider doctoral studies to sharpen my abilities. Ernie Schmidt managed to bring his enthusiasm for Wilber Wilberforce, the British abolitionist, into a multitude of classes and discussions, and that led me to wonder about similar connections iv here in the United States. George Houghton allowed me to take the next step, granting me permission to ignore strict topical guidelines to pursue this curiosity. This placed me on a path which eventually led to this study. Iowa State University welcomed me into the fold as a refugee from the factory floor of a check-printing plant which was scheduled to close. As I wondered what to do next, the thought of returning to history became unshakeable, and Charles Dobbs and the graduate college graciously and quickly accepted me into the program. The department itself has provided tremendous teaching opportunities, learning opportunities, and generous financial grants which made all this research possible. The Interlibrary Loan Department of the Parks Library at Iowa State did magnificent work sifting through my voluminous requests and delivering more often than a reasonable person could expect. The professors on my committee each have a special place on this journey as well. Kathleen Hilliard energetically engaged with my ideas at our initial meeting, which showed that this would be a partnership which worked. As life and times took their unpredictable turns, she has managed to be a steadfast supporter while finding flexible ways to work through unpredictable times at every stage of this journey. Pamela Riney-Kehrberg taught the class from which this project was born, and provided so much valuable support along the way. Brian Behnken did as well, and personal support which remains more valuable than words will ever say. John Monroe was part of one of my earliest attempts at handling this material, and his ability to allow a wildly creative approach was invaluable in my quest to understand how children were supposed to engage their world as abolitionists. Amy Slagell graciously set aside time from her hectic schedule to meet with a frazzled student beginning this journey and just as graciously agreed to be part of the project. v Above all, I give thanks for and to my family. My wife, Becky, has been there supporting me through our wild journey over the years, working, helping, encouraging, and believing. Our daughter Zoe always sends me off to the library with the words “Do great work at the library.” I dedicate this project especially to Becky, to Zoe as she learns to read and write, and to Doria, who never got to. vi ABSTRACT This dissertation explores the efforts of abolitionists in the antebellum United States to recruit children to join in their battle against slavery. From the very beginnings of this movement, abolitionists understood that reaching adults would be virtually impossible and turned to children, whom they considered to be natural enemies of slavery, to become the catalyst which they believed would inspire people across the nation to combat slavery and successfully seek its end. Abolitionists constructed a new model of childhood which viewed children not as people who needed to be taught obedience, but people who needed to be instructed in ways that they could change their world for the good of the slaves. To this end, abolitionists taught children several ways to join the fight against slavery and proposed a childhood in which every area of life was devoted to the antislavery cause. Abolitionists provided a wealth of materials to train these children theologically to hate slavery and love the slaves, and also contrasted the steady expectations of middle-class children to the nightmares slaves lived out every day. “Children With a Cause” will show that children did indeed join the abolitionist movement, even as it changed over the years from 1831-1859. The dissertation will also make clear that children ultimately faced insurmountable obstacles that they could not overcome. This dissertation, then, provides a new look at a new form of childhood as well as an examination of abolitionist strategies over the years as the reformers encountered the changing social, political, and economic realities of antebellum America. 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Train up a child in the way he should go, And when he is old he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6 My attention was first called to the subject of slavery, in my boyhood, by an illustrated pamphlet, upon the first page of which was shown the picture of a negro slave woman, with her baby in her arms, who was being severely whipped by a cruel slave-driver, or plantation overseer, until her bared back was lacerated, and the blood was flowing from her wounds. 1 Abolitionists needed help. They saw slavery as a moral evil, a sin against God, threatening to destroy the United States, and they needed an army of fellow workers to combat this scourge. The earliest abolitionists knew that it would take many more like-minded reformers in order to convince all people, North and South, that the institution needed to end immediately. This proved to be easier said than done, and these crusaders found that many people had no interest in joining the cause, either because they were unfamiliar and unaffected by the lives of the faraway slaves, or had other interests which precluded them from joining the movement. Even in the very first days of the antebellum abolition efforts, reformers questioned whether adults could ever be reached in the fight against slavery. Thus convinced, abolitionists immediately and urgently searched for other sources of converts. Abolitionists turned to children as the source of salvation for the slaves and hope for the nation, believing that children would serve as the catalyst for action and discussion which would create the needed army of abolitionists. Innocent, trainable, and potentially a way to avoid the difficulties abolitionists faced reaching families, children became a vital audience for 1 Aaron M. Powell, Personal Reminiscences of the Anti-Slavery and Other Reforms and Reformers (Plainfield, NJ: Anna Rice Powell: New York: Caulon Press, 1899), 1.