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■UMIAccessing the Worlds Information since 1938 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA

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Black 'women abolitionists: A study of gender and race in the American antislavery movement, 1828-1800

Yee, Shirley Jo>ann, Ph.D. The Ohio State University, 1987

Copyright ©1987 by Yee, Shirley Jo-ann. All rights reserved.

UMI 300N. ZeebRd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106

BLACK WOMEN ABOLITIONISTS:

A STUDY OF GENDER AND RACE IN THE

AMERICAN ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT, 1828-1860

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

for

the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate

School of the Ohio State University

By

Shirley Jo-ann Yee, A.B., M.A

* * * * *

The Ohio State University

1987

Dissertation Committee: Approved by

Dr. Leila J. Rupp

Dr. Merton L. Dillon

Dr. Randolph A. Roth Department of History Copyright by Shirley J. Yee To Audrey W. Yee and in memory of Donald Y. Yee

IX ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I would like to express sincere appreciation and thanks to Dr. Leila J. Rupp for her guidance, scholarly

insight, and patience throughout the research and writing of this work. Thanks go also to Dr. Lois

Helmbold of the University of California, Berkeley, for

originally suggesting the topic to me and to Dr. Merton

L. Dillon and Dr. Randolph Roth for their valuable

suggestions and comments.

Generous financial support from The Ohio state

University allowed me to conduct the research for this project: The Graduate Alumni Research Award, the Ruth

Higgins Award, and the Women's Studies Small Research

Grant. A dissertation fellowship from the Center For

Black Studies at the University of California, Santa

Barbara enabled me to complete the work.

Many research librarians provided me with valuable

assistance: Edna Carnegie of the Connecticut Afro-

American Historical Society, New Haven; Mary Huth, Rare

Books and Special Collections at the University of

Rochester Library, New York; Barbara Trippel Simmons,

American Antiquarian Society, Worcester, MA; Elizabeth iii Shenton, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Collage; and David 0. White, Museum of Connecticut History,

Hartford. X would also like to thank the librarians and staff of the Department of Rare Books and Manuscripts, Boston Public Library; the Essex Institute, Salem, MA; the Pusey Library, Harvard University; Moorland- Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; Trevor

Arnett Library, Atlanta University Center, Atlanta, GA; the Library Company of Philadelphia, the Historical Society of Pennsylvania; the Sterling Memorial Library,

Yale University; and the Library of Congress. The following scholars offered their insight and advice when I began this project: John Blassingame, Yale University; Anne Boylan, University of Delaware;

Jacqueline Jones, Wellesley College; and Nancy Hewitt,

University of South Florida. Special thanks go to Dr.

Elliott Butler-Evans, Dr. Patricia Cline Cohen, and Dr.

Cedric J. Robinson of the University of California,

Santa Barbara who read and critiqued portions of my work.

The following individuals gave their friendship and moral support throughout my career as a graduate student: Jan M. Leone, Ken Schmitz, Nancy J. Peters,

Allison Gilmore, Roger Nimps, Fred C. Shoemaker, Jim iv Rohrer, Tom Dicke, Rob Butler, Annie Stinemetz, and

Larry Greenfield. I would also like to express my appreciation to Ann G. Auletta, M.D., for her assistance during my stay in Philadelphia. Deborah J. Johnson, Elaine Hargrove, Alyce Whitted, Lillian

Stuman, and Ali Kolaini of UCSB provided encouragement and support during the final phase of my doctoral work.

This dissertation would never have been completed without support from my family. Members of the Wong and Yee families in Massachusetts sustained me during my frequent research trips to the Boston area. Special thanks go to James and Barbara Wong, and Kathryn Moy for their constant encouragement. I am especially grateful to my mother, Audrey W. Yee, who listened to all of my ideas and maintained faith in my abilities every step of the way.

v VITA

March 6, 1959 ...... Born - New York city, New York

1 9 8 1 ...... A.B. University of Scranton, Scranton, Pennsylvania

1981-82 ...... Minority Graduate Fellow, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio

1982-86 ...... Graduate Teaching Associate, The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 1983 ...... M.A. The Ohio State University Columbus, Ohio

1986-87 ...... Dissertation Fellow, Center Black Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara; Adjunct Lecturer, Department of History, University of California, Santa Barbara TABLE OF CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS...... 11

VITA ...... vi

ABBREVIATIONS...... -viii

CHAPTER

I. INTRODUCTION...... 1

II. BLACK WOMEN AND AMERICAN ABOLITION: THE CONTINUATION OF A TRADITION AND FORMATION OF BLACK FEMALE PATTERNS OF PARTICIPATION...... 32

III. BLACK WOMEN AND THE 'CULT OF TRUE WOMANHOOD': GENDER EXPECTATIONS AND LIMITATIONS IN THE ANTEBELLUM FREE BLACK COMMUNITY...... 98

IV. SELF-HELP: BLACK WOMEN AND THEIR COMMUNITY...... 143

V. BLACK WOMEN AND ANTISLAVERY SOCIETIES...... 205

VI. BLACK WOMEN AND PUBLIC ACTIVISM...... 263

VII. CONTINUING THE STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY: BLACK WOMEN ABOLITIONISTS AND THE ANTEBELLUM WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT...... 312

CONCLUSION...... 354

BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 365

vii ABBREVIATIONS

AAS American Anti-Slavery Society

ADC African Dorcas Society

AFASS American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society

AMA American Missionary Association

ARC Amisted Research Center

AWSA American Woman Suffrage Association

BAP Black Abolitionist Papers

BFASS Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society ! BPL Boston Public Library

LNYCASS Ladies' New York City Anti-Slavery Society

NAW Notable Amerlcan_Wpmen

NV7SA National Woman Suffrage Association

PFASS Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society

viii CHAPTER I

INTRODUCTION

This dissertation explores black women's participation in the struggle to end slavery and racial oppression in the United States between 1828 and 1860.

During this period, free black women throughout the

North conducted their battle for racial equality in one of the most significant reform movements in American history, the abolitionist movement. Through their writings, speeches, organized public activism, and individual efforts, black women played a vital role in the struggle for black liberation.

Black women shared with black men a broad interpretation of abolitionism. To these reformers, abolitionism meant not only ending slavery, but working for the social, economic, and political advancement of their race. For both black men and women, community activism was central to the achievement of these objectives.1 Through their participation in antislavery

■^In this study, the term "community" refers to a group of people who share a common history and embrace a common social, economic, and political interest. See Webster's New Collegiate Dictionary (Springfield, MA: G.C. Morrison Company, 1977), p. 228. 2 societies and community self-improvement and moral reform activities, black men and women abolitionists maintained a commitment to the welfare of free blacks as well as to freedom for the slaves.

But, although both black men and women held consistently to this commitment and engaged in similar activities, black women's activism meant more than fulfilling a responsibility to their race. As this dissertation will demonstrate, gender ideals within the free black community provided black women with an additional motivation for participating in the abolitionist movement. Historian James Oliver Horton has already shown that during the antebellum period, free black men and women had accepted the notion of separate roles for the sexes. Horton has argued convincingly that free blacks had supported a sexual division of responsibility in an attempt to erase memories of the slave experience and to create a community that reflected their free status. While black men were expected to assume the role of sole provider for the family, black women were to strive to fulfill the expectations of "true women." Like white middle class women, black women were expected to engage in reform activities in their own communities in addition to fulfilling their usual domestic duties.2

In this study, I intend to carry Horton's thesis further by demonstrating the impact of gender ideals on black female participation in abolitionism. Black women's activities reflected an attempt to fulfill a dual responsibility to both their gender and their race. But as many black women abolitionists found, contemporary notions about race and gender also imposed limitations on their activities. On the one hand, they often experienced race discrimination when they attempted to cooperate with white women in organized abolitionism. On the other hand, they also felt the restraints of gender ideals within the free black community. Although, many black male leaders in the movement supported black women's participation in abolitionist activities by maintaining that black female activism benefited the cause for racial advancement, they also, like many white men, held fast to contemporary ideals of "true womanhood," which ultimately limited the extent to which they could support complete equality between the sexes. Thus, while some black men praised black women's

2James Oliver Horton, "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks," Feminist Studies. 12(Spring 1986): 51-76. 4 participation in traditionally male activities as a contribution to the black struggle, other black men maintained that women should participate in the movement only within the boundaries of women's sphere.

This dissertation will demonstrate that for black women, as for no other group of abolitionists, the responsibilities as well as the limitations of gender and race defined their roles and identities as abolitionists and motivated them to form their own ways of participating in the movement for racial equality.

THE HISTORIOGRAPHY OF ABOLITIONISM Historians have acknowledged the activities of several outstanding individual black women abolitionists, but they have devoted little attention to the collective role of black women in the movement and have largely ignored the implications of their participation for the study of abolitionist, Afro-

American, and women's history. One of the goals of this study, therefore, is to fill large gaps in Afro-

American and women's history and in the enormous body of scholarship on the abolitionist movement.

For more than a century, historians have attempted to understand the significance of abolitionism in

American history. In so doing, they have produced a wealth of scholarship on the history of antislavery 5 sentiment in America, the motivations, goals, and activities of its leaders, and the ways in which the movement reflected contemporary trends and beliefs in nineteenth century American society.3 Abolitionists have been characterized in a variety of ways. Some scholars have portrayed them as villains who contributed to the outbreak of an unnecessary war, while others considered them moral heroes, a few have even perceived them as maladjusted individuals.4 In their effort to explore the dynamics of the movement as well as the interactions among abolitionists, most historians have focused primarily upon the motivations, activities, and goals of prominent white men in the movement. In general studies of abolitionism and in individual biographies, the lives of white leaders such as William Lloyd Garrison, Benjamin Lundy, James G.

JFor general works on abolitionism in the United States see: Gilbert Hobbes Barnes, The Antislaverv Impulse. 1830-1844 (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, 1933); Louis Filler, The Crusade Against Slavery. 1830- 1860 (New York: Harper & Row, I960); Dwight Lowell Dumond, Antislaverv: The Crusade For_Ereedom (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961); Gerald Sorin, Abolitionism: A New Perspective (New York: Praeger, 1972); Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: Growth of a Dissenting Minority (New York: W.W. Norton, Inc., 1974); and James Brewer Stewart, Holv Warriors: . The Abolitionists and American Slavery (New York: Hill J Wang, Inc., 1976). 6

Birney, Elijah Lovejoy, and Gerrit Smith, for example, have been well documented.5

In the nineteenth century, abolitionists themselves, in addition to their descendants, made the first attempts to attach historical significance to the movement by tracing the history of abolitionism.

Several of these writers revealed the factionalism that emerged among abolitionists over the appropriate strategies to utilize in their crusade to end slavery.

William Goodell, a white abolitionist, in 1855 produced the first monograph on the origins of the movement and •> focused, in particular, upon the conflicts between

William Lloyd Garrison and other leading white abolitionist men. Garrison's sons, in their four-volume biography of their father, also demonstrated that

5Major biographies of leading white male abolitionists include: Robert H. Abzug, Passionate Liberator: Theodore Dwight Weld & the Dilemma of Reform (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980); Merton L. Dillon, Elijah P. Loveiov. Abolitionist Editor (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1961) and Beniamin Lundv and_the struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966); John L. Thomas, The Liberator. William Llovd Garrison: A_Biography (Boston: Little, Brown, Publishers, 1963); Betty Fladeland, James Gillespie Birnev: Slaveholder to Abolitionist (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1955); Ralph V. Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (New York: H. Holt and Co.,1939). 7

Garrison had often been subject to severe criticism from other abolitionists.6

In the twentieth century, historians have continued to explore the dynamics of abolitionism, but have expanded their studies beyond an examination of the internal history of the movement. Beginning with

Gilbert Hobbes Barnes, twentieth century abolitionist historians have examined the impact of social, political, and economic forces on the abolitionists.

In 1933, Barnes initiated an investigation of the major forces that motivated a small group of white men and women to join together in the crusade to end slavery.

In his research, Barnes discovered the papers of one abolitionist leader, Theodore Dwight Weld, and proceeded to portray Weld as a more effective leader than Garrison. In the process of debunking Garrison as a fanatic and an eccentric, Barnes, in his now classic work, The Anti-Slaverv Impulse. 1830-1844. argued that religious revivalism, not slavery, provided the strongest motivating force for abolitionists. According to Barnes, the "burned over" district of Western New

6William Goodell. Slavery and Anti-Slaverv: A History of the Great Struggle in Both Hemispheres: With a View of the Slavery Question in_the United States (New York: William Goodell, 1855). Wendell Phillips Garrison, William Llovd Garrison. 1805-1879: The Storv of His Life as Told bv His Children 4 Vols. (New York: The Century Company, 1885-1889). 8

York, the center of revivalism, not New England, had been the source of antislavery sentiment.7

Barnes's work sparked further interest in the abolitionist movement, particularly by historians who contended that forces other than religion had motivated some individuals to become abolitionists. Dwight Lowell

Dumond, in one of the most comprehensive works on the slavery question and the antislavery movement, argued that the roots of abolitionism can be found in the political history of the United States. According to

Dumond, abolitionists based their ideas on the principles of the American Revolution.8

Historians who have followed Barnes and Dumond have kept the interest in abolitionism alive by fostering debate over a number of important themes.

Unconvinced by a religious or political interpretation for abolitionist motivation, several scholars have continued in the effort to find the most satisfactory explanations for why some individuals chose to support abolitionism. David H. Donald, in particular, proposed a socio-economic thesis for explaining abolitionist motivation. Donald argued that abolitionists were a displaced rural elite who fought to maintain

^Barnes. The Anti-Slaverv Impulse. 1830-1844. °Dumond, Antislaverv: The Crusade for Freedom in America. 9 traditional values in the wake of increased materialism brought about by industrialization and urbanization.

Few historians, however, accepted his interpretation that abolitionists were simply a group of frustrated conservatives who were more concerned with maintaining the status quo than with reforming society.9

Although Donald's conclusions failed to convince many of his colleagues, his interest in determining the roots of abolitionist behavior encouraged a few historians to maintain faith in psychological models.

Martin Duberroan portrayed abolitionists in a more positive light than Donald had, arguing that abolitionists were actually well-adjusted individuals who were happy with their lives. Lawrence J. Friedman has made the most recent attempt to study the psychological characteristics of abolitionists, whom he describes as a group of "gregarious saints" who maintained a clear vision of their own role as reformers.10 yDavid Donald, "Toward a Reconsideration of the Abolitionists," in Lincoln Reconsidered (New York: Vintage Books, 1956), pp. 19-36. 10For a detailed psychological examination of the abolitionist community see Lawrence J. Friedman, Sregarious Saints: Self and Community in American Abolitionism. 1830-60 (New York: Cambridge University Press, 1982). in 1964, for example, Betty Fladeland's article, "Who Were the Abolitionists?", argued that abolitionist leaders shared a number common characteristics and goals that did not reflect a desire 10

During the 1960s, a number of historians revived an interest in the internal history of the abolitionist movement. Radical historians Howard Zinn and Staughton

Lynd saw similarities in strategies between the civil rights movement of the twentieth century and abolitionism and endeavored to find in American history a tradition of radicalism that would explain these parallels. One consequence of their comparisons between

Civil Rights and abolitionism was the emergence of a number of studies that explored the conflicts between factions of abolitionists over goals, strategies, and tactics. Thus far, Aileen Kraditor has produced the most extensive analysis of the conflicting ideas and programs put forth by abolitionist leaders.11

The enormous body of abolitionist scholarship that has emerged since 1933 has prompted several recent historians during the 1970s and 1980s, to reconsider to regain social status. See Journal of Negro History 49(April 1964): 99-115. Martin Duberman, "The Abolitionist and Psychology," Journal of Negro History. 57( July 1962): 183-191. 11For works that compare antislavery with civil rights, see Staughton Lynd, Intellectual Origins of American Radicalism (New York: Random House, 1969) and Howard Zinn, "Abolitionists, Freedom-Riders, and the Tactics of Agitation," in Martin Duberman, ed., The Antislaverv Vancruard: New Essavs on the Abolitionists (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1965).Aileen Kraditor, Means and Ends of American Abolitionism: Garrison and His Critics on Strategy and Tactics. 1834- 1850 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1967). 11 approaches to the study of abolitionism. The determination of abolitionist historians to continue the debate over familiar themes prompted one scholar to urge historians to reassess the boundaries they have drawn for studying the antislavery movement over the past fifty years. In his critical essay, "The

Boundaries of Abolitionism," Ronald G. Walters casts doubt over the efficacy of debating the same issues within traditional frameworks and warns historians of the dangers of "saying the same old things about the abolitionists."12 Lewis Perry, Michael Fellman, and Alan Kraut have collected essays that reflect the viewpoints of the most recent works on antislavery; these essays indicate that abolitionist historiography has headed in a new direction. As Perry notes, many historians have moved

■^Gerald Sorin and Alan Kraut have studied abolitionists who favored a political strategy. See Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of.Political Radicalism (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1971) and Alan Kraut, ed., crusaders and compromisers: Essavs on the Relationship of the Antislaverv Struggle to the Antebellum Party System (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1983. In Antislaverv Appeal: American Abolitionism After 1830 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976), Ronald G. Walters emphasizes the similarities rather than the differences between abolitionists and society-at-large. Ronald G. Walters, "The Boundaries of Abolitionism" in Lewis Perry and Michael Fellman, eds., Antislaverv Reconsidered: New Perspectives on the Abolitionists (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979), p. 23. 12 away from associating abolitionism with late twentieth century political, economic, and social values and, instead, have attempted to place the abolitionists within the context o£ their own time and circumstances.13 In addition, several historians have expanded the scope of abolitionist studies by comparing the activities of various groups of abolitionists in the United States and abroad. David Brion Davis, Betty

Fladeland, and C. Duncan Rice have added an international dimension to abolitionist studies by comparing antislavery movements in the United States and Great Britain and examining the impact of the movement in Great Britain on American abolitionists.14

Afro-American and women's historians have helped push abolitionist scholarship in this new direction by exploring the roles that blacks and women played in the l^Perry and Fellman, eds., Antislaverv Reconsidered, p. xiv; see also Alan Kraut, Crusaders and Compromisers: Essavs on the Relationship_of_the_Antislaverv_Strugqle and the Antebellum Party System (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1983). 14David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1966), Betty Fladeland, Men and Brothers: Anglo-American Cooperation (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1972). Fladeland furthers her studies of British abolitionists in Abolitionists and Working Class Problems in the Age of industrialization (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1984). C. Duncan Rice explores abolitionists in Scotland in The Scots Abolitionists. 1833-1861 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1981). 13 movement and investigating the degree to which nineteenth century ideas about race and gender influenced abolitionists and the goals and strategies they embraced. These scholars have contributed to abolitionist scholarship in two ways. First, they have raised from obscurity two groups of activists who participated in various ways in the struggle to end slavery. Second, they have offered new perspectives on factionalism in the abolitionist movement by viewing the struggles of blacks and women within the movement as the foundations for the emergence of a black nationalist movement and an independent women's movement. These studies have given abolitionism a significant place in American history .as the only reform movement that fostered the development of two other movements that continued into the twentieth century. Such analyses not only reveal a great deal about the internal conflicts in the movement over race and gender issues, but, in a larger context, portray abolitionists as products of their times.

Until recently, scholars of Afro-American and women's history have treated gender and race as separate issues in abolitionist history. Historians who have studied black participation in abolition have focused upon the dynamics of black-white cooperation 14 and conflict in the movement and have emphasized the activities of black male leaders such as Frederick

Douglass and Martin Delany. Women's historians, for the most part, have studied the experiences of white women abolitionists. As a result, the participation of black women abolitionists has been virtually ignored.

Herbert Aptheker, a white Marxist historian, made the first attempt to fill the gap in abolitionist and

Afro-American historiography in 1941 by identifying well-known black men and women who participated in the abolitionist movement.15 Since Aptheker's study, historians have produced numerous biographies of individual black male leaders and several works on the extent to which blacks and whites cooperated in the movement. Benjamin Quarles, a black scholar, produced the first monograph on black abolitionists since

Aptheker's work. In Black Abolitionists (1969),

Quarles explored the participation of black men and women in organized abolition and attempted to deemphasize conflicts between blacks and whites by focusing upon cooperation between the races within the movement.16 lbHerbert Aptheker,The Negro in the Abolitionist Movement (New York: International Publishers Incorporated, 1941). 16Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969). 15

Most historians, however, have maintained that black and white abolitionist leaders usually disagreed over appropriate goals and strategies, eventually leading some black leaders to advocate a separate black movement. Howard Bell, who wrote a decade earlier than

Quarles, had stressed the conflict between the races, especially the increased militancy of black leaders and their dissatisfaction with attempts by whites to end slavery. In his essays, Bell argued that the roots of black nationalism can be found in the black convention movement betweon 1830 and I860.17

Jane and William Pease and Floyd J. Miller have attempted to place Bell's work within a larger context.

Miller and the Peases have portrayed the black conventions as just one component of a larger movement to end the subjugation of blacks in the United States.

These historians have traced the development of a distinct black nationalist movement, rooted in dissatisfaction with white leadership and a fundamental desire to create a self-sufficient black community.

According to the Peases, blacks and whites perceived

■^Howard Holman Bell, "Expressions of Negro Militancy in the North, 1840-1860," Journal of Negro History 45(January 1960): 11-20; "National Negro Conventions of the Middle 1840's: Moral Suasion vs. Political Action," Journal of_Negro History 42(October 1957): 247-260; & Survey of_the Neoro_Convention Movement. 1830-1861 (New York: Arno Press, 1969). 4

16 abolitionism differently and, as a result, created two separate abolitionist movements.18 R.J.M. Blackett has produced the only work, thus far, that reveals the international scope of antebellum black activism and the commitment of black abolitionists to ending slavery and racism in the United States. In Building an Antl-

Slavery Wall. Blackett supplements the works of

Fladeland and Rice by adding blacks to the effort to forge an alliance between British and American abolitionists.19

While historians of the Afro-American experience have enhanced our understanding of racial issues within the white-dominated antislavery movement, women's historians have focused primarily upon the experiences of women in the movement and the emergence of an independent women's rights movement from abolitionism.

Since scholarship on female abolitionists is still relatively new, few works exist on women's participation in the movement. Thus far, Alma Lutz has produced the only survey of women abolitionists, in

18Jane H. Pease and William H. Pease, They Who Would Be Erse; BlasksJ_Search for Freedom. 1830-61 (New York: Atheneum, 1970) ? Floyd J. Miller, The Search.F_or_a Black Nationality; Black Emigration and Colonization. 1787-1863 (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1975). XS,R.J.M. Blackett, Building an Antislaverv Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement. 1830- 1860 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana state University Press, 1983). 17 which she Identifies a few prominent black women, but focuses primarily upon leading white women, their activities, and the antislavery organizations they formed.20 other works on female abolitionists consist primarily of monographs on individual white women and collective biographies on famous white abolitionist women such as Abigail Kelley Foster, Sarah and Angelina

Grimke, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and

Susan B. Anthony.21

Since Lutz's study, a few women's historians have begun to examine important aspects of women's experiences that touched the lives of all women who participated in the antislavery movement, although most of these scholars have maintained the focus on white women abolitionists. Gerda Lerner, Blanche Glassman

Hersh, and Ellen DuBois have explored the extent to which abolitionist women challenged prevailing notions of women's "sphere" and.have argued that many women abolitionists actively resisted the prevailing concept of "women's sphere" by extending their abolitionist

^uAlroa Lutz, crusade For FreedomtWomen of the Antislaverv Movement (Boston: Beacon Press, 1968). ^Samuel Sillen's work, Women Against Slavery, published in 1955, was probably the first collective biography of leading black and white abolitionist women. Sillen's book provides brief biographical sketches of legendary black women Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth and well-known white women such as Lydia Maria child and the Grimke sister. 18 activities into the public realm, beyond their prescribed status as supporters of male activities.22

These scholars have examined the broader implications of white women's participation in the abolitionist movement by exploring the impact of abolitionism on the development of the nineteenth century women's rights movement. Ellen Dubois has argued that nineteenth century women's rights leaders developed a feminist consciousness long before they became involved in antislavery, but that their involvement in organized abolitionism helped many of them gain valuable political and organizational experience which they used to build an independent women's rights movement. Hersh has attempted to find common economic, social, and religious bonds among several leading white women feminist-abolitionists in an effort to understand why some women supported both abolitionism and women's rights. In so doing, however,

22For the most recent collective biography of women abolitionists, see Blanche Glassman Hersh, The slavery of Sex: Feminist Abolitionists in America (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1978). In The Grimke Sisters from South Carolina: Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolitionism (New York: Schocken Books, 1967), Gerda Lerner traces the careers of Angelina and Sarah M. Grimke, white Southern-born women who eventually moved to Philadelphia and became leading abolitionists. Other biographies of white women abolitionists include Margaret Hope Bacon, I Speak for Mv Slave Sister: The Life of Abbv Kellev Foster (New York, 1974). 19 she excludes other groups of women who were active in both movements. Hersh excluded black women from her study, arguing that they played a "peripheral role" in the nineteenth century women's movement "although they were important as abolitionists."23

In abolitionist historiography, black women > appear only in passing. Popular writers and historians have provided some information on the lives of well- known black women who participated in a variety of abolitionist activities. Popular writers have published brief biographies of some black women, focusing primarily on well-known, legendary figures such as

Harriet Tubman and Sojourner Truth, while historians have produced short biographical sketches of other leading black women, such as Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Ellen

Craft, Sarah Douglass, Charlotte Forten Grimke, Sarah

Parker Remond, and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.24

■“Ellen Carol Dubois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement. 1848-1869 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978) and "Women's Rights and Abolition: The Nature of the Connection," in Lewis Perry and Michael Fellman, eds., Antislavery Reconsidered: New Perspectives_on_Abolitionism (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979): 238- 251. See also Blanche Glassman Hersh, "'Am I not a Woman and A Sister? The Abolitionist Beginnings of Nineteenth Century Feminism," in Perry and Fellman, eds., Antis]averv Reconsidered, pp. 252-2S3. ^There are a number of recent studies on-the history of black women from a variety of perspectives. George F. Jackson's, Black Women: Makers of History. A portrait (Sacramento, CA: Fong & Fong, 1977), is a 20

Women's historians have done the most to integrate race and gender in their studies. Most of these works have focused primarily on black women as the victims of racism. These studies have led women's historians once more to raise questions relevant to the twentieth century women's movement, particularly about the possibility of creating a universal sisterhood between white and non-white women of all classes. Bonnie

Thornton Dill, Rosalyn Terborg Penn, and Phyllis

Marynick Palmer have suggested that the racism of white women in abolitionism and the emerging women's rights movement precluded the possibility of forging a cross- racial sisterhood.25 collection of short biographical sketches on black women from the antislavery movement to the present. Joyce A. Ladner takes a critical stance on the failure of historians to place black women in a historical context in "Racism and Tradition: Black Womanhood in Historical Perspective," in Berenice A. Carroll, ed., Liberating Women's History: Theoretical And Critical Essavs. (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1976). Works on individual black women include Ruth Bogin," Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist From Salem," Essex Institute Historical Collection. 110 (April 1974): 120-150? Dorothy B. Porter, "Sarah Parker Remond, Abolitionist and Physician," Journal of Negro History. 20(July 1935): 287-293. See also Edward T. James and Janet Wilson James, Notable American Women. 1607-1950:^A^lographical_ Dictionary. 3 vols /Cambridge, MA: The Harvard University Press, 1971). See Gerda Lerner, The Majority Finds its Past Placing Women in History (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 101-103? 106-107 and Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, "Discrimination Against Afro-American Women in the Woman's Movement, 1830-1920" in The Afro-American Woman: Struggles and Images, eds. Sharon Harley and 21

The works of a few scholars have indicated a shift in the direction of scholarship on black women by portraying black women as activists, rather than as passive victims of racism and sexism. Paula Giddings's book, When and Where I Enter is the most recent general work on the experiences of Afro-American women. Linda

Perkins and James Horton have looked specifically at black women's role in the nineteenth century free black community. Perkins, a historian of black women's education, has examined briefly the participation of free black women in self-help activities in their communities. Horton, in his study of gender ideals among antebellum free blacks, has maintained that gender conventions in the free black community explain black women's participation in these activities.26

Rosalyn Terborg-Penn (Port Washington, NY: Kennikat Press, 1978), pp. 17-27. For works on the issue of a "sisterhood" between white and non-white women see: Bonnie Thornton Dill, "Race, Class, and Gender: Perspectives for an All-Inclusive Sisterhood," Feminist studies 9 (Spring 1983): 131-150 and Phyllis Marynick Palmer, "White Women/Black Women: The Dualism of Female Identity and Experience in the United States," Feminist studies 9 (Spring 1983): 151-170. 2“Paula Giddings, When and.Where I.Enter:_The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1984). Linda Perkins, "Black Women and Racial 'Uplift' Prior to Emancipation" in Filomena Chioma Steady, ed., The Black Woman Cross culturally (Cambridge, MA: Schenkman Publishing Company, Inc., 1981): 317-334. 22

The current state of scholarship in abolitionist, Afro-American, and women's history, therefore, indicates the necessity of undertaking a separate study of black women abolitionists. In this study, I intend to answer several fundamental questions that Gerda

Lerner posed in 1979: "What did black women actually do, experience, and achieve in the past? What is their special historical contribution? In what ways was their historical experience similar to that of black men? In what way was it similar to that of white women?"27

This work makes an important contribution to abolitionist, Afro-American, and women's history by identifying black women as an important group of abolitionists. An exploration of black women abolitionists reveals the expectations and limitations of race and gender in the abolitionist movement and nineteenth century American society at-large. This study also integrates the work of Afro-American and women's scholars and builds upon the studies of a few recent historians by portraying black women as active participants in the struggle for racial equality rather than as passive victims of oppression.

Further, this study demonstrates that race and gender, as central forces in free black women's lives,

27Lerner. The Majority Finds Its Past, p. 66. 23

shaped their identity as activists and enabled them as

a group to play a vital and unique role in the

abolitionist movement. Finally, my work suggests that,

for many free black women abolitionists, community

activism was a primary way in which they participated

in the movement. As a result, such activity was an

important aspect of abolitionism. As this dissertation will show, the limitations and responsibilities of being black and female in nineteenth century America ultimately shaped their goals, motivations, and activities and gave black women a special role to play

in the movement.

METHODOLOGY

The difficulties of studying the historical experiences of black women are well known to Afro-

American and women's historians. As blacks and as women, black women have belonged to two groups whose experiences have been invisible in history. Except for manuscript collections on a handful of outstanding black women activists, records of black women's experiences have been buried or lost. The records that do exist are often uncataloged and scattered in family papers throughout the country.

Fortunately, within the past decade, a number of scholars in Afro-American and women's history have 24

undertaken the painstaking task of collecting documents

by and about black women in the United States and

Canada and their experiences in slavery and freedom.

Gerda Lerner, Bert Loewenberg, Ruth Bogin, and Dorothy

Sterling have done the most to raise black women's voices out of obscurity by publishing edited

collections of their writings and speeches. The most

recent attempt by black historians to encourage further

study of abolitionism has been the Black Abolitionist

Papers project in which c. Peter Ripley and George

Carter have undertaken the enormous task of compiling

documents by black men and women who participated in

any way in the movement,28

These collections have made an investigation of

black women's lives much easier by providing a good

starting place from which to explore the participation

of black women in the antislavery movement. An

exhaustive investigation of black women abolitionists,

however, required that I also unearth a variety of

other manuscripts located in major libraries and

i8See Gerda Lerner,ed., Black Women in White America; A Documentary History (New York: Pantheon Books, 1972); Bert James Loewenberg and Ruth Bogin, eds., Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976); Dorothy Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984); and C. Peter Ripley and George Carter, eds., Black Abolitionist Papers. 17 Reel microfilm edition. 25 historical societies in the United States.

Organizational records, black and white antislavery

newspapers, and personal correspondences of abolitionist men and women of both races provided

important pieces of information on black women's lives.

Taken together they have enabled me to construct a

large picture of black women's experiences in the

abolitionist movement.

The records of all-black and racially-mixed female

antislavery societies and black community self-help

organizations were helpful in a number of ways. These

documents revealed the names of individual black women who chose to participate in the movement through

organized activism. Some membership lists indicated the breadth of black female activism by showing that many

of these women participated in both antislavery and

self-help organizations. These documents also reveal the goals and priorities of black women abolitionists and the extent to which their goals matched those of white women. In addition, such records tell us a great deal about the patterns of organization in which black women consistently engaged.

During the mid-nineteenth century, the newspaper had become the primary means of mass communication and revealed much about the community in which it served. 26

Antebellum black and white abolitionist newspapers were valuable to my research in several respects. Many of

these periodicals contained the writings and speeches

of black women. They also provided information on the

activities of individual black women abolitionists as well as of self-help and antislavery societies through

notices of upcoming or past events and published

letters of abolitionists. Newspapers also provide

insight into the dominant values of leading members of

the community. The publishers of black newspapers, many

of whom were leading black clergymen, frequently

published articles that instructed their readers on

social values and rules of conduct for men and women.

The private correspondence of white and black

abolitionists revealed a great deal about the personal

relationships among several black women and white women

abolitionists. In these letters, black women not only

told of their own activities, but sometimes revealed to

close friends their experiences as victims of race prejudice.

In order to construct a research project that was both manageable and meaningful, I imposed a few limitations upon my study. First, I have focused upon the activities of Afro-American women who were either born into free black families, or had acquired their 27

freedom from slavery through manumission or escape.

Although one can make an argument for Including slave women involved in resistance as a part of the

abolitionist movement, the experiences of enslaved and

free women differ in Buch fundamental ways that a study of patterns of participation cannot easily incorporate both. Hy focus on free black women allows me to explore

the ways that black women not constrained directly by

the institution of slavery participated as a group in

the abolitionist movement and, further, to identify the

ways in which race and gender intersected in their

lives.

I have also constructed a particular geographical

and chronological framework by limiting my discussion

to the period between 1828 and 1860 and focusing upon

Northern free black women. Although black male

abolitionists participated in organized antislavery as

early as 1817, I have found that black women began

organizing community self-help societies in 1828 with the formation of the African Dorcas Society in New York

City. The highpoint of black women's organization of antislavery societies occurred during the 1830s and

1840s. During this period, supporters of William Lloyd

Garrison's leadership inspired whites and blacks to

form hundreds of antislavery organizations throughout 28

the Northeast and Midwest. Black women too joined in this wave of enthusiasm*

In the beginning of my research, I had intended to examine the activities of free black women

abolitionists without geographical limitations. In the

course of my research, however, it became evident that most black women abolitionists operated in well-known

centers of antislavery agitation: the Midwest, the

Northeast, and, to some extent, California and Canada.

By 1830, antislavery agitation had largely disappeared from the South. In addition, organized abolitionist

activity for most free blacks occurred primarily within

an urban context. Such a phenomenon is not surprising,

since the majority of free blacks lived in cities such

as Cincinnati, Philadelphia, New York, Rochester, and Boston. During the late 1850s and 1860s, blacks in

California, many of whom were originally from the east

coast, continued their work in the antislavery movement. In these cities, most black women participated in community self-help activities and

organized antislavery. Thus, I have focused primarily upon black abolitionist agitation in the "nominally

free" states north of the Mason-Dixon line, Canada, and, to a limited extent, California. 29

The following chapters explore the variety of ways

black women participated in the abolitionist movement. They build upon the premise that black women

abolitionists were motivated by a dual responsibility

to both their gender and race, but that racism and

sexism often presented obstacles to the fulfillment of

their duties as blacks and as women. The barriers of

race and gender, however, did not render black women

powerless, but motivated them to find alternative ways

of participating in abolitionism.

Chapter II begins with an overview of the history of the abolitionist movement in the United States in

order to provide the context for black women's

activism. It also explores the variety of black

women's abolitionist activities through biographical

sketches of 14 leading black women. These profiles

reveal some of the common experiences that leading

black women abolitionists shared as well as the

activities in which they engaged. Chapter III explores

the limitations and responsibilities of gender and race

in the lives of black women activists by considering the gender ideal or "cult of true womanhood" that

existed in the antebellum free black community.

Chapter IV examines the central role that free black women played in abolitionism on the community 30

level. Although black men also participated in self- help activities in the free black community, community activism was particularly relevant to the lives of black women for it enabled them to fulfill their responsibilities as women and as blacks. Chapter V examines black women's experiences in organized antislavery and focuses on the impact of racism on their organizational choices. This material demonstrates that black women, whether they participated in all-black or racially-mixed female

antislavery societies, maintained as their central concern the welfare of the free black community as well as the abolition of slavery. Chapter VI explores the

implications of black women's participation in public abolitionist activities, such as speaking, writing, and petitioning, and the extent to which they violated contemporary codes of "proper" behavior for women.

Finally, Chapter VII explores the implications of black women abolitionists' support for the nineteenth century women's rights movement. I have included this chapter in order to show that although black women supported women's rights, they continued to maintain their commitment to the welfare and advancement of the black community. My findings not only demonstrate the continuity of black women's goals throughout this 31 period, but inevitably raise questions about the history of the nineteenth century women's rights movement. As this chapter will show, black women's continued commitment to their race led them to retain an alliance with black men, thus challenging the notion that all feminists supported a separatist position in the women's movement. CHAPTER II

BLACK WOMEN AND AMERICAN ABOLITIONISM:

THE CONTINUATION OP A TRADITION AND THE FORMATION OF

BLACK FEMALE PATTERNS OF PARTICIPATION

In order to consider the patterns of participation of black women abolitionists, it is first necessary to understand the movement in which they were active. This chapter provides a brief overview of the development of the antislavery movement in the United States from the early eighteenth century to the 1840s. Between the colonial era and the Civil War, the movement to end slavery took place in different forms and attracted a variety of people. As this chapter will show, black women participated in a long tradition of antislavery activism in the United States and at the same time contributed to the development of a distinct pattern of black female participation in the struggle to end slavery and racial oppression.

THE AMERICAN ANTISLAVERY MOVEMENT: AN_QVERVIEW

As Benjamin Quarles once put it, antislavery sentiment in America is "almost as old as American 33

slavery itself."1 Southern whites had made the first

complaints against slavery during the eighteenth

century. During this period, some whites considered

slavery a threat to the stability of the colonies. To

be sure, the problem of runaway slaves had been

troublesome, but the danger of slave uprisings against

the white population had been the most frightening

aspect of slavery. Large scale rebellions had occurred

infrequently in the colonies, but the few that had

taken place alerted whites to the dangers of owning

slaves. The Stono Rebellion in 1739, in particular,

had caused widespread panic throughout the Carolinas

and prompted colonial leaders to enact stronger measures for controlling their slaves.2 The threat of

attacks from hostile Native Americans and European

competitors, particularly, the French and Spanish, had

produced additional fears among southerners, who worried that these groups might ally with slaves in a

rebellion. Southern fears were not completely

•‘•Beniamin Quarles. The Negro in the American_Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1961), p. 33. * South Carolina had been the first colony to enact slave patrol laws in order to maintain strict surveillance of the black population. Legislators strengthened these laws with each decade. For a study of the Stono Rebellion, see Peter Wood, Black Majority; Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 through the Stono Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 1974), pp. 308-26. 34

unfounded. The French and Spanish had posed a real

threat to the security of the colonies during the early

stages of settlement. Moreover, the Spanish government

in Florida had given every indication that they would

not assist in the capture of runaway slaves. Slaves in

the Carolinas routinely escaped into Spanish Florida,

where they lived as maroons. The internal and external

problems of slavery had convinced some whites that

slavery was more of a source of weakness than of

strength.3

The reduction of the Spanish threat by the mid­

eighteenth century had diminished fears among English

settlers that foreign nations might assist slaves in a

massive rebellion. Although the southerners still worried about slave rebellions, fear no longer

characterized antislavery sentiment. Between the 1750s

and the American Revolution, religious doctrine and political philosophy gradually replaced fear as the basis for antislavery thought and convinced abolitionists that gradual emancipation was the most

JThe establishment of Georgia in 1732 illustrates southern concerns about slavery. The English government, under the proprietorship of James Oglethorpe, had established Georgia as a buffer colony between South Carolina and Spanish Florida in order to protect the English colonies from Spanish invasion. One of the provisions for organizing the colony was to prohibit slavery. 35

prudent way to end slavery. Gradualism, in fact,

characterized antislavery sentiment until the 1830s,

when a vocal faction of abolitionists, dissatisfied

with such a moderate approach, advocated the immediate

abolition of slavery without compensation to

slaveowners.

By the 1750s and 1760s, the ideas of the Great

Awakening, the Enlightenment, and the American

Revolution had encouraged individuals to reevaluate

their relationships with both God and their

institutions. The wave of religious revivalism which

swept the country during the 1740s and 1750s led many

converts to "new light" Christianity to criticize

slavery on moral grounds. Before 1750, few had

questioned the morality of slavery; most educated

individuals had taken for granted that slavery was a

part of the natural organization of human society. The

Quakers had voiced the earliest cries against slavery

on moral grounds, steeped in a tradition of egalitarianism, they based their opposition to slavery on a fundamental belief in the equality of all people and regarded slavery as a violation of God's will. The

Quaker sect had been the only religious group that set out to reform its own community by forbidding members to own slaves. Quaker opposition to slavery had gone 36

unheeded by most colonists until the the 1750s and

1760s, when the Great Awakening brought new converts

into the antislavery camp.

Inspired by the charismatic English evangelist

George Whitefield, "new light" preachers clung to

traditional beliefs in the sinfulness of man and the

ultimate power of God. At the same time, however, they

provided hope for salvation by removing the barrier of

original sin, arguing that human beings possessed the

power to attain their own salvation by making a

personal commitment to Christian morality and assuming

individual responsibility for their day-to-day

activities. The emphasis on free will and personal

choice for salvation challenged traditional calvinist beliefs in predestination, that God had saved only a chosen few, and implied that spiritual equality existed between all human beings, regardless of gender, race,

or class.

Benevolence was an important aspect of "new light" Christianity. Revivalist preachers delivered sermons on Christian responsibility for the physical and spiritual welfare of others. This emphasis on benevolence and good works also influenced ideas about slavery. Many church leaders had taken their cue from the Quakers by denouncing slavery as immoral and 37 encouraging their congregants to support antislavery activities. Unlike the Quakers, however, most church leaders balked at the idea of imposing punishments upon slaveholders. As a result, most southerners retained slavery, but applied Christian ideals of benevolence to the treatment of their slaves. For slaveholders, therefore, the commitment to benevolence and Christian morality meant bringing spiritual rather than physical freedom to their slaves. In the meantime, the ideas of the Great Awakening had convinced Quakers and other abolitionists to work even harder for the end of slavery. In 1775, Philadelphia Quakers had formed the first organization that was devoted solely to the abolition of slavery, the Society for the Relief of

Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage.4

The ideas of the Enlightenment coincided with religious notions that slavery was wrong and, like the

Great Awakening, emphasized the power of human action.

During this "Age of Reason," political thinkers such as

John Locke and Montesquieu rejected the traditional assumption that God controlled the universe and that original sin governed human action. They argued instead that natural law, not the will of God, actually ruled the universe. The ability of humans to

^Stewart. Hoiv Warriors. p. 23. 38

understand the universe through their own intellect rather than through divine revelation gave them the

power to improve society. American colonists could easily accept the notion that humans possessed the

ability to govern the development o£ their

civilization. Colonists might have perceived the conversion of the eastern seaboard from a vast wilderness into a civilized society as proof of human

ability and progress.5 To enlightened individuals, the

enslavement of one human being by another violated the principle of human autonomy and natural rights and,

therefore, did not belong in rational society. By the

American Revolution, educated individuals took for granted that slavery was an anomaly, a remnant of a

less-enlightened past; most Individuals assumed that slavery would gradually die out as human society progressed. At the same time, they also understood the importance of property to individual freedom and, hence, believed financial compensation to slaveowners should accompany the abolition of slavery.

The quarrel with Great Britain during the 1760s, based upon economic motivations as well as

Enlightenment ideology, reminded American colonists of the contradiction slavery represented in their society. bStewart. Holv Warriors, p. 12. 39

During the war, the slavery question for the first time occupied a place in national politics, as leaders in Congress argued over such issues as the arming of

slaves and whether or not to include an indictment of

slavery in the Declaration of Independence. As Bernard

Bailyn has pointed out, American political leaders such as James Otis, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine, and

Thomas Jefferson contributed to the development of antislavery thought in their lengthy critiques of slavery.® Influenced by Lockean principles of human liberty, particularly Locke's slogan, "life, liberty, and property", the leaders of the American Revolution acknowledged the irony of their situation. On the one hand, they cried out against tyranny and their enslavement to British policy, yet, on the other hand, they lived in a society that tolerated slavery. This situation did not escape the attention of those who opposed American independence. As the famed English writer, Dr. Samuel Johnson, remarked in 1775: "We are told, that the subjugation of Americans may tend to the domination of our own liberties....If slavery be thus pBernard Bailvn. The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967), pp. 230-246; Stewart, Holy Warriors, pp. 19-20. See also Jefferson's "Thoughts on Slavery" in Notes on the State of Virginia. 1785 and Thomas Paine, The Writings of Thomas Paine, vol. 1, Moncure D. Conway, ed. (New York: 1894-96), pp. 4-9. fatally contagious, how Is it that we hear the loudest

yelps for liberty among the drivers of negroes?"7

The two great forces In American political,

religious and Intellectual thought during the

Revolutionary period, the Great Awakening and the

Enlightenment, had emphasized the power of the

individual to improve society through step-by-step

change. Such ideas had also influenced antislavery

thought by encouraging individuals to rethink the meaning of freedom and liberty and to act according to

their consciences. Only in the middle states and New

England, however, did these ideas actually result in

freedom for slaves. Ideas of political freedom, human rights, and morality, coupled with the decreasing profitability of slavery, facilitated the decision to abolish the institution in the North. Although the

American Revolution had persuaded many to identify the cause for independence with the plight of the slave, most leaders still advocated a gradualist approach to ending slavery. Thus, between 1777 and 1804, legislators in the northern states abolished slavery through gradual emancipation laws, judicial decisions,

1 Samuel Johnson, "Taxation No Tyranny" in J.P. Hardy, ed., The Political Writings of Dr. Samuel Johnson; A Selection (New York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1968), p. 132. 41 or state constitutions.8 The ideals of the Great

Awakening and the Enlightenment had convinced most abolitionists to take a cautious, moderate approach to eliminating one of America's most firmly entrenched institutions.

Most white abolitionists before 1830 had accepted the idea of gradual emancipation. Moreover, by the late eighteenth century, leading whites who perceived a growing "race problem" in the United States also advocated a program of colonizing freed blacks outside of the country. Worried by recent incidents of slave unrest, white southerners feared that an enlarged free black population in the South would increase the chances of cooperation between slaves and free blacks in a massive black rebellion.9 As Winthrop D. Jordan and David Brion Davis have pointed out, most whites held to the prevailing assumption that the races could not coexist as free people. The proposal to deport free

^Leon F. Litwack. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States. 1790-1860 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1961), p.3n. 9The slave revolt in Santo Domingo in 1793 and Gabriel Prosser's effort to capture Richmond in 1800 caused widespread alarm in the South and renewed fears among southern whites of the dangers of a slave rebellion. Many worried that free blacks might cooperate with slaves in a massive rebellion. See Stewart, Holv Warriors, p. 28? Winthrop Jordan, White Over Black: American.Attitudes Toward the Negro. 1550-1812 (chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968), p. 122-23. 42

blacks also promised to alleviate fears that

emancipation would burden white society with an unskilled and socially unassimilable black

population.10 During the early nineteenth century, white support for gradual emancipation and colonization influenced the development of organized abolitionism on the

national level and attracted antislavery advocates from

both the North and the South. In fact, the strongest

antislavery sentiment had historically come from the

South, particularly the Upper South, where leading intellectuals like Jefferson wrote their critiques of slavery.

Influential white reformers in 1816 formed the

first national antislavery organization in the United States, the American Colonization Society.

Headquartered in Washington, D.C., the members of this

organization included prominent clergymen as well as

southern political notables such as Henry Clay and Bushrod Washington, the nephew of George Washington.

Future radical abolitionists from the North, such as William Lloyd Garrison, Arthur and Lewis Tappan, James

10Jordan. White Over Black, pp. 546-47 and David Brion Davis, The Problem of Slavery in the Aae of Revolution. 1770-1823 (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975), p. 199. 43

G. Birney, and Samuel J. May, also supported gradualism

and colonization during their early involvement in the

antislavery movement.11 Support for the American Colonization Society

flourished during the 1820s as influential figures

endorsed its program and provided some financial

backing. But despite widespread support for

colonization, the program to rid society of its black

population eventually failed. Lack of sufficient funds was a major factor that led to the downfall of the

project; even the large donations given to the Society

from wealthy members, such as the Tappans, were inadequate to cover the enormous costs of gathering,

shipping, and resettling blacks in Africa. Efforts to appropriate funds from Congress were doomed to failure,

since southern representatives would never agree to a proposal that gave Congress the power to interfere in the regulation of slavery. A second and, perhaps, more compelling reason for the failure of colonization was

11Dlllonf The Abolitionists, pp. 19-20. For information on the colonization movement, see P.J. Staudenraus, The African Colonization Movement. 1816-1865 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1961). For racial attitudes of whites during this period, see Winthrop Jordan, White_Q.ver Black; American Attitudes Toward the Negro, 1550-1812 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1968) and George Frederickson, The Black Image in the White Mind: The Debate on Afro-American Character and Destiny. 1817-1914 (New York: Harper & Row, 1971). 44

that most blacks simply refused to go. By the 1820s,

most free blacks considered themselves Afro-Americans

who by that time had few ties to Africa. Those blacks

who later supported black emigration argued that blacks

themselves should decide whether or not to leave the

United States.

Growing disenchantment with colonizationist

ideology also led to factionalism within the movement.

By the late 1820s, a more vocal, radical wing of

abolitionists had emerged from the ranks of

colonizationists who questioned the motives of the

society. The colonizationists* constant emphasis on the degradation of blacks and the need to separate them

from whites convinced a growing number of abolitionists that the colonizationist approach to antislavery was detrimental to the welfare of blacks. But, despite the obvious faults of colonizationism, the movement had at least spread the word about slavery and racial oppression.

The "dissenting minority" of abolitionists, many of whom hailed from New England, renounced the

Society's scheme to rid the nation of a "race problem" through tho gradual emancipation and deportation of blacks. The future leader of "modern" or "radical" abolitionism, William Lloyd Garrison, joined this group 45

of abolitionists. The Quaker abolitionist Benjamin

Lundy had been instrumental in Garrison's decision to

renounce colonization and gradualism and embrace an

immediatist approach to ending slavery.12 in January

of 1831, Garrison published the first issue of his

abolitionist newspaper, Ihe__Liberator. which advocated

the immediate emancipation of slaves without compensation to slaveholders, denounced

colonizationism, and adopted a non-violent strategy of

"moral suasion" as the primary way to end slavery. By

convincing slaveholders of the sinfulness of slavery,

Garrison and his supporters hoped to persuade them to

free their slaves. He denounced the government and the

church, institutions which had traditionally condoned slavery. Garrison also supported abolitionist efforts to rid society of race prejudice by supporting self- help activities within the free black community.

One year after founding The Liberator. Garrison initiated the formation of the New England Anti-Slavery

Society. In December of 1833, sixty-two abolitionists from New York, Boston, and Philadelphia met in

XiLundy was the founder and editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, which served as the leading journal of the antislavery movement during the 1820s. For a biography of Lundy, see Merton L. Dillon, Beniamin Lundv and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1966) and Dillon, The Abolitionists, pp. 35-36. Philadelphia to form a national organization, the

American Anti-Slavery Society, which rivaled the

American Colonization Society. Clearly, the emergence

of a radical faction of abolitionists, headed by

Garrison in Boston, Gerrit Smith in Peterboro, New

York, and the Tappan brothers in New York City had

shifted antislavery activism permanently from the Upper

South to the Northeast.

By the late 1830s and 1840s, "moral suasion" had

failed to convince slaveowners to abolish slavery.

Dissatisfaction over Garrison's strategies emerged within the ranks of the immediatists. Factions of

abolitionists argued over politics, "non-resistance," the "woman question" and the treatment of blacks in the movement. Some considered Garrison's opposition to abolitionist involvement in religious and political

institutions as impractical. Birney and the Tappans

led the group of politically-minded reformers who believed that abolitionists should fight the Slave

Power on its own ground, in Congress. They eventually

formed the Liberty Party in 1840, the first party devoted solely to ending slavery. Debate also erupted in 1840 over whether or not the national organization should admit women as voting members. Traditionally,

, women were allowed to attend meetings, but only men 47

voted on policy-making decisions. In 1840, the majority

Garrisonian faction, which favored the equal

participation of men and women, elected Abigail Kelley

Foster to the executive committee. The election of

Kelley Foster brought about the final break in the

American Anti-Slavery Society. Anti-Garrisonians left the AAS to form a rival national organization, the

American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which advocated political action and the "proper" .place of women in the movement.

A group of black abolitionists had also voiced discontent with Garrisonian abolitionism. Leading men in the free black community had joined with whites in the organization of the American Anti-Slavery Society; three leading free black men, Robert Purvis, James

McCrummell, and James G. Barbadoes, had signed the constitution. This was not the first time, however, that free blacks had organized against slavery, although it did mark the first time that black and white abolitionists agreed upon the same goals. Unlike many of their white colleagues, most black abolitionists had not undergone the same process of disillusionment over colonization, since they had vigorously opposed the colonization program from the beginning. In 1817, a group of leading black men in 48

Philadelphia met at Bethel Church to issue a formal

condemnation of the American Colonization Society, which had been formed the previous year. This meeting

eventually led to the organization of annual all-black conventions during the 1830s, which promoted self-help

in the free black community as well as antislavery.

For black men and women, abolitionism meant the end not only of slavery, but the subjugation of all blacks.

Thus black abolitionists worked for both the abolition of slavery and the social, political, and economic advancement of the free black community. Many white abolitionists, however, still maintained conservative social views and considered the achievement of social, political, and economic equality between the races too extreme.

By the 1840s, most black abolitionist men and women remained loyal to Garrison during the debate over strategies, although several had joined the Tappan wing of the movement and supported the formation of an antislavery party. Some black leaders opposed

Garrison's stand on non-resistance. David Walker,

Charles Remond, and Frederick Douglass were three of the most vocal opponents of pacifism.'1,3 Douglass, i3In 1829, Walker published his Appeal, which encouraged slaves to use any means available to obtain their freedom, including armed rebellion. Remond, a 49

Martin Delany and other black leaders had also objected to racism within the antislavery movement. Although black abolitionists participated actively in various antislavery activities, they were often excluded from policy-making decisions.

As several scholars of Afro-American history have maintained, basic disagreements over goals and strategies as well as racism within the abolitionist community eventually led many black abolitionists to break with the white-dominated movement and promote a distinct black nationalist movement which demanded both the end of slavery and the achievement of racial equality.14 Douglass, Delany, Henry and Mary Bibb, and

Mary Ann Shadd Cary led the movement toward separatism from whites and the creation of an independent black nationalist movement. Douglass established his own newspaper, the North star, in Rochester, New York, which urged black men and women to participate in the creation of a self-sufficient free black community in black abolitionist from Salem, Mass., told the members of the Glasgow Anti-Slavery Society in Scotland that he would welcome a war between the United States and Great Britain over the Canadian boundary if it promised freedom for slaves. In 1848, Douglass delivered a speech in Boston, in which he abandoned the pacifist stance and expressed support for slave uprisings. Quarles, Black Abolitionists, pp. 16-17, 225, 228. A*See Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free. Miller, the Search For a Black Nationality, and Quarles, Blac.H Abolitionists, pp. 3-8. 50 the United States through education, benevolence, and antislavery activities. Unlike Douglass, however,

Delany, the Bibbs, and Shadd Cary abandoned all hope of eradicating racism and advocated black emigration to

Canada as the only solution to ending the subjugation of blacks. These activists established a number of free black communities in Canada.

Free black men and women participated in abolitionist activities throughout the northern United

States, particularly in cities in which antislavery agitation flourished and where a sizable free black population resided. In most American cities, free blacks lived in segregated areas where housing was poor.16 Leonard P. Curry has found that between 1820 and 1840 the five largest concentrations of northern free blacks were located in New York City,

Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Boston, and Brooklyn.16 In li!>Leon F. Litwack. North of Slavery: The Negro in the Free States. 1790-1860 (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1961), p. 168-69. 16According to census reports, the total number of free blacks in the United States rose from 234,000 to 434.000 between 1820 and 1850. In the North and West, the total free black population rose from 138,000 to 199.000 in 1850. The Social and Economic Status of the Black Population in the United States: An Historical View. 1790-1978. current population Reports, U.S. Department of Commerce. Bureau of the Census, 1980, p. 11. In 1840, for example, the free black population in New York City numbered 16,358; in Philadelphia, 10,507; in Cincinnati, 2,240; in Boston, 1,977; and in Brooklyn, 1772. Leonard P. Curry, The Free Black in 51

Canada, black abolitionists operated fugitive slave communities in Windsor and Chatham, both located across from Detroit, Michigan on the northern border of Lake

Erie. In Chatham, free blacks made up about one third of the town's total population.17 In all of these cities, black activism flourished. Recent Afro-American historians have encouraged further study of black participation in the

abolitionist movement in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain, c. Peter Ripley and George Carter, the editors of the Black Abolitionist Papers, compiled

approximately 300 names of blacks who participated in the antislavery movement between 1830 and 1860. Of this

number, 153 were black women. Ripley and Carter limited their list to individuals who consistently generated

documentation of their abolitionist activities through letters, editorials, petitions, and speeches. As a result, prominent black men and women abolitionists

were included on the list, while less well-known and,

perhaps, less active abolitionists were eventually

dropped from the list. I used this liBt to begin

identifying black female abolitionists. After further

Urban America. 1800-1850: The Shadow of a Dream fChicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981), p. 250 17Robin W. Winks, The Blacks in Canada: A History (Montreal: McGill-Queen's University Press), p. 246. 52 investigation into antislavery society records, black and white abolitionist newspapers, and edited collections of black women's documents, I unearthed the names of an additional 37 women.18 These different sources provided me with the names of 190 black women abolitionists.

Unfortunately, the dearth of biographical data on these women limits our knowledge of their lives. Census records provide little help to researchers in the history of the black experience before the twentieth century. Until 1850, free blacks were not included in the federal census. When the census did include blacks, it usually listed black men as heads of households. Other collections proved more helpful.

Carter Woodson's Free Negro Heads of Families_in_the

United States in 1830 (1925) was particularly helpful in obtaining data on several black women who were listed as heads of households in 1830. Antislavery society records also provided valuable information on some of the more vocal and active black women who participated in organized abolitionism. Unfortunately,

18The edited collections on black women that proved most helpful were Bert James Loewenberg and Ruth Bogin, eds., Black women in Nineteenth Centurv_J*merica; Their Words._Their Thoughts. Their Feelings and Dorothy Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth century. 53

unless they were particularly active on Issues brought

before the society, were members of their society's

various committees, or participated in public

abolitionist activities, their lives as abolitionists

remain obscure. Nevertheless, I have collected biographical data on these 190 women whenever I

encountered such materials.

THE LIVES OF BLACK WOMEN ABOLITIONISTS

In order to provide an idea of black women's

experiences as abolitionists, I focus in this chapter

on the lives of fourteen women who are well-known to

Afro-American and women's historians as activists in

the abolitionist movement. Unlike most black women,

sufficient information exists on these particular

individuals. Several of them left accounts of their

lives in letters and diaries. In addition, their

activism often impressed influential abolitionists, who

described the activities of these women in their

newspapers and personal correspondence. The

availability of information on the fourteen women in this section, therefore, has enabled me to construct a profile of a small group of leading black women abolitionists. Clearly, these women are not representative of all black women who participated in the abolitionist movement. Nevertheless, an 54 examination of their lives illustrates the range of activities in which free black women participated and provides insight into their collective experience as black female activists.

Whether one was a free-born black or an ex-slave was a major factor that determined black women's abolitionist activities. Thus, I have divided this section into two categories, free^born and ex-slave.

Within these categories, I have arranged my subjects chronologically in order to demonstrate the continuity of black women's activism. Two generations of free black women engaged in a number of abolitionist activities as well as women's rights. For most of the women included in this section, their breadth of activism extended beyond ending slavery and included the advancement of the race and equality for women.

Most of these fourteen women lived and worked in areas where abolitionist activity flourished. Thirteen of these women had begun their careers in northeastern

Pennsylvania and Massachusetts, centers of abolitionist activism. Sarah P. Remond conducted her abolitionist activities in Great Britain, where an active abolitionist community operated. In these regions, they found strong support networks for their activities.

Even those women who dared to travel throughout the 55 free states to deliver antislavery lectures maintained ties to abolitionist colleagues by sending accounts of their experiences to abolitionist newspapers. Yet, as this profile indicates, free black women formed different support networks for their activities, based upon their experiences as either free born or ex-slave women. Of the fourteen women included in this section, two had been born into slavery and twelve had come from free black families. Most of the free-born black women in this group enjoyed several advantages over ex-slave women. All of the twelve free-born women included in this profile obtained an adequate education, which enabled them to participate in a number of activities, such as improving education among free blacks and writing for the abolitionist press. Ten of these women had grown up in families whose members had been active in the free black community and had participated in antislavery activities. In most cases, their families had forged personal and professional connections with leading black and white abolitionists. The activist tradition in their families taught them the importance of community activism, and family ties to the abolitionist community gained for them entrance into leading abolitionist circles. Thus, for these women, 56

the advancement of the free black community was as

important as ending slavery.

Ex-slave women, as exemplified in the lives of

Sojourner Truth and Harriet Tubman, did not experience

the nurturing of activist families, nor did they enjoy

the advantages of a good education. Through their own

initiative they gained access to antislavery circles

and established friendships with other abolitionists.

As former slaves, they had experienced the oppression

of slavery first hand. As female slaves, they had also understood the special perils that black enslaved women. Like slave men, they had suffered the lash. But as women, they also experienced sexual exploitation as breeders for the slave economy and as victims of rape by white men. The racial and sexual oppression Truth and Tubman had witnessed in slavery perhaps served as a strong motivating force in their decision to support movements to rid society of all oppression. Thus, while

free-born black women engaged in a number of activities

for the advancement of the race, Truth and Tubman maintained as their priority the abolition of slavery, although they also supported a number of other activities, such as women's rights. Thus, the status of these women as either former slaves or free born blacks 57

shaped their activities and determined the type of

abolitionist networks in which they operated.

EX-SLAVES

SOJOURNER TRUTH f1797-1883)

The best-known ex-slave woman to address audiences

on antislavery and women's rights was Sojourner Truth.

Born in Ulster County, New York in 1797, Truth's

original name was Isabella Baumfree, and she belonged to a Dutch slaveholder. Before the age of twelve, she was separated from her family and sold twice. When she was sixteen or seventeen, her master arranged her marriage to an older slave, Thomas. Isabella bore thirteen children, some of whom were eventually separated from her. In 1827, she gained her freedom through the passage of a general emancipation law in

New York. Now a freedwoman, she attempted to rescue her own children. She succeeded in freeing her son,

Peter, by filing a complaint with a New York grand jury, arguing that her son had been sold illegally into slavery in Alabama.

After Isabella gained her freedom, she worked briefly as a domestic servant in New York City, and then joined a group of evangelists, living and working 58 in a religious commune. Through her association with this group, Isabella "caught the spirit" and became a fervent evangelist. Changing her name to Sojourner Truth in 1843, she dedicated her life to abolitionism and, like other abolitionists, linked the end of slavery with spiritual salvation. She chose "Sojourner" because she "was to travel up an' down the land showin* the people their sins an' bein' a sign unto them." She chose "Truth" as a surname because

"everybody else had two names" and she was to "declare the truth to the people."19

Sojourner Truth, as an abolitionist, worked primarily outside of organized abolitionism, although she sometimes attended antislavery meetings and delivered stirring speeches at antislavery conventions during her career. She travelled alone on the east coast wherever "the Spirit" called her, delivering antislavery speeches to both hostile and receptive audiences. Harriet Beecher Stowe described her when they met in the 1860s:

Her tall form is still vivid in my mind. She was dressed in some stout, grayish stuff, neat and clean, though dusty from travel.... She seemed perfectly self-possessed and at her ease; in fact

li:,01 i v e Gilbert. Narrative of Soiourner Truth (Battle Creek, MI: Review and Herald Office), p. 184. 59

there was almost an unconscious superiority, not unmixed with a solemn twinkle of humor....20

Like other women speakers, Truth sometimes encountered

hostility for speaking in public. As a black woman,

however, she also violated prevailing social codes of

black submissiveness. In 1858, members of a pro­

slavery audience claimed that she was really a man and

challenged her to strip to the waist to prove she was a

woman.21

As a feminist, she worked both within and outside

of women's rights organizations. An advocate of female

equality, Truth successfully combined women's rights

with her antislavery appeals. In her famous "Ain't I a

Woman" address at the Women's Rights convention in

Akron, Ohio in 1851, Truth emphasized that as slaves

and as blacks, black women did not receive the

deferential treatment from white men that white women

received. After Blavery ended, Truth intensified her

support for women's rights and sided with the stanton-

Anthony branch of the movement that proposed universal

suffrage. In her feminist speeches, Truth stressed the need for women to obtain economic independence and

suffrage. In 1878, she made her last appearance at a

^Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, p. 150. 13Ibid, p. 151. 60 women's rights meeting when she attended the National

Woman Suffrage Association convention. She continued her work on the women's rights issue by pushing for the expansion of job opportunities for women, especially black women.

HARRIET TUBMAN (1820-19131

Harriet Tubman was best known for her work in the

Underground Railroad, an informal network formed by free blacks and sympathetic whites to help slaves escape to the free states and Canada. Tubman, more than any other black woman, became legendary for her assistance to fugitive slaves. An escaped slave herself, Tubman reportedly returned to the South at least nineteen times to lead fugitive slaves to freedom. Like Sojourner Truth, Tubman's motivating force was her religious conviction. Like Truth, Tubman also worked primarily outside of organized antislavery, although abolitionists knew of her exploits and sought her out as a speaker.

Born a slave in Maryland in 1820, Tubman suffered beatings almost daily from her master and overseer. In one incident, the overseer hit her on the head with a two-pound weight, which caused her to lose consciousness periodically for the rest of her life. 61

Despite her affliction, Tubman escaped in 1849 to

Delaware and then to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia, she lived within the free-black community and worked as a cook, scrubwoman, seamstress, and a domestic, the only occupations open to most free black women workers.

One year later, she was an active conductor on the

Underground Railroad. She met William Still and other members of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee who also worked as conductors and who provided Tubman with connections to others active on the Underground

Railroad route. Tubman's first trip back into the slave states was to rescue her brother, sister, and their children from slavery in Baltimore. The Fugitive

Slave Act of 1850, which made even the North unsafe for runaways, restricted her activities. The new law forced Tubman and other conductors to extend the

Underground Railroad route into Canada.

When the Civil War broke out in 1861, Tubman fought alongside combat troops.22 She served as a nurse, scout, and spy for the Union troops. While working with the Union forces, Tubman helped approximately 700 slaves escape to freedom. She not only aided in their escapes, she also assisted freedmen

^George F. Jackson, Black Women; Makers of History; A Portrait, p. 66. 62 and freedwomen by promoting the establishment of schools for freed slaves in the South. In 1862, she joined black and white abolitionists in the "Sea Island

Experiment", a project sponsored by abolitionists to educate slaves abandoned by their masters on the coastal islands off the coast of Georgia and South

Carolina. Union troops had invaded the islands in the spring of 1862, driving slaveholders off their plantations. Most of these planters left behind their slaves and crops.

After the war, Tubman continued to work on behalf of blacks and for women's rights. She established the

Harriet Tubman Home for the Indigent Aged Negroes, in which she not only cared for her parents but also for black orphans and elderly blacks. She also aided in the expansion of the African Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. In addition to her work in the black community, Tubman supported the campaign for women's suffrage. She frequently attended suffrage meetings and delivered an address at a convention in Rochester,

New York in the late 1880s. In 1890, the members of the

New England Woman Suffrage Association gave a party in her honor. This faction of the women's rights movement, unlike the Stanton-Anthony contingent, supported suffrage for black men even if women were not included. 63

In 1911, two years before her death, Tubman joined the

suffrage club In Geneva, New York.

FREE-BORN WOMEN

NANCY_GARDNER_ PRINCE (1799-___2 L

Nancy Gardner Prince was a staunch supporter of

William Lloyd Garrison and a member of the Boston

Female Anti-Slavery Society. Born in 1799 in

Newburyport, Massachusetts, the birthplace of Garrison,

she was a free-born black of mixed African and Native

American parentage. She had spent her childhood in

poverty. Her widowed mother apparently suffered a

mental breakdown from the strain of rearing seven

children alone and in poverty. As a child, Nancy

Gardner and her brothers and sisters had earned a

little money by gathering and selling berries. She

later found a job as a servant in Salem, Mass. In

1824, she escaped poverty by marrying Nero Prince, a prominent member of the black community in New England.

Several years her senior, Prince provided Nancy with a

comfortable lifestyle and an opportunity to travel overseas. Nero Prince had served as a footman at the court of the Russian czar in St. Petersburg. During her stay in Russia, Nancy Prince, who found "no prejudice against color", obtained ah education and 64

operated a boarding house for children and made diapers and childrens' clothing.23

When she returned from Russia during the 1820s,

she settled in Boston. Her husband had intended to

follow, but died in Russia. Nancy Prince participated

in the activities of the BFASS, the free black community, and delivered numerous lectures on her travels. In 1839, for example, Prince delivered a

lecture on "the manners and customs of Russia" in Rev.

Jehiel C. Beman's church in Boston.24 Prince also worked outside of the boundaries of the United States to improve the condition of blacks. In 1841, she visited Jamaica, where she attempted to establish a manual labor school for blacks in Kingston. She publicized her activities in Garrison's Liberator, in which she requested donations from her abolitionist audience. Garrison admired Prince, describing her as

"a respectable and intelligent colored female."25

Feelings of support were mutual between Garrison and

^"Narratives of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince," Boston, 1850; See also Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters, pp. 93-95 and Loewenberg and Bogin, eds., Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life, pp. 201-218. 24Beman was a respected black minister, originally from Connecticut, who participated in a variety of community improvement projects, particularly, temperance. 25The Liberator, Nov. 12, 1841, p. 183? Nov. 5, 1841, p. 179. 65

Prince. During the debate over ideology and tactics in the late 1830s and 1840s, Prince sided with the

minority faction of the BFASS, which maintained support

for Garrison. Prince further demonstrated support for

Garrisonian principles by attending a convention of the

New England Non-Resistance Society in 1839.

Prince also supported women's rights. In 1854,

she attended the National Women's Rights Convention in Philadelphia. At the meeting, she praised the women

delegates and "invoked the blessings of God upon the

notable women engaged in this enterprise." Prince

expressed her own feminist consciousness when she

remarked that she understood "women's wrongs better than women's rights."26

MARIA_MILLER STEWART (1803-1879)

Maria Miller Stewart was one of the first free black women to play a public role in the antislavery movement. Like many other black women abolitionists,

Stewart was a versatile activist. In addition to her work as an educator, she wrote antislavery essays and

26The Liberator, March 8, 1839 and Sept. 17, 1841y see also Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Jocelyn, eds. History of Women's Suffrage (New York, 1881), vol. I, p. 384 and Loewenberg and Bogin, eds., Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life. p. 202. 66

was well-known as the first woman to speak publicly

about a variety of social issues concerning the free

black community. Unlike some black women activists

such as the Fortens, Sarah Remond, and Mary Ann Shadd

Cary, Stewart was not born into a wealthy family, nor

did she receive an extensive education.

Born Maria Miller in 1803, she grew up in

Hartford, Connecticut. Orphaned by the age of five,

she went to work as a domestic for a minister's family

with whom she lived until she was fifteen years old.

She obtained an education on her own by using the

minister's library and attending classes at the local

Sabbath school for blacks. In 1826, she married James

W. Stewart, a forty-four year old seaman and a veteran

of the War of 1812. Three years later she was a widow.

It was her marriage to Stewart that eventually propelled her into public activism. Defrauded out of her small inheritance by her late husband's executors,

Stewart became aware of the economic and legal powerlessness of women and the need for women to secure

some degree of economic independence.

In her speeches and in her writings, Stewart

advocated education for women. Through improved

education, Stewart believed, all women, regardless of

race, could obtain economic freedom. As the first 67

American woman to intrude upon the male territory of

public speaking, Stewart encountered resistance‘and

hostility from some members of her audiences. As a

result, after two years, Stewart gave up her career as a public speaker and devoted the rest of her life to

education.

In 1833, after she delivered her farewell address

in Boston, Stewart moved to New York city, where she

furthered her own education by joining the Female

Literary Society. After completing her studies, she

secured a teaching position in the New York public

schools. In 1852, she moved to Baltimore, where she

taught black children. She moved on to Washington,

D.c. in 1861, during the first year of the Civil War,

and established her own school. In 1871, she

participated in the effort to aid freed slaves by

starting a Sunday school for children who lived near

the Freedman's hospital in Washington and often

received assistance from students who attended Howard

University, a predominantly black institution.27

GRACE DOUGLASS <1782-18421 and SARAH MAPPS DOUGLASS (1806-1882)

Grace Douglass and her daughter, Sarah, were members of a respected free black family in

“^Notable American Women. Vol. Ill, pp. 377-378. 68

Philadelphia, where they participated in a variety of

abolitionist activities. Born in 1782, Grace Bustill

Douglass cane from a large free black Philadelphia

family. Her mother, Elizabeth Morey, was part Delaware

Indian and part English. Her father, Cyrus Bustill, was

the son of a slave. Bustill gained his freedom after

serving as a baker for the Continental Army during the

American Revolution. He later owned his own bakery and

operated a school. After her marriage to Robert

Douglass, Grace Douglass not only assumed the usual

domestic responsibilities in her new household, but

also made a major contribution to the family's income.

Her hat shop next door to her father's bakery on Arch

Street provided an important source of income until her

death in 1842.

Grace Douglass was a founding member of the

racially-integrated Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery

Society, organized in 1833. She worked with several

prominent white women members of the Society such as

Lucretia Mott. Douglass's contact with whites, however,

did not protect her or her children from race

prejudice. She attended the Arch street Quaker meeting with Lucretia Mott and other white abolitionists, but

could not become a member because she was black. At the Arch Street meeting, Grace Douglass sat in a 69

separate pew in the rear of the building which the

Friends had set aside for blacks. Sarah Douglass once

wrote of her mother's experiences at the Arch Street

meeting: ...there is a bench set apart at that meeting for our peoplei.. that my mother and myself were told to sit there, and that a friend sat at either end of the bench to prevent white persons from sitting there....I have not been in Arch street meeting for four years, but my mother goes there once a week and frequently has a whole Iona bench to herself. ..,

Sarah Douglass was active in the PFASS and the

free black community in Philadelphia. Born in 1806, she

had committed herself to the abolitionist movement in

1832 when, at the age of 26, she learned of the attempt

by Pennsylvania legislators to pass a new state law

that would require all blacks to carry passes. Since

slavery had been legally abolished in Pennsylvania in

1780 through a gradual emancipation law, these

legislators clearly intended the bill to restrict the movements of free blacks.29 Douglass later claimed

^Sarah Douglass to William Bassett, December 1837, Philadelphia, PA; see Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond, eds., Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld. Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke. 1832-1844 vol. IX, (New York: D. Appleton-Century Company, Inc., 1934), p. 830; see also Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters, pp. 130- 131. 29The legislators probably intended to model these passes after southern slave passes, which would indicate the name of the bearer, his or her destination, and the time he or she expected to return home. 70

that before the introduction of this bill, slavery and

race discrimination as public issues had been alien to

her, although she had witnessed race prejudice since

childhood* Her family probably shielded her to some

degree from race discrimination. Free status in the

black community, however, would be meaningless if

Pennsylvania lawmakers passed this bill. Although the bill never became law, its introduction had propelled her into public service for the abolition of slavery

and the improvement of the free black community.30

Douglass participated in a number of abolitionist projects, especially the education of black youths in

Philadelphia and the promotion of education for black

women. She worked as a teacher in Philadelphia for 45

years. She was also an active member of the PFASS and

worked with white women on committees to organize the

annual antislavery fair. In 1838, she served as

treasurer of the Anti-Slavery Convention of American

Women when it met in Philadelphia. After the Civil

War, she served as vice-chairman of the Women's

Pennsylvania Branch of the American Freedman's Aid

Commission.31

3^Sterlingr ed.. We~Are Your Sisters, pp. 126-127. Notable American Women. Vol. I, pp. 511-512. 71

Sarah Douglass, however, remained conservative on

the women's rights issue, despite her association with

white feminist leaders such as Lucretia Mott and the

Grimke sisters. Douglass's own career as a teacher and

participant in organized abolitionism indicates that she preferred to work within the confines of "women's

sphere". In her writings, Douglass expressed

traditional views on women. In a letter to black

abolitionist Charles Whipple in 1841, she wrote:

As my sheet is occupied [I] have not room to offer my thoughts on the rights of women...only to add it is my belief God has not repealed what he Said to her when She took the forbidden fruit. Thy desire Shall be to thy husband and he Shall rule over thee, humiliating as i£_is I am willing God[']s word should stand— 32

SUSAN PAUL (1807-18411 One of the best-known black female educators

during the 1830s was Susan Paul of Boston. Paul was the

daughter of Thomas Paul, a respected black Baptist

minister in Boston. Although the Pauls were not

wealthy, they were respected within the black community

because of Thomas Paul's position as a clergyman. Susan

Paul participated in several abolitionist projects

before her death in 1841. In addition to her career as

a primary school teacher, she was a life member of the

j2Douglass to Charles Whipple, April 26, 1841, Middlebury, VT; M E # Reel 3, fr. 1007. 72

racially-integrated Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society

and served as secretary of the women's temperance

society in Boston.

Susan Paul operated a primary school for black

children that combined general education with religious

instruction. She was best known for holding annual public programs to demonstrate the talents of her

students. In 1834, she organized her first "Juvenile

Concert," which featured her pupils at the Primary School No. 6 in Boston. Boston abolitionists believed

Paul's exhibitions were good publicity for the black

community. William Lloyd Garrison noted in The

Liberator in 1834 that Paul's concerts had "a powerful

tendency to beget sympathy, to excite admiration, and

to destroy prejudice."

In addition to her work as an educator of black

1 children and as the director of the Garrison Juvenile

Choir, Paul also participated in the activities of the

Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and was well-

connected with prominent white abolitionists. She

frequently served on the committee to organize the

annual antislavery fair and was one of the two black delegates from Boston at the Antislavery Convention of

American Women, held in Philadelphia in 1838. Paul served as a vice-president at the convention. She also 73 was a delegate the previous year in New York city as

the only black representative from Boston. She worked

closely with prominent white members of the BFASS and developed lasting personal friendships with leaders

such as Lydia Maria Child, Hannah Southwick, and

Henrietta Sargent, who cared for her during her long

illness. Paul died of consumption in 1841.

THE FORTEN WOMEN OF PHILADELPHIA

Charlotte Forten and her daughters, Margaretta,

Sarah Louise, and Harriet'(Purvis), participated in a variety of abolitionist activities. The Forten women were members of a wealthy free black family in

Philadelphia. Charlotte Forten's husband, James Forten, was an ex-slave who had amassed a fortune as a sailmaker. By the 1830s, Forten was worth $100,000, a sizable sum even by white standards. Forten and his family resided in a three-story brick house on Lombard

Street, a symbol of economic achievement. Their home often served as a stopover for abolitionist friends, white and black alike. William Lloyd Garrison was a frequent guest. For the Fortens, contact with prominent white reformers was an everyday experience.

All of the Forten women were original members of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society. Charlotte 74

Forten(1784-1884) had been a founder of the Society when it was organized in 1833. Margaretta Fortenf18oa-

75), in addition to teaching school, usually served as recording secretary or treasurer of the PFASS until its dissolution after the Civil War. She also contributed several antislavery poems to the abolitionist press.

The editors of The Emancipator once introduced, her as

"the daughter of a highly respected colored gentleman of Philadelphia."33

Harriet Fortenf1810-75) and her husband, Robert

Purvis, made their home in Byberry, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Their home served as a station in the Underground Railroad, in which they reportedly helped thousands of slaves escape to freedom. Harriet Forten's marriage to Robert Purvis symbolized the connection between two prominent mulatto families.

Robert Purvis's father was a white merchant who bequeathed to his son a large inheritance, leaving him independently wealthy. Robert Purvis was a central figure in Pennsylvania abolitionist circles, serving as president of the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS) and of the Pennsylvania branch of the Underground

Railroad. After their marriage, Harriet Purvis' role

JJThe Emancipator.“January 14, 1834; Black Abolitionist Papers (BAP). Reel 1, fr. 0389. 75 was typical of a woman whose husband was a prominent community figure. She hosted large gatherings in her home for white and black abolitionists. Sallie Holley, a white abolitionist lecturer, stayed at the Purvis home during one of her speaking tours, she described

Harriet as "very lady-like in manners and conversation; something of the ease and blandness of a southern lady."34 Harriet Purvis also served as a delegate to the Free Produce Convention in 1839.35

The youngest daughter, Sarah Louise (b. 1814), contributed her talents as a writer and poet to the antislavery cause. Like Sarah Douglass, Forten had given little thought as a youth to aiding slaves and less fortunate free Blacks. She was in her early twenties during the 1830s, when the abolitionist movement gained momentum in the North. According to

Forten, the abolitionist crusade jolted her into active participation in the movement. She wrote in 1837: "I confess that I am wholly indebted to the Abolition cause for arousing me from apathy and indifference,

34Holley was the daughter of Myron Holley, a prominent white abolitionist. See Sterling, We Are Your Sisters, p. 121; John W. Chadwick, A_Life_F_or Liberty; Anti- Slaverv and Other letters of Sallie Hollev (New York: G*P. Putnam's Sons, 1899), p. 104. PFASS, Minutes, Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers (PASP). 76

shedding light into a mind which had been too long

wrapped in selfish darkness."36

Often using the pseudonyms "A", "Ada", and

"Magawisca," Sarah Forten promoted abolitionist

ideology through her famous poems and essays. Her anonymity apparently was so successful that even

William Lloyd Garrison and her own father were unaware

that she had been submitting poems to abolitionist

newspapers. In a letter to Garrison in 1831, James

Forten revealed that he had not known that "Ada" and

"A" were his daughter: "As you are not acquainted with

the author Ada and of A, I have discovered by accident

that these pieces were written by one of my own

daughters...."37 In addition to writing essays and

poems, Sarah Forten helped found the PFASS and served

on the Board of Managers. She also participated in the

annual antislavery fairs and sewing circles. All of the

Forten women also supported the women's rights movement

after the war.

JOGilbert H. Barnes and Dwight L. Dumond, eds., Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld. Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke. 1832-1844. Vol. II, p. 831. 3 'James Forten to William Lloyd Garrison, Feb. 23, 1831, Philadelphia; BAP. Reel 1, fr. 0034; contributor: Boston Public Library (BPL) - Anti-Slavery Collection. 77

MARY ANN SHADD (CARY) (1824-18931

Mary Ann Shadd (Cary) was a teacher, journalist,

lawyer, and outspoken supporter of the black emigration

movement to Canada during the 1850s. As a supporter of

black nationalist attempts to form self-sufficient free

black communities in Canada, she was the first black

woman to publish and edit a newspaper. Mary Ann Shadd

was the eldest of thirteen children born to Abraham and

Harriet (Parnell) Shadd in Wilmington, Delaware in

1824. Like several prominent black women

abolitignists, Mary Ann Shadd was born into a

prosperous free-black family and, as a result, could

devote her life to community service. Her mother was

born a free mulatto in North Carolina and her father

was born in Delaware to a family whose ancestors had

never been slaves. Abraham Shadd was a shoemaker who

gained prominence in the free black community. He was a

member of the National Convention for the Improvement

of Free People of Color in the United States in 1833

and inspired several of his children to dedicate their

lives to the cause of the slave and free blacks in the

United States and Canada. Mary Shadd's sister, Amelia, 78

and her brother, Isaac D. Shadd, travelled to Canada to

help Mary operate the Provincial Freeman.

Mary Ann Shadd arrived in Windsor, Ontario in 1851

where she quickly became a leading £igure in the black

community for her work as an educator, temperance

advocate, and supporter of efforts to administer aid to

destitute blacks. But her opposition to racially

segregated schools and to Henry Bibb's policies for

aiding the Canadian free black community inevitably

brought her into conflict with the Bibbs. This conflict

led her in 1853 to establish her own newspaper to rival

Henry Bibb's Voice of the Fugitive. As editor and

publisher of the Freeman. Shadd publicized her

opposition to Bibb, which he considered unladylike

behavior. Shadd travelled throughout the United States

in order to solicit financial support for her newspaper

and to promote emigration. As one of the few black

female lecturers, Shadd encountered resistance to her

efforts to speak in public, but once she approached the

platform, she impressed her audiences with her

enthusiastic speaking style and original ideas.

In 1856, Shadd married Thomas Cary, a barber from

Toronto. After their marriage, Cary moved to Chatham with Shadd so that she could operate her newspaper. Her untraditional marriage to Cary - her husband cared for 79

their children while she travelled - enabled her to

travel throughout the United States to solicit funding

for both her newspaper and the fugitive slaves in

Canada. Thomas Cary also assisted in the publication of The Freeman.

Although Shadd believed that blacks were better off living outside of the United States, she supported the Union army when the Civil War broke out in April

1861. During the war, Shadd worked as an official

recruiter of black troops for the Union army in

Indiana, Ohio, Michigan, and Pennsylvania under a commission from Gov. Levi Morton in 1864.38

She returned to the United States in 1869 after her husband died and made her home in Washington, D.C. with her daughter, Sarah Elizabeth Cary. Until her death in 1893, Shadd continued her activism in black education, women's suffrage, temperance, and equal rights for black women professionals. She taught in the

Washington public schools until 1884, serving as principal of a grammar school in the city between 1872 and 1874. Shadd travelled throughout the South in the early 1870s, lecturing on race improvement and the

Information on Cary's involvement in the Union war effort comes from the Mary Ann Shadd Cary Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C. See also Notable American Women, vol. I, pp. 300-301. 80

importance of education for newly freed blacks. While

she taught school and travelled Shadd also pursued

legal studies at Howard University, where she wrote her

thesis on corporations.39 She received her law degree

in June 1883.

Shadd was also a strong supporter of women's

rights, in particular the rights of black women. In

1878, she delivered an address at the annual convention

of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Sometime

after the passage of the Fifteenth Amendment, Shadd

delivered a speech to the judiciary committee in

Washington, D.C. on the right of women to vote,

expressing her support for Susan B. Anthony's and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton's proposal for universal

suffrage. In 1880, Shadd was a leader of black women professionals and assisted in the organization of the

Colored Women's Progressive Franchise Association, which proposed to "take an aggressive stand against the assumption that men only may begin and conduct

industrial and other things."40

39D. Bethune Duffield to the Hon. I.M. Howard & L.C. Chandler, U.S. Senators, Detroit, July 29, 1870. MASC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University, Washington, D.C., Folder 6. 40 MThe Colored Womens Progressive Franchise Association", Statement of Purpose, MASC Papers, Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University. 81

FRANCES-ELLENWATKINS HARPER (1825-19111

Frances E.W. Harper was perhaps the most prolific

black female writer of the nineteenth century. Although

Watkins also delivered public speeches on antislavery

and black community improvement, she was best known for

her literary contributions to the abolitionist

movement. Frederick Douglass once described her as "one

of the most talented and efficient laborers in the

vineyard of Reform."41 By the time she died in 1911,

she had published a novel as well as several

collections of poetry. Born free in 1825 in Baltimore,

Maryland, she was orphaned as a child and reared by her

uncle, William J. Watkins, a shoemaker, abolitionist,

and teacher. His antislavery articles and

correspondence frequently appeared in abolitionist

newspapers, particularly The Liberator. William

Watkins' activism in the abolitionist movement possibly

inspired his niece to participate in the cause when she reached adulthood. Frances Watkins attended school until she was thirteen years old and then went to work as a domestic servant in the home of a Baltimore book merchant. In addition to learning domestic skills,

41Doualass' Monthly. Jan. 1859, p. 4. 82

particularly sewing, she continued her literary

education by reading books in her employer's library.

Watkins published her first collection of poetry,

entitled Forest Leaves, in 1845. Nine years later, while working as both a school teacher and a

seamstress, she published her Poems on Miscellaneous

Subi ects. This collection clearly revealed her

commitment to abolitionism by including poetry on the horrors of slavery. She also included in this

collection poems on religion and temperance. All of her works received support from abolitionist leaders. Her

association with the influential male abolitionists

William Lloyd Garrison and William Still undoubtedly

helped in the publication and distribution of her works.

Between 1854 and I860, she travelled on the abolitionist lecture circuit, delivering speeches in

New England, Ohio, New York, Pennsylvania, and New

Jersey. During her trips, she kept in touch with abolitionist friends by sending accounts of her journeys to antislavery newspapers. She gave up public speaking briefly when she married Fenton Harper in 1860 and settled on a farm near Columbus, Ohio. After her husband's death in 1864, Frances Watkins Harper resumed her lecture tours. After the civil War, she travelled 83

to the South where she delivered public lectures to

all-black and racially mixed audiences, stressing the

Importance of education, temperance, and morality

within the black community. In her later years, she

concentrated primarily upon temperance. Between 1883

and 1890, she served as head of the department for work

among blacks of the Women's Christian Temperance Union.

Harper also continued her work in improving educational

opportunities among blacks. In 1894, she served as

director of the American Association of Education of

Colored Youth. Harper also supported the women's rights

movement. She supported the Fifteenth Amendment in 1869

and, in 18 75 and 1887 she participated in the

conventior s of the American Woman Suffrage

Association.42 She also served as vice-president of

the National Association of Colored Women in 1897,

after helping to organize it the previous year.43

42The Fifteenth Amendment, ratified in 1870, provided that the right to vote "shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." The omission of the word "sex" from the amendment, allowed for the disfranchisement of women. Black women as well as White women were excluded from the franchise despite efforts by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony for the passage of an amendment for "universal suffrage." 43Notable American Women. Vol. II, p. 138. 84

SARAH PARKER REMOND (1826-POSt 1887?)

Sarah Parker Remond was one of the most renowned

free-born black women speakers, captivating audiences

in both the United States and Great Britain. A younger sister of the noted black abolitionist Charles Lenox

Remond, Sarah Remond traveled to Great Britain to promote abolitionism.

Remond had been a teenager during the 1830s when black women abolitionists such as Sarah Douglass, Maria

Stewart, and the Fortens began their abolitionist careers. Born into a wealthy New England black family

in 1824, Remond enjoyed economic and educational advantages. Her parents were John and Nancy (Lenox)

Remond of Salem, Massachusetts. John Remond was a native of the West Indies who had arrived in Salem in

1798. He gained prominence in Salem as a hairdresser, caterer, and merchant trader. Nancy Lenox Remond

(1788-1867) was a free-born black from Newton,

Massachusetts. She and her eldest daughter, Susan (b.

1814), operated a cake-making business in Salem. Sarah

Remond's sisters, Cecelia Remond Babcock (d. 1912), Maritcha (1816-1895), and Caroline Remond Putnam (1826-

1908), ran a profitable Ladies Hair Work Salon in 85

Salem, where they manufactured wigs. Their wig

factory, in fact, waB the largest in Massachusetts.44

The Remonds participated in various abolitionist

activities. John Remond was a life member of the

Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Nancy, Sarah,

Caroline, and Susan Remond frequently participated in the activities of the Salem Female Anti-Slavery

Society, which began as a black female organization in

1832 and later reorganized into a racially-mixed society. The Remond family was one of the most respected black families among abolitionists in

Massachusetts.

Despite the Remond's wealth, they encountered racial prejudice in Salem. Sarah Remond first experienced discrimination at the age of nine. Although she had passed the high school entrance exam in Salem, school officials refused to admit her.45 John and Nancy Remond and other black parents withdrew their children from the all-black school, which they believed provided an inferior education for blacks. The Remonds

44Sterlina. ed.. We~Are Your Sister, p. 97. *3In 1831, Salem school officials had resolved "the question of admitting a colored female to the high school for girls" by denying black applicants admission and providing "separate instruction" for black children. See Ruth Bogin, "Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist From Salem," Essex Institute Historical Collection. 110(April 1974), pp. 122-123. 86

moved to Newport, Rhode Island, where Sarah and her

sisters attended a private school for blacks. Unlike

most free black families, the Remonds' wealth enabled

them to move far from Salem to Rhode Island in an

attempt to secure an education for their children.

When the family returned to Salem in 1841, Sarah

continued her education on her own by reading widely and attending lectures. Yet she felt that race prejudice had denied her an adequate education. Before

she sailed to England in 1858 to begin her speaking tours, Remond wrote to her friend, Abby Kelley Foster, expressing regret that race prejudice had prevented her

from receiving a better formal education:

Although my heart was in the work, I felt that I was in need of a good English education. Every hour since I met you I have endeavored as far as possible to make up for this loss. And when I considered that the only reason why I did not obtain what I so much desired was because I was the possessor of an unpopular complexion, it adds to my discomfort. 6

Remond received much of her abolitionist education

at home. The Remonds often hosted both black and white abolitionists and their families. Seventeen-year old

Charlotte Forten, for example, lived with the Remonds

for a time and aspired to become an abolitionist

4oSarah P. Remond to Abby Kelley Foster, Salem, MA, Dec. 31, 1854; Abigail Kelley-Foster Papers, quoted in Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters, p. 176. 87

lecturer. Charlotte Forten was the granddaughter of Janes and Charlotte Forten of Philadelphia. The

presence of a black itinerant lecturer, Zilpah Elaw, in Salem may also have influenced Sarah. 47 Sarah's brother, Charles, helped her gain entrance into abolitionist circles. As an agent of the Massachusetts

Anti-Slavery Society, he provided Sarah with news of

meetings and the activities of significant persons in the movement. More important, he introduced her to

influential New England abolitionists, such as

Garrison, Maria Weston Chapman, Samuel J. May, and Wendell Phillips. Sarah Remond maintained close ties with these individuals even after she moved to Great Britain.

When Sarah Remond began her speaking career in 1856, more than twenty years had passed since Maria Miller Stewart had delivered her public addresses in

Boston. By the time Remond came of age, women

lecturers had become a more familiar, although not a completely acceptable, sight. She did, however,

encounter race discrimination on her lecture tours.

Remond'b first experience as a lecturer was as a black

4 ?Little is known about Elaw except that she was a black female preachers who traveled throughout the Northeast and Great Britain delivering speeches on religion. 88

representative on a team of abolitionist lecturers

slated to travel throughout the upper regions of New

York state. She accompanied her brother and several well-known white abolitionists Parker Pillsbury, Samuel

May, Sr., Susan B. Anthony, Stephen S. Foster,

Garrison, and Phillips. Throughout the tour, the

Remonds encountered "[h]eartless and vulgar prejudice," which their white colleagues were powerless to prevent.

Hotel and boarding house proprietors refused to admit them into their establishments, although they welcomed the white members of the party. As a result, the

Remonds stayed at the homes of friends. Sarah Remond also participated as a speaker in organized antislavery society functions. At the annual antislavery fair in

Philadelphia in 1857, she joined other black abolitionists in delivering public addresses. But, at the age of 31, she still had not completely mastered the art of public speaking. One observer at the

Philadelphia fair described Remond as "a lady-like young woman of colour, who was listened to with more interest than either of the preceding speakers. Miss

Remond's language was well-chosen, and her speech that 89

of a person not accustomed to address[ing] public audiences." 48

In December 1858, Remond accompanied Samuel J. May

to Great Britain, where she delivered antislavery

lectures. Remond's career illustrates the importance of abolitionist networks in her career as an activist.

Her connections to prominent American abolitionists enabled her to gain entrance into the British abolitionist community. Maria Weston Chapman, in particular, was instrumental in connecting Remond with

British activists. In 1859, Chapman wrote from

Massachusetts, offering to provide Remond with letters of introduction:

There are, I am confident besides the little band of true Englishwomen, to whom I trust Mrs. Reid has introduced you, abundance of men and women whom principle, humanity, kindred feeling and Friendship ...will induce to open more and more opportunities as a Lady and as a woman....You will see our excellent and beloved friend Miss Estlin. I trust, and our old and tried friends Mrs. MitCholl and Mr. Edwin Chapman, and Mr. James - (both clergymen). If you would like special letters of introduction from me to any of them say so, and I will write them. But it will be just as well to say - 'Mrs. Chapman bids me convey to you her grateful remembrances, and her wish that I may share, both herself, for the cause's sake, the great benefit of your friendship and counsel....'49

46National Anti-Slaverv Standard. Dec. 26, 1857; M E , Reel 10, fr. 0980-0981. 49(Sarah Parker) Remond from M(aria) W(eston) Chapman, Sept. 4, 1859, Weymouth Landing, (Massachusetts); BAP. Reel 12, fr. 0013-0014. 90

Remond once expressed to Samuel May, Jr. her

appreciation for the assistance that abolitionist

friends in England had given her during her stay,

noting that without their "influence and money" she

could "not have done the antislavery [work]."50

Remond later became involved in the women's rights

movement and still maintained the friendship and

support of abolitionist colleagues. In May 1858, she

delivered an address at the National Women's Rights

Convention in New York City. Samuel May, Jr. described

her as "quite a pleasing speaker." Garrison noted that

Remond's speeches appealed to the "conscience and the

heart, and [were] always made with dignity and earnest conviction."51

Unlike the thirteen other women in this study,

Remond chose to take up permanent residence outside of

the United States, although she sometimes returned to

Massachusetts to visit her family and friends and

ouSarah (Parker) Remond to (Samuel) May (Jr.), Oct. 18, 1860, London, England; BAP. Reel 12, fr. 1041-1042. 51Samuel May, Jr. to Elizabeth Buffum Chace in Lillie B.C. Wyman and Arthur C. Wyman, Elizabeth Buffum Chace. 1806-1899? Her Life and Its Environment. II, (Boston: W.B. Clarke Co., 1914), p. 196; cited in Bogin, "Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist From Salem," p. 131; William Lloyd Garrison to the editor of the Anti- Slaverv Advocate. Boston, Dec. 28, 1858; Walter Merrill & Louis Ruchames, Letters of William Llovd Garrison (Cambridge: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975), IV, p. 600. 91

attend antislavery and women's rights conventions. In

Great Britain, she continued her education and participated in the activities of the London

Emancipation Society and the Freedman's Aid Society of

London. When slavery ended, she devoted her public addresses and her activities to helping freed slaves, particularly in the gathering of funds and clothing.

Perhaps inspired by her meeting with Elizabeth

Blackwell, Remond enrolled in medical school in

Florence, Italy in 1866. White abolitionist and women's rights advocate Elizabeth Buffum Chace once visited Remond there. Chace described her as "a remarkable woman" who "by indomitable energy and perseverance is winning a fine position in Florence as a physician, and also socially: although she says

Americans have used their influence to prevent her, by bringing their hateful prejudices over here...."52

SQNCLVSIQN

Free black women participated in a long tradition of antislavery activism in America. The lives of the fourteen women presented in this section, although not representative of all black women abolitionists, reveal

^ Notable American "women. vol. Ill, p. 137 92 the wide range of abolitionist activities in which black women engaged as well as the experiences they shared. Yet, black women abolitionists were not a homogeneous group. As this chapter has shown, the experience of being a former slave or a free born black was an important factor in shaping one's activities and determining connections within the abolitionist community.

The geographic location of their activism clearly enabled them to participate in abolitionist activities and to maintain ties with other abolitionists. Most of the women in this chapter based their activities in centers of antislavery agitation, where they found supportive networks in the abolitionist community.

Like most American abolitionists after 1830, the majority conducted their activities in northern cities.

The Forten and Douglass women rarely ventured far from their hometown of Philadelphia, where their families had established roots and had become respected members of the free black community. Harriet Tubman, although she frequently travelled into the South to rescue fugitive slaves, also based her operations in

Philadelphia, which served as a vital route in the

Underground Railroad. Frances Harper, Susan Paul, Nancy

Prince, and Maria Stewart conducted their abolitionist 93

activities in Boston, where black community activism

and white abolitionism flourished. Sarah P. Remond and

Mary Ann Shadd Cary, although they chose to participate

in abolitionist activities outside of the United

States, also found abolitionist communities in which to

operate. Sojourner Truth was an exception to this

pattern, since she made a career of travelling "up an'

down the land showin' the people their sins an' bein' a

sign to them."53

Their experiences as former slaves or free-born blacks determined both the types of activities in which

they engaged and the support networks they formed. As

these sketches suggest, the family was instrumental in

preparing free-born women for careers as activists.5^

Family influence shaped the careers of black women

abolitionists in several ways. First, the activist

tradition that many of these families followed

undoubtedly influenced their decision to work for the

advancement of the race as well as for the end of

slavery. As members of the free black community, these

women and their families had accepted traditional

^Gilbert. Narrative of Soiourner Truth, p. 184. S4In Part 2 of The Feminist Papers. Alice S. Rossi discusses the importance of friendship networks among white women reformers. See Alice S. Rossi, ed., The Feminist Papers; from Adams to de Beauvoir (New York: Columbia University Press, 1973). 94 notions of sexual division of responsibility. Their position as black women living in free society gave them a dual responsibility to their gender as well as their race. In addition to participating in organized antislavery activities, these women worked equally hard for the advancement of the race. They engaged in a variety of self-help activities within the free black community, such as education, benevolence, and temperance, activities that were considered proper for respectable women.

Second, the ties their families had forged with leading white abolitionists also helped these women gain entrance into the abolitionist community where they enjoyed additional support and encouragement from abolitionist friends. The Forten women, Grace and Sarah

Douglass, Frances Harper, Sarah Remond, Susan Paul, and

Mary Ann Shadd all received the constant encouragement of family and friends. Remond's career clearly demonstrates the importance of family influence. She had come from a family whose members had long been active in the New England black community. Family connections to prominent American abolitionists sustained Remond during her stay in Europe by enabling her to enter into British antislavery circles and form lasting friendships with British abolitionists. 95

Third, all of the free-born women presented here

received an adequate education, which enabled them to

participate in a variety of abolitionist activities

such as writing for the abolitionist press and

educating blacks. Ten of the twelve free born black

women in this study worked as teachers of black

children and five of them wrote essays and poems for

abolitionist newspapers. Sarah and Margaretta Forten

and Harper had written numerous poems on slavery, Shadd

edited and published an antislavery newspaper, and

Stewart wrote several essays on the economic and moral

improvement of free blacks. Thus, most of the free-born

black women received training and support from both

family and friends in the movement, while the ex-slaves

in this group experienced only the support of abolitionist colleagues.

For Truth and Tubman, their experiences as ex­

slaves motivated them to participate in the abolitionist movement. As slave women, they had endured the female experience under slavery first-hand.

Moreover, their own activism gained for them

recognition by fellow abolitionists and entrance into antislavery circles. They did not come from families that could train them for careers as activists, provide them with moral support, or help them gain access to 96

the abolitionist community. The experiences of Truth

and Tubman reveal that for individuals who did not

enjoy these advantages, their activism alone enabled

them to forge connections with other abolitionists.

Tubman had worked as a scrubwoman in Philadelphia with no connections to the abolitionist community until she decided to participate in the Underground Railroad. It was only after her exploits had become well-known that abolitionists sought her out as a speaker.

Like Tubman, Truth had no family connections to draw upon and, as a result, worked independently in the movement. Throughout her career, she travelled alone to deliver addresses on antislavery and women's rights. In their later years, when they had gained the respect and admiration of fellow abolitionists, both women had the opportunity to work closely in organized abolitionism and women's rights. Accustomed to operating alone, however, Truth and Tubman, for the most part, chose to continue their careers as independent activists, although they maintained friendships with other abolitionists and often attended antislavery and women's rights meetings.

Most of the women in this study, in fact, expanded their vision of freedom to include equal rights for women and, thus, supported the women's rights campaign 97

that had grown out of the organized abolitionist movement. Sarah Douglass was the only woman in this group to express conservative views on the "woman question". All of them continued their work in education and moral and social reform after the war and used their experience as community and antislavery

society organizers to form black women's clubs, through which they continued their community activism on behalf of blacks. All of these women attempted to overturn

assumptions of black intellectual inferiority and docility and to some extent challenged prevailing

expectations of female submissiveness in their work as black female activists.

The fourteen black women abolitionists discussed

in this chapter have provided us with a glimpse of black women's lives as activists. As abolitionists, they continued a long tradition of antislavery agitation in the United States, while, at the same time, they contributed to the development of black activism. In particular, these women established a distinct pattern of black female activism that clearly reflected their experiences as ex-slave or free-born black women. CHAPTER III

BLACK WOMEN AND THE ’CULT OF TRUE WOMANHOOD1:

GENDER EXPECTATIONS AND LIMITATIONS IN THE

ANTEBELLUM FREE BLACK COMMUNITY

The existence of a sexual division of

responsibility in antebellum free black society made

community activism a special duty of black women and

the basis for their involvement in the abolitionist movement. Until recently, scholars interested in women's roles have focused on the impact of gender

ideals on the lives of white middle-class men and

women. In 1966, Barbara Welter initiated the study of

nineteenth century notions of women’s sphere. Welter

pointed out that in the wake of growing materialism and

economic uncertainty brought on by industrialization,

the ideal of "True Womanhood" served as a source of

stability and comfort. Contemporary magazines, books,

and religious literature instructed women on their

responsibility to uphold four basic virtues that

governed women's "nature": piety, purity, domesticity,

and submissiveness. Religious commitment or piety lay

at the core of female virtue and required women to 99

uphold the importance of religion in their families to

offset the material values that their husbands

embraced. For young, unmarried women, their greatest

strength was their purity. If they were truly virtuous,

their purity would keep lustful men at bay. To lose

their virginity before marriage was to fall from the

highest level of virtue they could attain. Once

married, they were to remain completely dependent upon

their husbands. Submission to husbands, fathers, and

brothers was perhaps the most feminine of women's

qualities and provided order in a household in which

males held the ultimate authority. "True Women" were to

exercise their virtues within a domestic setting and

were never to lose sight of their responsibilities to

their families. Housekeeping, childbearing, and

childrearing were their most important duties.

Adherence to these virtues gave women power and

responsibility, in particular, the power to maintain

morality within the household and in the community-at-

large.1

Twenty years after Welter's pathbreaking work,

historians have begun to examine the extent to which

-'■Barbara Welter, "The Cult of True Womanhood, 1820- • 1860," American Quarterly. (Summer 1966): 151-175? Carroll Smith-Rosenberg, "Beauty and the Beast and the Militant Woman: A Case Study of Sex Roles in Jacksonian America," American Quarterly. 23(October 1971): 562-84. 100

gender ideals permeated the free black community during

the antebellum period in the United States. Linda

Perkins and James Oliver Horton have argued that the

racial subordination of blacks gave "True Womanhood" a

different meaning for black women than for white women.2 As Perkins has argued, free black women were

not passive victims of racial oppression, but active

participants in black efforts to achieve self-

sufficiency in their community and racial equality in

society-at-large. The notion of submission and passivity that defined white womanhood, Perkins argues,

held little meaning for black women, especially when

black men encouraged them to participate actively in

racial "uplift" activities.

Horton has revised Perkins's thesis by

demonstrating that, although some aspects of white

notions of womanhood such as submissiveness may have

held less meaning for black women than for white women,

free blacks nevertheless upheld gender ideals in their

own communities. As Horton suggests, freedom for blacks meant the ability to exercise power over their own

lives, to create their own institutions and methods of

‘‘See Linda Perkins, "Black Women and Racial 'Uplift' Prior to Emancipation" and James Oliver Horton, "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks." 101 social organization. Gender conventions in free society, therefore, represented the antithesis of the slave experience, which had denied black men and women complete autonomy over their life and labor. These ideals also represented the determination among blacks to dispel prevailing white notions of black inferiority and sexual depravity, assumptions that stemmed directly from slavery and were used to justify the subjugation of blacks.3 Through their participation in community improvement activities, both black men and women fought to disprove notions about black intellectual inferiority. While black men attempted to dispel fears among whites that they threatened white womanhood, black women faced the equally formidable task of disproving the assumption that they were sexually promiscuous and, therefore, incapable of attaining the status of "true women."

JEucrene Genovese. Roll. Jordan. Roll: The World the Slaves Made. (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), p. 461; For southern viewpoints, see The ProBlaverv Argument (Walker, Richards & Co., 1852; rprt. New York: Negro Universities Press, 1968), pp. 89, 179, 230, and 313. James Henry Hammond, for example, noted that in the chaotic free states, "alleged rapes by negroes of white girls" were well documented, p. 210, and Seabury on justification of slavery in American Slavery Distinguished from the Slavery of English Theorists and Justified bv the Law of Nature (New York: Mason Brothers, 1861), p. 89. Black men and women found support for the

maintenance of gender ideals from white reformers and

from institutions within the black community that

wielded the greatest public influence: the schools,

churches, and the black press. More often than not,

expectations of gender within the free black community

contradicted the realities of black life in the free

states. Racism had denied black men from obtaining well-paying jobs, which prevented black men and women

from fulfilling gender roles that characterized free

society. But, despite these limitations, blacks still

upheld contemporary notions of male and female

"natures" and responsibilities. Black women's

participation in community self-help activities such as

education, benevolence, and moral reform enabled them

to fulfill expectations of womanhood and to dispel

prevailing assumptions among whites that blacks were

incapable of constructing a stable society.4 This

chapter demonstrates that ideals of "True Womanhood" were central to the lives of free black women and

symbolized their attempts to disprove racial and sexual

•^Leon Litwack. North of Slavery, pp. 20-22? Winthrop Jordan, White Man's Burden, chapter 5. See also The ProrSlaverv Argument, in which Chancellor Harper, James Henry Hammond, and Thomas Dew argue that slavery was necessary for maintaining civilization and that blacks, because of their innate inferiority, were incapable of living productive lives outside of slavery. 103

myths. Educators, ministers, and writers for

newspapers within the free black community were

instrumental in.reinforcing these ideals. Expectations

of womanhood, no matter how unrealistic, defined black

women's participation in racial ^uplift"' activities and

reflected their commitment to gaining respectability

for both their gender and their race. This chapter goes

beyond the work of Horton by demonstrating that desire

to fulfill responsibilities of race and gender in black

women's lives not only defined their role in the free

black community, but ultimately characterized their

role as activists in the abolitionist movement.

The roots of sexual myths about black women can be

found in nineteenth century notions about sexuality as

well as in the slave experience. As Phyllis Marynick

Palmer has suggested, Americans borrowed Victorian

ideas about women's sexuality, which portrayed all

women as possessing the power to exert either a good or

evil influence. Such images crossed lines of race and

class. Black women shared with poor white women the

stigma of "bad" womanhood because of their roles as

laborers and sexual commodities, while middle-class white women, morally pure and physically fragile,

symbolized "good" womanhood. The image of the "bad" black woman, in particular, has persisted into the 104 twentieth century and portrays the black woman as sexually promiscuous and, because of her role as a laborer, as physically powerful.5

The clearest distinctions between black and white womanhood emerged in the slaveholding South. In

5See Angela Davis. Women. Race, and Class. (New York: Vintage Books, Inc., 1983), chapter 1; Phyllis Marynick Palmer, "White Woman/Black Women: The Dualism of Dual Identity and Experience in the United States," Feminist Studies (Spring 1983), pp. 157-158; Michele Wallace, Black Macho and the Mvth of the Superwoman. Prevailing images of black women's sexuality and strength, combined with the fact that in freedom they provided vital economic support to their families, has engendered debate among historians and public officials over the extent to which the black family was matriarchal and, hence, pathological. Historians since the 1960s have successfully refuted prevailing assumptions among historians and public officials that the breakup of black families in slavery led to the emergence of female-headed households in twentieth century urban America, other scholars, such as historian E. Franklin Frazier and the sociologist Gilbert Osofsky, argued that the migration of blacks to the urban north, rather than the slave experience, actually had a more disruptive effect on the black family. See E. Franklin Frazier, The Negro Family in the United States (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1939; reprint ed., 1969) and Gilbert Osofsky, Harlem: The Making of a Ghetto: Negro in New_YorkJ. 1890-1930 (New York: Harper & Row, 1966). Daniel Patrick Moynihan had stressed the tradition of pathology in the black family in his report to President Lyndon Johnson's commission on poverty. Historians such as Eugene Genovese, Herbert Gutman, and John Blassingaroe have shown that slaves did their best to maintain a strong commitment to family and community. While most scholars of slavery and free blacks addressed the notion of instability in black families, women's historians have challenged the basic premise that female-headed families were pathological. These studies have resulted in further explorations of the impact of slavery on black women and the emergence of sexual stereotypes based upon race. 105 slavery, black women played a dual economic role in the slaveholding economy. As workers, they shared with black men a position of powerlessness in which the master determined work roles for his slaves and in which every aspect of slave labor existed for the economic welfare of the slaveholder. As a result, slave men and women often performed the same work roles, and, like slave men, slave women labored in the fields from sunup to sundown. Only within the slave quarters could slaves to some extent separate responsibilities for men and women.6 The master controlled both the reproductive and productive roles of slavewomen. In addition to their role as laborers, slave women performed a reproductive function for the slaveholding economy by serving as breeders for their masters. One ex-slave woman recounted her aunt's experience as a "breeder woman": "Wunner dese here bFor labor patterns among slaves, see Eugene D. Genovese, Roll. Jordan. Roll:, The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), pp. 289-322; Jacqueline Jones, "'My Mother Was Much of a Woman':Black Women, Work, and the Family under Slavery," Feminist Studies 8 (Summer 1982): 235-269 and Labor of Love. Labor of Sorrow (New York: Basic Books, 1985), Gerda Lerner, Black Women in White America: A Documentary History (New York: Vintage Books, 1972), chapter 2; Suzanne Lebsock, "Free Black Women and the Question of Matriarchy: Petersburg, Virginia, 1784- 1820," Feminist Studies 8 (Summer 1982):271-291; Phyllis Marynick Palmer, "White Women/Black Women: The Dualism of Female Identity and Experience in the United States," Feminist Studies 9(Spring 1983): 151-170. 106

womans was my Antie en she say dat she skacely call er

* min' he e'r whoppin' her, 'case she was er breeder

woman en' brought in chillum ev'y twelve mont's jes lak

a cow bringin' in a calf...."7 Middle and upper class white women functioned

primarily within the domestic sphere as the supervisors

of servants and organizers within the household, while

slaves performed the heavy labor. Unlike black women

and working class white women, middle and upper class

white women were perceived as delicate, sexless

creatures, placed on a moral pedestal and admired by

white men.8 Black women, like working class white

women, however, represented strength and sexuality. These images became standard perceptions of black and

middle-upper class white womanhood. But these two

conceptions of sexuality were not simply opposite

images; the assumption that black women were sensual

and physically strong reinforced the notion of white

women's delicacy and passionlessness.

^Narrative of Martha Jackson, b. 1850, Mflbflma Narratives. Federal Works Project, WPA for the State of Alabama, 1939, cited in Gerda Lerner, Black Women in White America, pp. 47-48. ^See Anne Firor Scott, The Southern Ladv; From Pedestal to Politics. 1830-1930. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970) and Catharine Clinton, The Plantation Mistress: Woman's World in the Old South (New York: Pantheon Books, 1982). £ J*

107

Black women were often described in terms of

physical strength. One white woman, for example,

described one of her female slaves as "an immense

strapping lass." Ellis Gray Loring, a prominent

northern white abolitionist, attempted to procure

employment for newly freed black women, whom he

described as "strong and healthy."9 A white man in

Kentucky once told a traveller that black women were

essentially different from white women and were only

good for increasing the slave population: "He said that

colored women were not like white women; the former

were destitute of virtue or intelligence, and were fit

only to perpetuate the race, and could never be

qualified for society....

The sexual exploitation of slave women meant more

than reproductive exploitation. Although slave men and

women were subject to the absolute authority of whites

and often suffered the same types of punishment, slave

women in addition lived under the constant threat of

rape by white men. 11 The rape of slave women by white

^Frances Anne Kemble, Journal_of A Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-1839. (New York: Harper & Brothers, Publishers, 1863), p. 39; The Liberator. May 9. 1845, p. 75. 10Henry Foster to (Frederick) Douglass, North star. Oct. 20, 1848; £&£/ Reel 5, fr. 0808. i:iThe phenomenon of interracial sexual relations in Southern society was a complex one. Clearly, not all sexual alliances between white men and slave women 108 masters and overseers was common in slaveholding households. In interviews and in their own writings, ex-slave women often told of their powerlessness to repel the sexual advances of their white masters. In her autobiography, for example, an ex-slave wrote of her masters' consistent attempts to seduce her:

My master met me at every turn, reminding me that I belonged to him, and swearing by heaven and earth that he would compel me to submit to him. If I went out for a breath of fresh air, after a day of^nwearied toil, his footsteps dogged XQQ • • • •

An elderly black woman from Alabama related her life as a slave to a white interviewer in 1910, noting that she had borne five children by her white master: "Did you see dat girl in de house below here? Dat's my chile by him. I had five, but dat de only one livin* now. I didn't want him, but I couldn't do nothin." One racially-mixed ex-slave woman told of how her master resulted from coercion, nor did interracial relationships occur only between white men and black women. As Eugene Genovese and Herbert Gutman have found, some white masters and slave women formed loving relationships and lived together as married couples. White women also took black men as lovers. Herbert G. Gutman, The_Black Family in Slavery and Freedom. 1750- 1925 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1976), pp. 388-393; Genovese, Roll. Jordan. Roll, pp. 417-419, 422; Robert William Fogel and Stanley L. Engerman, Time on the cross: The Economics of American Negro Slavery (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1974), pp. 134-135. 12Linda Brent, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl., p. 27. 109 had forced her to "enter criminal relations with him" and that she had become pregnant by him. An ex-slave man once wrote about the experience of a slave woman he knew whose master freed her children on the condition that she live with him: "Into this house he brought

Eliza; and, on condition of her living with him, she and her children were to be emancipated.... She resided with him nine years." During that time, Eliza also bore a child by her master.13

The presence of racially-mixed slave children on the plantations forced whites to acknowledge that sexual intercourse occurred between white men and black women. To admit men's culpability, however, would have undermined accepted notions of white moral superiority.

Thus, rather than perceiving slave women as victims of sexual abuse, white spokesmen blamed black women for initiating sexual relations with white men and, as a result, created an image of black women as sexually promiscuous, as temptresses who seduced white men.

James Henry Hammond, governor of South Carolina, defended white womanhood in his letters on slavery by

13John Blassingame, ed., Slave Testimony: Two Centuries of_Letter. Speeches. Interviews, and Autobiographies. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1977), p. 506, 540; Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave, ed. Sue Eakin & Joseph Logsdon, (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1968), p. 31. 110 claiming that black women, not white women, made up the majority of prostitutes in the South. He also expressed indignation at the thought that white men would willfully degrade themselves by engaging in sexual relations with black women:

But it is said, that the licentiousness consists in the constant intercourse between white males and colored females. One of your heavy charges against us has been, that we regard and treat these people as brutes....I will not deny that some intercourse of the sort does take place. Its character and extent, however, are grossly and atrociously exaggerated....1 have done with this disgusting topic.14

Combining notions of black inferiority and sexual depravity, Hammond argued that prostitution was not degrading for blacks because the racial inferiority of black women rendered them incapable of understanding the meaning of degradation: "It [prostitution] affects...a race which has not yet been lifted into sensibilities, the possession of which necessarily brings, with indulgence in the vice, the consciousness of degradation."15

For Southern white women, sexual relations between white men and slave women symbolized their own powerlessness under the slave system. The patriarchal x|»The Pro-Slaverv Argument, pp. 119-120. XDJames Henry Hammond on "The Morals of Slavery" in The Pro-Slaverv Argument, p. 230. I l l

structure of southern society rendered white women

powerless to prevent their husbands' infidelity. Mary

Boykin Chesnut, a Southern white woman, agreed with the perception of slave women as prostitutes, but blamed

slavery for producing infidelity among white men and prostitution among slave women. In her diary, Chesnut suggested that for white plantation mistresses, sexual relations between their husbands and slave women was a painful reality:

In slavery, we live surrounded by prostitutes....God forgive us, but ours is a monstrous system, a wrong and an iniquity. Like the patriarchs of old, our men live in one house with their concubines; and the mulattoes one sees in every family partly resemble the white children. Any lady is ready to tell you who is the father of all the mulatto children in everybody's household but her own. Those she seems to think, drop from the clouds. My disgust sometimes is boiling over.16

The negative images of black women among whites resulted directly from black women's role as laborers and sexual commodities in slavery. Pro-slavery white spokesmen, in an effort to protect white womanhood and to preserve accepted notions of white intellectual and moral superiority, blamed black women for the infidelity of white men.

ioMary Boykin Chesnut, A Diarv From Dixie, ed., Ben Ames Williams, (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1947), pp. 21-22. 112

In the free black community, the ideal of true

womanhood held a different meaning. For free blacks,

"true womanhood" held racial as well as sexual

implications. Free black women's acceptance of

contemporary notions of "true womanhood" reflected a

desire to erase those negative images of black

womanhood that slavery had produced. While free black

women struggled to disprove prevailing images of black

womanhood, they, like black men, also fought to dispel

general assumptions among whites of the innate

inferiority of the African race and the inability of

blacks to live successfully outside of slavery.

Freedom provided blacks with the hope of escaping

the stereotypes that had been developed to justify

their enslavement and exploitation. The creation of a

sexual division of responsibility within the free black

community not only was made possible by and thus

symbolized free status, but also reflected a concerted

effort to dispel negative images of black intellect and

sexuality. Black leaders often described black women's

"nature'11 and roles in terms usually used to describe middle-class white women. Black abolitionist Robert

Banks, for example, in an address to the Colored Female

Dorcas Society of Buffalo, emphasized women's ability to exert either good or evil: 113

Well it may be said, there is no place under the broad canopy of heaven, no condition, situation, or circumstance, into which female influence may not enter, enter for good or evil, a blessing or a curse.17

One contributor to the Weekly Advocate, known only as

"Philo", asserted that women were particularly suited

to reform activities: "Their perceptions are quicker,

their love stronger, their power of endurance and

sacrifice superior, and their will, as a general thing,

unchangeable."18

Although black leaders did not explicitly

articulate the rationale for such assertions, the

institutions they established within their community

clearly reflected their desire to create positive

images of blacks and to construct a society that demonstrated their free status. Public and private

schools in both black and white communities played an

important role in preparing children for the roles they were supposed to play as adults. Several scholars have produced important studies of the history of

1 ^Weekly Advocate. Feb. 11, 1837; BAP. Reel 1, fr. 0945. Robert Banks was a graduate of Gerrit Smith's manual labor school and worked as an agent for Frederick Douglass's North star. Banks earned a living as fabric and ready-made clothing dealer in Detroit. See David M. Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1973), p. 32. 18Ibid, Dec. 22, 1860? M E / Reel 13, fr.0063. 114

education in the United States and, in particular, of

the development of the "common school." In women's

history, Linda K. Kerber and John Rury have explored

the roots of women's education and the impact of

political and economic changes in American society on

the education of middle-class white women.19 Within

the past decade, historians of the Afro-American experience have renewed attempts to study the

development of education in the free black community,

first described in Charles c. Andrews's work in 1830 on

the history of the African Free Schools in New York city.20

Within the free black community, both blacks and

whites established schools for black children and

See Thomas Woody,A History of Women's Education in the United States. 2 vols. (New York: octagon Books, 1929). and Linda K. Kerber, Women of the Republic: Intellect and Ideology in Revolutionarv_JUnerica. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980. See John L. Rury, "Vocationalism for Home and Work: Women's Education in the United States, 1880-1930," History of Education Quarterly (Spring 1984): 21-44. *uCharles C. Andrews, The History of the New York African Schools From their Establishment_ln_1787 to the Present Time (New York: Nahlon Day, 1830; rprt. Negro Universities Press, 1969). For more recent works on black education, see John Rury, "The New York African Free School, 1827-1836; Conflict Over Community Control of Black Education," Phvlon. (Sept. 1983): pp. 187-197 and "Philanthropy, Self-Help, and Social Control: The New York Manumission Society and Free Blacks, 1785- 1810," Phvlon. (1985): 231-241 and "The New York African Free School, 1827-1836: Conflict Over Community Control of Black Education," Phvlon (Sept. 1983): 187- 97. 115

adults. After the American Revolution, white community

leaders had initiated the establishment of public

schools for blacks living in northern towns. The .

Revolutionary ideology of equality and freedom as well

as the declining profitability of slavery in the North

had induced many northern slaveholders to free their

slaves under new state manumission laws. Leading white

men believed that newly-freed slaves were inadequately

prepared to handle freedom, and, thus, needed the

guidance of whites, who would educate blacks on the

importance of maintaining basic middle-class values of

thrift, sobriety, and hard work. Manumission societies

made the earliest attempts to establish public schools

for blacks. In New York, for example, the New York

Manumission Society established the first public school

for black children and adults in the 1780s. Like white

schools, black schools were devoted to training

students for moral and useful lives. In 1787, the

members of the Manumission Society opened the African

Free School for free blacks and slave children "in

hopes that by an early attention to their morals they

may be kept from vicious courses and qualified

usefulness in life."21 Forty-three years later, the

^iNew York Manumission Society Papers, vol. 6, p. 87. New York Historical Society. «■ m

116

goals of the school were still to teach black children

"usefulness and respectability."22

Educators in public and private schools provided

education to black children of both sexes. In some

cases, boys and girls attended the sane school, while

in other instances, they attended separate schools. At

least three sexually-integrated schools existed in New

York City by 1827. An evening school, probably under

the auspices of the Manumission Society, existed for "persons of color" in the African School on Mulberry

Street. Another had opened on Roosevelt Street under

the supervision of the African Mutual Instruction

Society "for the instruction of Colored Adults of both

Sexes." In 1828, a B.F. Hughes established a private

school "for Coloured Children of both sexes" and in

1830, a Mrs. Williams opened a school for blacks in

Boston that instructed "adults and young persons of

both Sexes."23

other black girls and women attended separate

schools for females. In February 1828, for example,

the Manumission Society in New York established an all­

male African Free School on Mulberry Street and an all­

22Freedom's Journal? Feb. 29, 1828, p. 194. ^ Freedom's Journal. Sept. 21, 1827, p. 12; Freedom's Journal. April 13, 1827; The Liberator. Feb. 1, 1834, p. 19. 117

female school on William street. The following August,

the trustees set up another black female school for

"girls living in the upper parts of the city."24 The

desire to maintain separate schools for the sexes

suggests that in this instance, at least, white

community leaders were more concerned with following

the tradition of sex-segregated schools that paralleled

white schools than with the convenience of allowing

black girls to mix with boys in a school that already

existed. This decision reflected the common belief

among both blacks and whites that boys and girls should

receive a different type of education.

Schools for black girls and adults sprang up in northern cities throughout the 1830s. Many of these

schools were operated by whites. In Boston, several white teachers opened private schools. In March 1834,

"two white teachers" opened a "new school for colored

females" and one month later another school, "kept by a white lady," opened on Vine Street "for the instruction

of Colored Females in spelling, reading, writing, and needlework, &c." A group of subscribers to The

Liberator proposed the establishment of a "private

school for colored youth" at the West Centre-Street

Chapel. In Cincinnati, Ohio, a Mr. Bacon, who may have

^ Freedom's Journal. Aug. 29, 1828, p. 183. 118

been white, opened a Colored Infant School in order "to

prepare the black population for future

usefulness....1,25

Several male and female abolitionists encouraged

abolition societies to promote the education of black women. Reverend Samuel Cornish, black Presbyterian and editor of the Colored American, argued that the education of black women was essential to the antislavery cause: "Every measure for the thorough and proper education of [black] females is a blow aimed directly at slavery."26 Lucy B. Williams, who may have been black, and white leader Samuel J. May, both of

Boston, wrote to Lucretia Mott, a leading white abolitionist of Philadelphia, urging the female antislavery societies to support black female education: It has occurred to me that while the leading object of Female Antislavery Societies should be the same as the National Society i.e. to enlighten the public mind and awaken the public feeling — they might regard it as one of their specific purposes to encourage and assist those ladies in different parts of the country who may be devoted

^&The_ Liberator. March 15, 1834, p. 43; The Liberator. April 19, 1834, p. 63? The Liberator. Feb. 1, 1834, p. 19; The Liberator. May 24, 1834. ^°Samuel Cornish, et al., "First Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society,", pp. 39-61; May 6, 1834, New York; £AE, Reel 1, fr. 0423. or willing to devote themselves to the education of colored females....27

The purpose of educating boys and girls differed

regardless of whether or not they learned the same

subjects. In some schools, black girls and boys learned

reading, writing, arithmetic, English grammar, and history.28 Other schools provided girls with additional instruction in domestic skills while boys received preparatory training for trades. At the

African Free School for girls, the students were taught sewing and knitting in addition to the traditional subjects. For boys, traditional education was supposed to prepare them for their future roles as heads of households, in which they controlled the family

finances, to train them as learned "gentlemen" in their

“own communities, and to prepare them for the few professions that did not exclude them, such as the ministry. For girls, however, "book learning" prepared them for lives as educators of their children and as interesting companions for their husbands.

Black women had expressed support for women's education as early as 1827. A contributor to Freedom's

27Samuel J. May and Lucy B. Williams to Lucretia Mott, Philadelphia, June 25, 1834; Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers (PASP), Historical Society of Pennsylvania • 28Freedom's Journal. April 13, 1827, p. 20. 120

Journal, signing her name only as "Matilda," submitted

an essay in which she championed black women's rights

to education and argued on behalf of their efforts to

use their education for more than 'fathoming a dish

kettle.' According to Matilda, the primary objective of

female education was to prepare women as nurturers for

the next generation and to exert a positive influence

on men:

The influence that we have over the male sex demands, that our minds should be instructed and improved with the principles of education and religion, in order that this influence be properly directed. Ignorant ourselves, how can we be expected to form the minds of our youth, and conduct them in the paths of knowledge?29

In her essay, "Matilda" also revealed her own

understanding of the obstacle that racism had placed in

the path of black women, noting that white women

clearly had an advantage over black women: "We possess

not the advantages with those of our sex whose skins

are not coloured like our own, but we can improve what

little we have, and make our one talent produce two­

fold."30

29Freedom's Journal. August 10, 1827? cited in Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of The Negro People in the United States (New York: The Citadel Press, 1951), p. 89. 30lbid. 121

While traditional education prepared them as

effective teachers of their children, training in

domestic skills prepared them for lives as efficient

housewives. Black leaders perpetuated this idea in

their writings. Cornish expressed a typical view of the

purpose of educating females: "We expect our females to

be educated and refined; to possess all the attributes

which constitute the lady." He praised the efforts of

white teacher Prudence Crandall to include black women

in her school and to educate them as if they were

middle class white women. In his report to the American

Anti-Slavery Society in 1834, Cornish wrote that

Crandall had "dared to teach them [black women], as if

they were white— to treat them with the same delicacy

and respect which an instructress is expected to extend to young ladies in good society."31 He criticized the

state of educational opportunities for women in 1839, arguing that training for black women was inadequate:

"...we fail to provide the means whereby they can acquire an education which will fit them to become wives of an enlightened mechanic, a store keeper, or a clerk."32 Black abolitionist leader Charles B. Ray had

31Cornish, et al., "First Annual Report of the American Anti-Slavery Society,"pp. 39-61. Cornish, Colored Americanf Nov. 23, 1839; BAPf Reel 3, fr. 0281. 122 submitted similar views to the Colored American in

1837: "Daughters are destined to be wives and mothers— they should, therefore, be taught to know how to manage a house, and govern and instruct children. Without this knowledge, they would be lost, and as mothers destracted [sic], their homes would be in disorder, and their children would grow up loose and without character."33 Frederick Douglass concurred with the views of Cornish and Hay. In 1848, Douglass maintained that domestic training was essential to female education: A knowledge of domestic affairs, in all their relations, is desirable - nay, essential, to the complete education of every female....A well regulated household, in every station of society, is one of woman's brightest ornaments - a source of happiness to her and to those who are dependent upon her labors of love for the attractions of home and its endearments.34

Unlike black men, black women found that their education served a dual purpose. Freedom had been a bittersweet victory for many blacks. Racism had placed free blacks in a position of economic subordination, which made it difficult for most of them to realize gender ideals. Exclusion from skilled labor prevented many free black men from fulfilling their prescribed

3,JCharles B. Ray, "Female Education," Colored American. March 18, 1837? M E * Reel 1, fr. 1008. 34The North Star. March 17, 1848. 123 role as sole provider for their families. Charles c.

Andrews, principal of the New York African Free School on Mulberry Street, reported that even after spending several years in school, young black men frequently found avenues of employment closed to them. Even industrial education did not substantially improve job prospects for black men, despite cries for practical education by black leaders such as Martin Delany and

Frederick Douglass during the 1840s and 1850s. Andrews reported the case of a seventeen year old black man who could not secure employment in his trade as a blacksmith. After leaving the Mulberry Street school

"with a respectable education, and an irreproachable character," he found he could not complete his apprenticeship, that "every place that appeared suitable to his object, was closed to him, because he was black!"35

■s5 As Andrews noted in his work on the history of the African Free Schools: After a boy spends five or six years in the school and is deservedly encouraged by the teachers and trustees, and is spoken of in terms of high approbation by respectable visitors, for his manifest talent and superior intellect, he leaves school, with every avenue closed to him, which is open to the white boy, for honorable and respectable rank in society, doomed to encounter as much prejudice and contempt, as if he were not only destitute of that education...but as if he were incapable of receiving it. Charles C. Andrews, The History of the New York African Schools, pp. 117-118. 124

While free black men could often not find jobs,

free black women usually could, primarily because of

the demand for cheap domestic labor. Between the late

eighteenth century and the present, black women, far

more than white women, have worked outside the home.36

In freedom, black women, married and single, engaged in

low-paying domestic labor in order to support their

families. According to one report of the free black

community in Philadelphia in 1795, most black women

worked as laundresses: "The Women generally, both

married and single wash clothes for a livelihood."37

Economic necessity in many urban black families,

therefore, required black wives and daughters to

contribute to the economic survival of the family in

addition to fulfilling their traditional domestic

responsibilities.38 Black women, more than middle-class

See Jacqueline Jones. Labor of Love._Labor of Sorrow; BlflCk Women. Work, and the Family From Slavery to the Present (New York: Basic Books, 1984) and Sterling, HS Are Your Sisters, pp. 89-104. Quaker abolitionists founded the Pennsylvania Society for Promoting the Abolition of Slavery, for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully held in Bondage, and for Improving the Condition of the African Race in 1775. Anti-slavery societies sometimes studied the condition of the free black community in their areas, reporting population statistics, work patterns, and the numbers of churches, benevolent societies, and reform organizations. Cited in Sterling, ed., We Are Your sisters, p. 89. Jl*Horton, "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks Blacks," Feminist studies (Spring 1986): 51-76. 125 white women, used their domestic training for wage- earning purposes because racial barriers often prevented black men from obtaining good jobs and forced them to work in low-paying menial occupations.

The life of ex-slave Chloe Spear (1750-1815) exemplified the heavy burdens many black women shouldered, in a memoir of Spear, the author, a "Lady of Boston," wrote of Spear's life as a freedwoman: After returning from a hard day's work, she many a time went to washing for her customers in the night, while her husband was taking his rest,- - extended clothes lines across her room, and hung up her clothes to dry, while she retired to bed for a few hours; then arose, prepared breakfast and went out to work again, leaving her ironing to be done on her return at night. Cesar [her husband] having been accustomed to cooking, & could, on these occasions, wait upon himself and boarders, during her absence; but was quite willing that she make ready a good supper, after she came home. 9

Spear's experience indicates that traditional expectations of women's domestic responsibilities permeated the lives of free black women, most of whom also worked outside of the home. One free black woman, for example, refused to marry, knowing that she would have to fulfill family responsibilities in addition to

■^Dorothy Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1984), p. 92. 126 her work as a weaver. Thus, she concluded that marriage

"involved such a WASTE OF TIME!"40

Black women's work as seamstresses, laundresses, domestic servants, and proprietors of boarding houses enabled them to contribute to the economic survival of their families. Perhaps the most common way black women earned a wage was to work as domestic servants in the homes of white families. This pattern of employment for black women continued into the twentieth century.

Black women also engaged in business ventures.

Advertisements in black and white abolitionist newspapers indicate that free black women in northern cities operated their own businesses at least as early as 1828. They consistently advertised their services as proprietors of boarding houses, dressmakers, hat makers, laundresses, and seamstresses.

A consciousness of class divisions within the free black community sometimes emerged in the advertisements these women submitted. Black participation in the abolitionist movement demonstrates the existence of a black elite in the free black community. As the previous chapter indicates, a cadre of privileged free black women made up one group of black female activists. Although not all of the women were

4uSterlina. ed.. We~Are Your Sisters, pp. 91-92. 127

prosperous, their activism established them as leading

black women in their community. Those who operated boarding houses often made a

point of welcoming "respectable" blacks in the

community. For example, several black women operated

boarding houses in Philadelphia in 1828. Gracy Jones

of 88 South-Fourth Street opened a boarding house "for

the accommodation of genteel persons of colour." Eliza

Johnson of 28 Elizabeth Street established similar

accommodations and described her boarding house as

"healthy and pleasant." In 1835, Amelia Shad (perhaps

Mary Ann Shadd Cary's sister) advertised in The

Liberator the opening of her boarding house "for

Genteel Persons of Color who may visit Philadelphia"

during one of the black conventions.41 Both Shad(d)

and Jones clearly wanted to attract a particular group

of blacks to their establishments. Their appeal to

"genteel" or "respectable" black patrons may reflect

the existence of a class consciousness within the free black community.42 In New York, a Mrs. Sarah Johnson of

551 Pearl street advertised her services in the

4-^Freedom's Journal? May 16, 1828. See Sidney Kronus, The Black Middle Class (Columbus, Ohio: Charles E. Merrill Publishing Company, 1971) and Howard N. Rabinowitz, Race Relations in the Urban South. 1865-1890 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978) for explanation of class distinctions within the free black community. 128

Freedom^ Journal in 1828 as a seamstress and hat

mender. In her advertisement, she announced to her "friends and the Public" that she had opened a business

in "Bleaching, Pressing, and Refitting Leghorn and

Straw Hats in the best manner" and also offered her

skills in dressmaking and "Plain Sewing." In the

1840s, Nancy Prince, a well-known black woman,

advertised in The Liberator the opening of her

seamstress service, "where she will attend to dress and

cloak-making, pantaloon-making, etc." Grace Douglass, a

leading black women abolitionist in Philadelphia,

operated a hat shop on Arch Street until her death in

1842. Martin Delany reported in 1848 that several women

operated successful seamstress businesses in

Pittsburgh.43

The application of domestic duties to community

needs enabled many black women to survive financially

within the black community and to avoid the job

competition and overt racial hostility over employment

that black men faced. Thus, their work experiences

contrasted with the experiences of black men, who often

sought work outside the black community, and with middle-class white women, who did not need to work

4 3 Freedom' s Journal? May 9, 1838, p. 55; The Liber at P?r, Oct. 27, 1843, p. 17; Notable American_Homen. Vol. I, p. 511; North star. July 6, 1849. 129 outside their hones. Yet, while black women's work experiences differed from those of black men and middle-class white women, their work patterns were similar to those of poor white women. Black women and poor white women worked for a wage, which supports the idea that both class and race were strong determinants in the formation of labor patterns in the United

States. Studies on female factory workers demonstrate that racism within the workplace segregated women according to race and assigned black women to the lowest paying tasks.44 Racial barriers that existed throughout the United States during the antebellum period were a clear indication to many free blacks that they had not yet attained complete freedom.

Black education, although carefully modeled on the white educational system, held a different meaning for black men and women once they reached adulthood. While education did little to improve the lives of black men, education had a significant impact on the lives of black women. The education they received as children intended them to model their lives after middle-class white women, where their primary duties were to "know

44Lerner. ed.. Black Women in White America, pp. 252- 260. Suzanne Lebsock, The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town. 1784-1860 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984), pp. 182-185. 130 how to manage a house, and govern and instruct children." Race prejudice, however, created an economic situation that challenged any expectations black women might have had about fitting into the white middle class model. Unlike most white women, black women discovered that even after marriage, they would continue to work for wages outside the home in addition to their usual family responsibilities.

Despite the economic realities free black men and women faced, leaders in the free black community, many of whom commanded the black press and the ministry, continued to stress the importance of adhering to contemporary images of male and female roles. Black writers who concerned themselves with women's "proper" role in society asserted that women not only possessed the power to influence men's lives, but were expected to use that power to maintain morality and virtue in the home and in their communities. During the 1820s and

1830s, most contributors suggested that women should limit their activities to those that were considered acceptable for "respectable" women. Clearly, some male leaders believed women could best exercise their influence in the community as supporters of male activities. In 1839, Cornish printed an editorial 131 praising the women of several female societies who pledged financial assistance to the Colored American:

To our warm hearted female friends, we also appeal. You can do much. Among your friends, around the social circle, for every object which inlists[sic] your sympathies, or to which you bend your energies, you can do more than our male friends. When woman lends her influence she will succeed....We remember with gratitude how nobly two female Societies once assisted us; one in Buffalo, and the Ladies Literary Society in this city— be not now lukewarm. 5

Black men encouraged the women of their race to participate in community activism aB part of their duty to both their gender and to their race. One writer suggested the importance of respectability among women in the black community by including a report on female behavior in his review of the "Progress of the Colored

People of San Francisco" in 1854: "We have a large number of respectable ladies here, and their influence is felt and acknowledged.1,46

Contemporary black newspapers, such as the Colored

American. Freedom»s Journal. the Weekly Advocate, and the North Star, served as a primary means of communication between black leaders and the community.

In these newspapers, black leaders, many of whom were also members of the clergy, instructed black readers on

^ Colored American. Dec. 7, 1839; BAP. Reel 3, fr. 0299. 46Frederick Douglass * Paper. Sept. 22, 1854; BAP. Reel 9, fr. 0104. f t •*-

132

proper behavior and lifestyles. The black press

provides the clearest evidence of the strength of

gender ideals in the free Black community. Editors and writers for the black press frequently contributed

essays on women, advising women of their domestic responsibilities and asserting that women's "nature"

gave them the power to exert moral influence on men as well as to provide comfort in the home. In 1827, one

contributor wrote that the presence of women provided

comfort to him when race prejudice among whites resulted in his exclusion from "honorable" employment: ...when race prejudice had barred the door of every honorable employment against me, and slander too held up her hideous finger; when X wished that I had not been born, or that I could retire from a world of wrongs, and end my days far from the white man's scorn; the kind attention of a woman, were capable of conveying a secret charm, a silent consolation to my mind. Oh! nothing can render the bowers of retirement so serene and comfortable, or can so sweetly soften all our woes, as a conviction that woman is not indifferent to our fate.** Samuel Cornish published several essays on women's character and "proper" behavior in his newspapers. In

an article on "Female Temper," he asserted that women, more than men, risked their respectability if they lost

their tempers: It is particularly necessary for girls to acquire command of their temper....A man, in a furious

Freedom's Journal. July 7, 1827, p. 79. 133

passion, Is terrible to his enemies; but a woman, In a passion, is disgusting to her friends; she loses all that respect due to her sex; she has not masculine strength and courage to enforce any other kind of respect....The happiness and influence of women, both as wives and mothers, and indeed, in every relation so much depends on the temper, that it ought to be most carefully cultivated... .4B

Frederick Douglass, in his newspaper, the North

Star, once warned young women to avoid coquettishriess in their interactions with men and expressed approval of different standards of propriety for men and women:

"There is certainly something in the ordinance of human affairs, in the organization of society, which demands from the female sex the highest tone of purity and strictest observance of duties pertaining to woman's sphere."49

Philip A. Bell, a black abolitionist who migrated from Boston to San Francisco in the 1850s, denounced women who failed to act like ladies. In the Pacific

Appeal. a black newspaper, Bell criticized women who dared to deviate from the "strict line of propriety" that governed "proper" female behavior:

Gallantry would induce me to notice the lady first, but when a female so far deviates from that strict line of propriety which characterizes the woman of correct principles, as to indulge in slang phrases and low personalities, she must not

^ Freedom's Journal? April 20, 1827, p. 24. 49North Star. Aug. 24, 1849. 134

expect to be treated with that courtesy which is universally paid to ladies.50

Sometimes, women submitted essays on the proper behavior of females. One young woman overcame her reluctance to write for the "public press" out of her commitment to both her gender and her race:

There is a delicacy in a young and unknown female writing for the public press, which nought but my anxiety for the elevation of my people, and the improvement of my sex, together with the importance of the subject, could induce me to overcome.51

In her essay, "Ellen" asserted that women possessed the capability of exercising either a positive or negative influence on men, but that the proper way for women to use their influence was at "the domestic fireside":

"There she can show her power over the lords of creation - there she can shine her true glory." In the home, according to "Ellen," female influence can "mould the character of man, and direct his mind into what should be its proper channel."52 "Maria'1 submitted an essay to Freedom's Journal in which she chastised women for engaging in gossip. In her article on "Female

Scandal," "Maria" reveals her belief in the power of

5uPacific Appeal. March 5, 1864? fi&E, Reel 15, fr. Q268. 51»Ellen" to the Colored American. 1836? £&£, Reel 2. 52Ibid. 135

women to either destroy or maintain stability and

happiness in the home and community:

It is a shame to think that woman, who is considered the emblem of tenderness and mercy, is constantly employed in endeavouring to destroy the peace and happiness of others. No music sounds so melodious to the ears of the scandal monger as the . story of a friends's errors..7T53

Several of the editorials during the 1830s on

black women's responsibilities were written by men who

perhaps feared the increase of women's participation in

public activities. In an address to the Colored Female

Dorcas Society of Buffalo, New York, one man emphasized

to the women in the audience the importance of women's

power to influence the behavior and character of men as well as to bestow "peace and comfort" in the home: "It

is the female influence that polishes manners and

elevates the mind of men. She is the ornament of his

life, the kind protector of his peace and comfort, and

her heart is the home of his affection and love...."54

In November 1838, Samuel Cornish devoted "a large

space" in his newspaper to comments on "female

character, influence, and eloquence." In an editorial,

he made it clear that women should exercise their

influence within the domestic sphere and engage in

^Freedom's Journal? April 8, 1838, p. 10. 54 Weekly Advocate. Feb. 11, 1837? BAP. Reel 1, fr. 0945. 136 activities befitting "respectable" women. He expressed disapproval of "some of America's virtuous and talented daughters" who pursued "masculine views and measures."

According to Cornish, women should function as the

"help-meet" of men:

...we are anxious that woman, lovely woman, should fill the whole of her important and truly elevated sphere. Let not an iota be taken from her influence, or curtailed from her appropriate efforts. Woman was created to be the 'help-meet,' and not the idol or slave of man; and in everything truly virtuous and noble, she is furnished by our bountiful Creator, with all the intellectual, moral and physical requisites for her important place.55

Cornish may have written this editorial in response to the activities of Sarah and Angelina

Grimke, white southern-born abolitionists who had moved North to participate in the abolitionist movement. In

1837, the Grimke sisters embarked upon an antislavery lecture tour. Public speaking, however, was traditionally a male activity and women who dared to deliver public speeches endured criticisms from those who believed that they had stepped out of their assigned sphere. The Grimkes had sustained the majority of criticism from the clergy, who asserted that the sisters had not only violated standards of

55(Editor) Editorial for the Colored American. Nov. 17, 1838; M E , Reel 2, fr. 0655. 137

female propriety, but Biblical teachings as well.56

Although Cornish championed black women's participation

in the community and the abolitionist movement, he

believed that they Bhould only participate in

activities within women's sphere.When the American

Anti-Slavery Society split in 1840, Cornish sided with

the faction that opposed the proposal to admit women as

voting members in the national organization.

In addition to the black press, the black church

played a vital role in the lives of free blacks and was

instrumental in reinforcing gender ideals within the

free black community. Black men and women had organized

all-black churches in response to exclusion from and discrimination in white-dominated churches and as a

means of administering to the needs of the free black

community. The edifice itself served a variety of

purposes in addition to its role as a place to hold

regular worship services. It often provided schoolrooms

and served as a place to hold social and political

events and to organize benevolent societies and

5oSee "Appeal of the Abolitionists of the Theological Seminary" at Andover, MA. These ministers issued a formal denunciation of the Grimkes, arguing that they had violated the directives of St. Paul, who had instructed women to "keep silent." The Liberator. August 25, 1837, p. 139. 138 activities. The church was especially valuable to fugitive slave who sought refuge from slave catchers.

The black church as a community institution held special significance for women. For black women, as for white women, church activity was an acceptable form of female activism and served as a vehicle for enabling them to move from the home into the public sphere.

Within the church hierarchy, black women, like white women, functioned as supporters of male members, who usually held the leadership positions. The church offered sanction and support for activities that the community had deemed suitable to women's "nature," such as benevolence and moral reform activities. The fact that the African Methodist Episcopal Church in

Philadelphia was nicknamed "Mother Bethel" symbolized the piety that was supposed to be the special domain of women. Under the auspices of the church, black women could teach school and administer aid to the poor and orphaned in the free black community.

Participation in fund-raising activities was one of the most acceptable and popular ways free black women functioned within organized activism. Such activity provided church women with organizational experience, which they adapted to antislavery and 139 community self-help activities. Like white women, black women throughout the free states participated in fund­ raising fairs for their churches in order to purchase and maintain church property and to liquidate debts. In

1837, for example, the female members of the African

Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City held a fair to raise money for the church. At the fair, the women offered for sale "a general assortment of Fancy

Articles, Dry Goods, Toys, Confectionary, Sc." William

Cornish, probably a relative of Samuel Cornish, served as the elder in charge of the event. The black female members of the Second Baptist Church in Columbus, Ohio held a similar fair in 1844. In Boston, the women of the First Independent Baptist Female Society, auxiliary to the First Independent Baptist Church of the People of Color, sponsored a fair in May 1845 "for the purpose of liquidating a debt incurred by repairs on the meeting-house...." Most of the members of the fair committee also belonged to the racially-integrated

Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. The black and white antislavery women who organized fund-raising expositions to support the antislavery movement probably modeled these events after church fairs.57

^ Colored American. Nov. 11, 1837, BAP, Reel 2, fr. 0265; Palladium of Liberty. Oct. 2, 1844, M E , Heel 4, fr. 0923; The Liberator. May 2, 1845, p. 71. For more 140

The oral tradition of Afro-American religion

precludes the possibility of finding published sermons

that dealt specifically with the behavior and morality

of church members. The majority of published sermons by

black preachers dealt primarily with political issues

such as colonization and abolitionism. The records of

individual churches, however, reveal a great deal about

subjects of particular concern to church leaders.

Historians have shown, through these documents, that

church leaders supervised the manners and morals of

their communicants and sought, especially, to maintain

family stability and "proper" relations between

husbands and wives. Reverend Richard Allen, pastor of

Mother Bethel in Philadelphia, in conjunction with the

church committee once "disowned" a woman because she

had refused to "'Submit to her husband as a dutiful

wife.'" In black Baptist churches, leaders expressed

similar concerns and expelled members for failing to

maintain harmonious marriages.58

information, see the Weekly Analo-African. Jan 1, 1861? BftEi. Reel 13, fr. 0193? North Star. Aug. 4, 1848? ME, Reel 5, fr. 0725? and Pacific Appeal. April 19, 1862? £&£, Reel 14, fr. 0251 for church activities of black women in Pittsburgh, Detroit, and San Francisco. 58Carol V.R, George, segregated sabbaths. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1973), p. 96? Michel Sobel, Trabelin' On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Bantist Faith. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979), p. 207. 141

The most powerful institutions within the free

black community— the schools, the press, and the

churches-- provided the greatest support for the

maintenance of gender ideals among free blacks during

the antebellum period. The acceptance of contemporary

notions of male and female "natures" and the creation

of a sexual division of responsibility represented an attempt to destroy the negative images of blacks that

slavery had engendered. Black leaders who expressed

support for more positive images of blacks emphasized

the necessity of training girls for their future roles

as efficient managers of the household with "all the

attributes which constitute the lady." Leaders such as

Charles B. Ray, Samuel E. Cornish, and Frederick

Douglass, as well as ordinary citizens of the black

community, stressed the special powers of women, their

"secret charm" and their ability to bestow "peace and

comfort" in the home. These ideals of women's "nature"

and proper roles to play in the home and community persisted despite the fact that economic circumstances prevented the full realization of such ideals.

Through tacit acceptance of these ideals and through commitment to community activities, black women undoubtedly hoped to shed the images of physical power 142

and sexuality they had inherited from slavery. In

freedom, however, the images of womanhood within the

free black community bestowed upon them the power of

and responsibility for maintaining morality and

stability in their households, extending their

benevolent "nature" into the community-at-large. The

local church provided the structure that enabled them

to organize charity and moral reform activities for the

benefit of free blacks and fugitive slaves. Like white

women, black women, in their social interaction with

men, occupied a supportive, auxiliary status. Unlike

white women, most black women shouldered their

community and family responsibilities in addition to

their efforts to earn a wage. As the next chapter will

show, free black women, out of a responsibility to both

their gender and race, participated in a variety of

community self-help activities, which ultimately defined their role in the abolitionist movement. Such activism was their duty as well as their right as free women. CHAPTER IV

SELF-HELP: BLACK WOMEN ABOLITIONISTS

AND THEIR COMMUNITY

"The condition of our people, the wants of our children, and the welfare of our race demand the aid of every helping hand."1 (Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, 1852)

In July 1852, a group of "colored inhabitants" in the free black settlement in Chatham, Ontario, Canada, passed a resolution which defined the proper function of black women in the abolitionist movement: "We regard female sympathy in the cause of freedom and humanity, to be of the most vital importance, and...we hereby most earnestly solicit the aid and cooperation of our sisters in the elevation of our race."2 Such a call for self-determination on the part of the black community and the efforts of black women had been central to the abolitionist movement since the 1820s.

Scholars of Afro-American history have recently shown that the participation of black women in

1Watkins to William still, 1852; Sterling, ed., We Are Yq u e gjpterp, p. 159. ^Voice of the Fugitive. 1852. 144 in the United States.3 Historians of abolitionism, however, have given only superficial attention to the importance of community self-help activities to black abolitionists, despite the fact that black leaders themselves perceived community improvement as a vital part of black abolitionist goals. Jane H. Pease and William Pease, for example, have produced valuable scholarship on nineteenth century black abolitionist strategies and tactics but have concentrated primarily upon public protests on the state and national level.

Their decision to focus upon the experiences of black leaders solely within the context of the national political debate over slavery and broad-based antislavery organizations has resulted in a study that overlooks the abolitionist activity on the community level. Moreover, the exclusion of community activism from black abolitionist studies has resulted in the omission of the important role that black women played in the antislavery movement.4 The study of black abolitionism on the community level reveals that black women were an important group of activists who consistently worked toward achieving the social,

3Horton, "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks," and Perkins, "Black Women and Racial 'Uplift' Prior to Emancipation." 4Pease and Pease, They Who Would be Free; Blacks' Search for Freedom. 1830-1861. p. vi. 145 economic, and educational improvement of their own communities. This chapter will expand upon the works of

Horton and Perkins by demonstrating the centrality of community activism to black abolitionists and by showing that, although both black men and women participated in self-help activities, race and gender expectations and responsibilities in the antebellum free Black community gave black women a special role to play in the abolitionist movement.

During the 1830s, black leaders as well as some white abolitionists clearly perceived the improvement of the free black community as a means of eliminating racial prejudice, which they believed was the basis of enslavement and discrimination in the United States.

In 1839, black leader Lewis Woodson, for example, argued that young black men and women had to assume the responsibility of raising the black community out of its subordinate position in American society by engaging in self-improvement activities:

...they would find that elegant language and polished manners would give them greater currency in society...and that a cultivated mind is of higher consideration than dollars and cents. They would cease to haunt our church doors and the corners of our streets, offending the moral sense of all who go in and out, or that pass by, and [instead] crowd into the lecture room or library; 146

and Instead of drinking grog or smoking tobacco, they would read the newspaper.5

Maria Miller Stewart, one of the earliest black woman speakers in the abolitionist movement, had argued in

1832 that improved education for blacks would eventually force whites to abandon their prejudice against blacks and recognize the "moral and intellectual improvement" of the free black community.

Black abolitionist and ex-slave William Still, in a speech delivered in 1854, put forth a similar argument:

"One thing is certain, and that is, our own education and elevation is to be one of the main levers to overthrow the institution of slavery in the United

States."6 As the views of Woodson, Stewart, and Still suggest, self-help was a subtle form of protest that encouraged blacks to organize on the basis of race and to challenge the subordinate status of the black community within the dominant white society. Black women played a central role in this level of abolitionist activity.

&Miller. The Search~for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization. 1787-1863. p. 98. °From Stewart's speech on Sept. 21, 1832 in Franklin Hall; reprinted in The Liberator, Nov. 17, 1832; Still on a speech delivered by William Wells Brown in Philadelphia, The_Provincial Freeman. Nov. 11, 1854; BlflgK-AkoUtiQniPt Papers (fi&E), Reel 9, fr. 0206. *■ *

147

Although both black men and women participated in

self-help activities, the rationale for female

participation differed from that of men. While both

black men and women were motivated by a desire to

assist their community, prevailing gender expectations

provided an additional justification for black women's

participation in these activities. Contemporary

literature, particularly the black press, reveals that

both men and women perceived women as vital to the

improvement of their community and naturally suited to

community reform. Antebellum free blacks accepted

contemporary notions of separate "spheres" for men and women. The "cult of true womanhood" ideology of the

nineteenth century pervaded the free black community

and encouraged black women to step outside the

immediate confines of their homes in order to apply

their morality and virtue to the community-at-large.

Black women combined Christian ideas of morality that

swept the country during the first half of the

nineteenth century with black abolitionist principles

of community improvement.

The church was an important element in the lives

of black women activists, who often conducted their

activities under the auspices of the local churches and 148 with the support of their clergymen. Since Carter G.

Woodson's history of the black church in the United

States in 1921, a number of scholars have written institutional church histories of the various

Protestant denominations in the free black community in order to explore the ways in which a distinct Afro- American religion evolved out of the slave experience.

The church provided black women with the structure and support they needed to initiate neighborhood self-help activities. In addition, black men and women used religious doctrine to reinforce and justify prevailing beliefs in women's potential for moral superiority and women's obligation to improve the condition of the black community.7

By participating in community activities such as education, benevolence, and moral reform, black women fulfilled contemporary expectations of "respectable" women in the free black community. In his recent study of gender conventions among antebellum free blacks,

^Carter G. Woodson,History of the Negro Church (Washington, D.C.: The Associated Publishers, 1921. For more recent works see Carol V.R. George, Segregated Sabbaths: Richard Allen and the Emergence of Independent Black Churches. 1760-1840; George A. Levesque, "Inherent Reformers - Inherited Orthodoxy: Black Baptists in Boston, 1800-1873," Journal of Negro History 4(1975): 491-525; and Michel Sobel, Trabelin' On: The Slave Journey to an Afro-Baotist Faith (Westport: Greenwood Press, 1979). *•

149

Janes O. Horton points out that freedom for blacks

meant creating social structures that existed in free

society. The sexual division of labor and responsibility was one method of social organization

that existed in freedom and represented the antithesis

of the slave experience. In slavery, black men and

women shared a position of powerlessness, in which

every aspect of their labor existed for the economic

welfare of the slaveholder. For slave women, the

master controlled both their reproductive and

productive roles. Only within the slave quarters could

they to some extent separate roles for men and women.8

In freedom, exclusion from skilled labor prevented many

free black men from fulfilling their prescribed role as

sole providers for their families. Economic necessity

in many urban black families, therefore, required black

wives and daughters to play a vital economic role in

the family in addition to fulfilling their traditional

domestic responsibilities.9 Black women's struggle to

8Jacqueline Jones, "My Mother Was Much of a Woman", and Labor of Love. Labor of Sorrow, pp. 29-43 and John Blassingame, Slave Community (New York: Oxford University Press, 1974), Chapter 4. 9Horton argues that the basis for the discrepancy between the ideal and the reality of freedom for Afro- Americans was primarily economic. Part of the perception of freedom among free black men and women was the existence of gender roles that Horton says had "descended from Afro-American traditions developed during colonial times" and were "influenced by African, t »

150

fulfill economic and domestic responsibilities probably

left little time for outside community activities.

Yet social prescriptions did not change in order

to accommodate the difficulties black men and women

faced in their everyday lives. Leaders in the free

black community, many of whom commanded the black press

and the ministry, continued to stress the importance of

adhering to contemporary images of male and female

roles. They therefore encouraged the women of their

race to participate in community activities as part of

their duty to both their gender and their race. As one

contributor to the Weekly Advocate told the "Females of

Color" in 1837, their participation in community

activism was essential: "In any enterprise for the

improvement of our people— either moral or mental, our

hands would be palsied without women's influence. We

ask then for the exertion of her influence. It is now

needed."10

European, and American Indian cultures and by the realities of eighteenth century slavery in the northern colonies." Racism in the workplace did not alter gender expectation to accommodate economic realities. As a result, free black women shouldered an enormous burden as they tried to fulfill community, domestic, and economic responsibilities. See Horton, "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks," p. 52. iOiiD« the "Females of Color", Weekly Advocate. Jan. 7, 1837? J3MJ, Reel 1, fr. 0888. 152

EDUCATION

Both black and white abolitionists believed that one of the basic ways to improve the free black community was through education, and that the

intellectual improvement of blacks would demonstrate to whites the capabilities of blacks and force them to abandon their prejudice. Since the colonial period, benevolent whites participated in the "uplift" of free blacks by providing them with the rudiments of education and teaching them Christian ideals of thrift, sobriety, and hard work. In 1832, white abolitionist leader William Lloyd Garrison wrote to the black leader

John B. Vashon of his support for education and improvement of the black community:

Nothing encourages me more than to witness such unanimity, and efforts for mutual improvement, among my free colored brethren. True, they have not yet fully aroused to the importance of aiming at high intellectual and moral attainment; but they have accomplished much in a short time, and are evidently making rapid strides to respectability and knowledge.11

For many black women, education was central to their community work. Their own education had trained

11John B. Vashon from William Lloyd Garrison, Boston, Dec. 8, 1832; Black Abolitionist Papers (fiAE), Reel 1, fr. 0228; contributor: Villard Papers, Harvard University. See also Walter M. Merrill and Louis Ruchames, eds., The Letters of William Llovd Garrison Vol. I (Cambridge: 1971), pp. 193-195. 151

Gender and race responsibilities, however unrealistic for many free black women, were integral parts of black women's lives; they shaped their self­ perceptions as female activists and influenced the ways they participated in community activities. As women, they were expected to adhere to contemporary ideals of womanhood established for middle-class white women.

Black women were expected to use their strong moral influence to improve the condition of blacks and to support the antislavery movement out of a responsibility to both their gender and their race. To do both, they supported the abolitionist movement by fostering self-help within their communities. At the same time, economic conditions forced most free black women to work outside the home in order to support their families. Thus, some black women also earned a small wage from their community activities. "Self- help", therefore, held a double meaning for some black women activists. Like white women, schoolteaching, especially, became a livelihood for black women as well as a way to promote education in their communities. 153

them to accept their domestic role in the family and in

the black community-at-large. Although the black

community supported the education of both boys and

girls, the purpose of female education was clearly to

prepare young females for respectable domestic lives.

Training in domestic skills prepared them for lives as

efficient mothers. Unlike most white women, economic

realities forced most black women to use their domestic training for wage-earning purposes, since racial barriers often prevented the male members of their

families from obtaining good jobs and forced them to work in low-paying menial occupations. Black women,

therefore, found that their education served a dual

purpose, as economic necessity required them to obtain

outside employment in addition to their household

responsibilities as wives and mothers.

Some black women worked collectively to encourage

blacks to enroll in the local schools, while others

promoted black education by becoming teachers

themselves. Some of these women also organized

intellectual societies for their own improvement. In whatever way black women chose to promote black education, gender conventions required them to behave according to contemporary images of female propriety.

When black women cooperated with black men to improve 154 education in their community, they assumed a supportive role by forming auxiliaries to male organizations. In

New York City, a group of twelve black women met in

1838 to form an auxiliary to the men's committee "for the purpose of adopting some measures for the further encouragement of education among our people, and especially securing a more numerous and punctual attendance of colored children at the public schools."

Black abolitionist Stephan Gloucester remarked that the men's committee had called upon "the cooperation and the influence of women" to ensure the attainment of their goals.12 Another group of black women had formed the Female Education Society under the sponsorship of

Rev. Theodore Wright's Presbyterian Church in New York

City.13 The purpose of this female auxiliary organization was to raise money to send poor young

12Colored American. Oct. 13, 1838; BAP. Reel 2, fr. 9615. x Theodore S. Wright was a leader of the black community in New York and was active in the New York Vigilance Committee and the United Anti-Slavery Society of New York City, which attempted to coordinate the work of black organizations. Wright was a firm believer in political action and, in 1840, sided with the Tappan wing of the American Anti-Slavery Society. Wright also believed in black unity. Thus, when the AAS split in 1840, Wright tried to keep all groups of blacks in New York City united in their abolitionist goals and "'the practical needs of the colored people.'"See Gerald Sorin. The New York Abolitionists, p. 84. * j r

155

black men in the community to college.The women who

headed the organization perceived their activities not

only as a way to promote education, but as a

contribution to the general welfare of the black

community.15 As women who cooperated with men in

organized attempts to promote education, they also

conformed to prevailing expectations of female subordination to male leadership.

In order to pursue their own education, many black

women organized female intellectual societies, the

goals of which often differed from those of the

parallel men's literary societies. While men's

intellectual societies stressed the development of

debating, reading, composition, and scientific skills,

female societies encouraged their members to improve

their minds in order that they might fulfill their

responsibilities as women.15 During the early 1830s,

black fcomen in Philadelphia and Boston formed all-black

female literary associations. The goals of these

societies reinforced ideals of womanhood by stressing

piety, morality, and domesticity. In 1831, a group of

■^Oberlin College in Ohio, founded in 1826, was the first college to admit blacks and women. 15Colored American. Oct. 31, 1840? £&£, Reel 3, fr. 0682. 16Daniel Perlman, "Organizations of the Free Negro in New York City, 1800-1860," Journal of Negro History. 56(July 1971), p. 190. 156 black women in Philadelphia had met to form the Female

Literary Association for "the mental improvement of females." The Philadelphia women also included antislavery as a regular part of their discussions. The following year, at the suggestion of Simeon Jocelyn, a leading white minister, "respectable colored females" in Philadelphia organized regular meetings at the homes of the individual members. Preceding the establishment of the integrated Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery

Society by one year, these women not only promoted their own education, they also included antislavery as an important component of their work in the

Association. The members of this society included books and pamphlets on antislavery in their literary collection.

At their "Mental Feasts," the members of the

Association engaged in "moral and religious meditation, conversation, reading and speaking, sympathising over the fate of the unhappy slave, improving their own minds, &c. &c."17 Sarah Douglass, who served as secretary, wrote to William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac

Knapp of The Liberator requesting a copy of Garrison's

Thoughts on Colonization for $5. She also provided them with an update on the status of the Association, i ^The Liberator. July 21, 1832, p. 114. r *

157

noting that "Our association is increasing in number

and usefulness...."18 For the black women who founded

this organization, antislavery and community

improvement were equally important points on their

agenda. In 1832, black women in Boston organized the

Afric-American Female Intelligence Society. The

preamble of their constitution reflected the commitment

of these "women of color" to female education in order

to carry out their moral responsibilities:

Whereas the subscribers, women of color, of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, actuated by a natural feeling for the welfare of our friends, have thought fit to associate for the diffusion of knowledge, the suppression of vice and immorality, and for cherishing such virtues as will render us happy and useful to society, sensible of the gross ignorance under which we have long labored....19

At one "Mental Feast" in 1832, "an accomplished

young colored lady" delivered an address in which she

emphasized women's special responsibilities:

How important is the occasion for which we have assembled ourselves together this evening, to hold a feast, to feed our never dying-minds, to excite each other to deeds of mercy, words of peace....20

lsSarah M. Douglassto William Lloyd Garrison and Isaac Knapp, Dec. 6, 1832; Boston Public Library(BPL)-Anti- Slavery Collection, Department of Hare Books & Manuscripts. 19The Liberator. Jan. 7, 1832, p. 2. 2°The-Liberator. July 21, 1832, p. 114. 158

This woman's comment suggests that black women viewed their own education as a way of helping each other live up to expectations of women's piety, and that intellectual gatherings such as "Mental Feasts" provided them with the opportunity to put their piety to work by encouraging them to perform "deeds of mercy."

Leading white abolitionists praised the black women who organized intellectual societies. Benjamin

Lundy, editor of the Genius of Universal Emancipation, heartily approved of the Afric-American Female

Intelligence Society organization. He praised the initiative "among our colored sisters" and wished the black women of Boston and Philadelphia "success and a long career of usefulness," adding that "our Afric-

American sisters are becoming more sensible of the value of mental cultivation, and are exerting themselves to procure it."21 William Lloyd Garrison commended the black women of Philadelphia for establishing their Association and announced that he would use the establishment of black female intellectual societies in his arguments against racist ideas. In his letter to Sarah Douglass, Garrison noted

21Genius of Universal Emancipation, col. 10, p. 163, 1832. 159

that black women were central to the drive to end race

prejudice, especially because, as mothers, they also

served as important agents of socialization: The formation of this Society is a source of unspeakable satisfaction to my mind....It puts a new weapon into my hands to use against southern oppressors....My hopes for the elevation of your race are mainly centered upon you and others of your sex. To you are committed, if not the destinies of the present, certainly those of the rising generation.22

Some intellectual organizations welcomed both men

and women. Abraham D. Shadd, father of Mary Ann Shadd

and a community leader, noted in 1833 that although

women had dominated the drive to organize intellectual

societies, many of the groups were sexually integrated.

One "Colored Female" wrote to The Liberator in 1834,

noting that the Female Minerverian Association to which

she belonged was "not confined to any particular class

or sex." The purpose of the society, however, seemed

particularly geared to its female members, since one of

the goals of the organizations was to "improve the mental condition of all who feel disposed to participate in the knowledge of piety" as well as

"truth and justice." She also expressed hope that their

^William Lloyd Garrison to Sarah M. Douglass, Secretary of the Female Literary Association of Philadelphia, March 5, 1832? Anti-Slavery Collection, Boston Public Library-Rare Books & Manuscripts. 160

efforts at Intellectual improvement would convince

Whites to abandon their assumptions of black

inferiority, that "pride and prejudice" would "ere long cease.1,33

While some black women engaged in an organized

effort to improve educational opportunities for blacks,

other women preferred to contribute their individual

talents by becoming educators themselves. During the thirty years before the Civil War, several black women

were well-known in their communities as educators.

Maria Miller Stewart, Sarah M. Douglass, Susan Paul,

Mary Bibb, and Mary Ann Shadd Cary divided their time

between teaching and participation in antislavery societies and a variety of community improvement

projects. As teachers they were expected to support the

ideals of black education and uphold contemporary

gender expectations by behaving like "ladies."

Economic conditions compelled some black female

educators to engage in school teaching in order to earn

a living as well as participate in the improvement of

their community. Teaching, however, proved financially

unrewarding for most black women, especially for those who established private schools. Even those black

^JThe Liberator. Dec. 1833? The Liberator. March 1, 1834, p. 36. 161 women who came from middle-class black families struggled financially as educators. Motivated by their * desire to improve educational opportunities for blacks as well as to support their own families, they worked constantly to keep their schools open and often turned to religious organizations or antislavery societies for financial assistance.

Black women abolitionists who conformed to expectations of female humility and participated in activities that extended but did not challenge their domestic roles received unequivocal praise from abolitionist leaders. Both Sarah M. Douglass of

Philadelphia and Susan Paul of Boston ran schools for black children and adults. Sarah Douglass was noted for teaching the "higher branches" of knowledge in her school for young black women in Philadelphia. Douglass not only taught children and young women, but she also trained many of the public school teachers in

Philadelphia. Samuel C. Cornish, black abolitionist and editor of the Colored American, visited Douglass's school in 1B37 and estimated that more than forty women attended. Cornish included a positive commentary in his report on the general state of black education in

Philadelphia. He particularly approved of the quality of the student body and the curriculum Douglass 162

offered. Cornish praised her for selecting students

"from our best families, where their morals and manners

are equally subjects of care and deep interest."

Whether or not Douglass's students actually came from

the "best families" in the black community, Cornish's

comment reflects an awareness of class distinctions

among free blacks and the concern for instilling the

"morals and manners" befitting the higher classes.

Cornish also commended Douglass for offering a

curriculum that covered all branches of "a good and

solid female education...together with many of the more

ornamental sciences, calculated to expand the youthful

mind, refine the taste, and assist in purifying the

heart."24 Although Cornish may not have intended his

statement to speak for all observers of female

education, his commentary reflects a common view of the

goals of female education during the nineteenth

century. More important, however, his assessment also

reinforces the idea that expectations of respectable

women crossed racial lines, and that a concern for maintaining their status as "ladies" existed in the

free black community as well as in the white community.

**(Samuel Cornish) to (Charles B. Ray), Colored American. Dec. 2, 1837; BAP. Reel 2, fr. 0290. 163

Douglass delivered guest lectures on a variety of

subjects, many of which reflected concern for women's

domestic responsibilities, during her teaching career.

In 1859, for example, she delivered an address on

"Anatomy, Physiology and Hygiene" to a group of women

in Philadelphia. A writer for the Weekly Anclo-African

approved of Douglass's presentation primarily because he believed it was a woman's duty to understand human physiology in order to ensure the good health of her

children:

It is very generally acknowledged, that an acquaintance with the structure and offices of the human system, is necessary to those whose especial duty it is to protect the health of the young; they who argue that such knowledge is inconsistent with the delicacy of woman's character, can never have realized that the human frame is the work of the same All-wise and Holy Being, who endowed woman with her pure and refined nature.25

In 1898, sixteen years after Douglass's death, a group of former abolitionists wrote a "Tribute of

Respect" to her. They referred to her as "one who has

long and faithfully served in the elevation and culture of a race and as a pioneer of education among her people in Philadelphia."26 Douglass's emphasis on the domestic responsibilities of educated black women

^5Weekly Anglo-African. July 23, 1859? M 2 , Reel 11, fr. 0869. "A Tribute of Respect to the Veteran Teacher" 61898; Henry P. Slaughter Collection, Trevor Arnett Library, Atlanta University Center Library. 164

demonstrated her commitment to upholding the ideals of

"woman's sphere."

Susan Paul was one of the most renowned black

female educators during the 1830s in Boston. Paul

operated a primary school for black children that

combined general education with religious instruction.

She also organized a choir, the Garrison Junior Choir,

named after William Lloyd Garrison. Paul was best known

for holding annual public programs to demonstrate the

talents of her students. In 1834, she organized her

first "Juvenile Concert," which featured her pupils at

the Primary School No. 6 in Boston. The program

featured songs about the school, such as "In school we

learn," and music that reflected the students' religious training, such as "Suffer little children to

come unto us."2^ Her cooperation with white leaders as well as her inclusion of religion in her schools

invited praise and support from abolitionist

colleagues in Boston.

Boston abolitionists believed Paul's exhibitions were good publicity for the black community. William

Lloyd Garrison noted in The Liberator in 1834 that

Paul's concerts had "a powerful tendency to beget

sympathy, to excite admiration, and to destroy

^ yThe Liberator. Jan. 4, 1834, p. 3. 165 prejudice."^8 Several male abolitionists supported

Paul's efforts by volunteering to handle ticket sales

for her concerts. In 1834, for example, James Loring, a white abolitionist, and James G. Barbadoes, a black abolitionist, sold tickets for twenty-five cents at the office of The Liberator.

Both Susan Paul and Sarah Douglass, in their careers as educators, conformed to prevailing expectations of behavior for female activists by cooperating with male leaders and keeping within the appropriate "sphere" for women. Neither Paul nor

Douglass challenged the authority of men or engaged in activities that were untraditional for women. As a result, they received praise and encouragement from male abolitionist leaders. When female activists acted aggressively and participated in traditionally male activities, they sometimes met with scorn from male leaders. Unlike Paul or Douglass, Mary Ann Shadd Cary made her commitment to black education a hotly disputed political issue in the free black community in Windsor,

Ontario, one of the free black Canadian settlements.

Education, however, was just one issue in which Shadd was embroiled. Throughout her activist career, her

2BIb Id 7 166

desire to promote self-help in the Canadian community

often placed her at the center of controversy.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary had arrived in Windsor in the

winter of 1851, optimistic about the chance to participate in black emigration and school teaching.

Shadd*s ideas about black education, however,

conflicted with those of Henry and Mary Bibb, ex-slaves

who had helped establish the black settlement at

Windsor a year before Shadd arrived. Henry Bibb, in

particular, had been the unquestioned leader in the

settlement. Shadd and the Bibbs had agreed that

emigration from the United States was the only way

blacks could establish self-sufficient communities and

institutions. They, like other emigrationists, had

been discouraged by white efforts to end slavery,

arguing that blacks could never convince whites of the

"moral worth and respectability" of the African race

and should abandon the effort. Shadd and the Bibbs

also agreed that education was vital to the success of

free blacks, but they disagreed over the types of

schools they wanted to maintain as well as the source of financial assistance they would seek in order to keep the schools open. The Bibbs favored government- 167

sponsored schools for blacks, while Shadd favored

private schools that made no distinctions about color.

In 1851, Henry and Mary Bibb proposed the

establishment of public schools exclusively for

blacks.In this regard, the Bibbs and their supporters

exercised their rights under Canadian law, which

entitled blacks to petition for segregated schools.

Their motive was probably economic. Aware that the

private schools were in dire financial straits, the

Bibbs probably believed that they could operate schools

for blacks only with government assistance. The Bibbs'

proposal for the construction of a "colored government

school" for blacks, however, met with disapproval from

Shadd. Although she was a staunch emigrationist and

supporter of black unity, she opposed segregated or

"caste" schools. Shadd opposed separate schools for

blacks and whites partly on principle. According to

Shadd, black support of racial separation would only perpetuate the custom of segregation that had kept blacks subordinate for three centuries. She was determined not to perpetuate such a system in her own schools. She also opposed public "caste" schools out of a desire to promote self-sufficiency in the black community in Canada. Thus, she opposed the Bibbs' 168 petition for government aid, arguing that such financial help would discourage self-help within the black community.

The poor condition of public schools for blacks in

Canada also motivated Shadd to reject the Bibbs' proposal. Throughout the 1850s, she argued that although both white and black parents paid taxes to

Canadian public schools, white leaders in the boroughs used the money to build the best schools for the white children and either built shabby black schools or allowed black schools to remain in a destitute condition with inadequate and few supplies. Shadd reported in 1855, for instance, that the black inhabitants of St. Catharine had endured unequal educational opportunities, that the "colored people are debarred equal school privileges at present."29 The following year, Shadd wrote in the Provincial Freeman that in Canadian boroughs "large and handsome school houses are erected for the children of the whites, while but a single miserable contracted wooden building is set apart for the children of the colored taxpayers of the entire town." She further argued that the small numbers of black children who attended these schools

^ Provincial Freeman. Nov. 3, 1855; M E , Reel 9, fr. 0915. 169

often traveled far from their homes in order to attend

the nearest black school, which usually employed only

one black teacher. Finally, Shadd complained that

black children, under the existing public school

system, had little hope of advancing their education:

"The children of this Colored School, are not promoted

to the Grammar (white) School, neither are they led to

hope that they might be...." She expressed outrage that

while black parents paid taxes to the Canadian public

school system, many who could afford to also paid for

private instruction if they wanted their children to

receive an adequate education.30

Shadd's opposition to the Bibbs' proposal resulted

in hostility between her and the Bibbs. In 1852, she

established her own newspaper, the Provincial Freeman, which rivaled Henry Bibb's Voice of the Fugitive. In

her newspaper Shadd voiced opposition to nearly all of

the projects the Bibbs promoted among Canadian blacks.

Such a willingness to challenge male leaders was

considered unseemly for respectable women. Her

criticism of Bibb apparently was so severe that he

wrote in his own newspaper that "Miss Shadd has said

and writes many things we will think will add nothing

i0Provincial Freeman. July 26, 1856? M E , Reel 10, fr. 0238. 170

to her credit as a lady....31 Shadd wrote to George

Whipple about the growing feud with the Bibbs over the

public school issue:

I stated to the people in the first school meeting held here, that if they wanted an exclusive school I would not teach them, and he [Bibb] was aware of it...in another meeting...which was an attempt to get up a colored government school, I told them if they would desist I would teach twenty children, for three shillings per month advance, and take all children whose parents were not able [to pay].32

Shadd described Mary Bibb's push to obtain a petition

for the establishment of the government school despite

Shadd's offer: "Mrs. Bibb was present and urged them to

move early in the school if they wished a government

school...their petition would not be granted. I stood

alone in opposition to caste schools."33

Shadd further demonstrated her opposition to

"caste" schools by opening her private school to both black and white children. The school she and her

sister-in-law, Amelia Freeman Shadd, established in

1859 was open to all young people, males and females.

In their advertisement, they announced that "No

jiVoice of the Fugitive. July 15, 1851? M E , Reel 7, fr. 0657. 32Mary Ann Shadd Cary to George Whipple, Dec. 28, 1852, Windsor, C(anada) W(est); ME, Reel 7, fr. 1039. 33Mary Ann Shadd Cary to George Whipple, July 21, 1852, Windsor, C(anada) W(est); BAP. Reel 7, fr. 0688. 171

complexional distinctions will be made."34 Her public

pronouncements welcoming students of both races were

rooted more in principle than in reality. Despite her

advertisements against racial segregation in her

school, evidence indicates that she taught mostly black

children, which suggested that few white parents were

willing to send their children to Shadd's school.35 Her

schools also remained in a financially destitute

condition throughout the 1850s. This situation

eventually forced her in 1859 to swallow her pride and

request aid again from the American Missionary

Association. To solicit financial assistance from the Association must have been especially difficult for

Shadd, since six years earlier the Association had

dismissed her because she was not an evangelical.

Shadd, who was in fact a Catholic, charged the AMA with

suspending her for that reason alone. When she applied

to Whipple for financial support, she cited the

school's poor condition and the lack of supplies and

pointed out that "the educational facilities, of the

colored people greatly need enlarging by the fostering

•^Provincial Freeman. Jan. 28, 1859; M E , Reel 11, fr. 0553. 35Reports on the progress of her school consistently referred to her "colored" school or her "colored" students. In 1852, Henry Bibb reported that Shadd operated "a very respectable school of colored children." 172

care and sympathy of the friends of our degraded

people."36 Shadd was so determined to keep the school

open that she left Canada for several months to gather

donations from sympathizers In the United States.

Black female educators struggled to Improve black

education despite the lack of adequate financial

support. After arriving in Canada in 1850, Mary Bibb

operated a small school for fugitive slave children in

her home, although she later shifted her support to the

establishment of a public segregated school. Within a year, increased enrollment forced her to move her

students to a nearby schoolroom, but she soon

encountered economic problems. In February 1851, she reported on the progress of her "day school" and the

establishment of a Sunday school. Although enrollment

in both schools had increased, the physical condition

of the schoolrooms, bad weather, and the absence of

adequate supplies were grim realities Bibb faced

throughout her career as a teacher. Bibb, however,

remained optimistic about her day school despite

difficult beginnings: The day school in this place has increased from twelve to forty-six, notwithstanding the embarrassing circumstances under which it started,

■^Mary Ann Shadd Cary to George Whipple, June 21, 1859, Chatham, Canada; BAPf Reel 11, fr. 0795-0796; contributor: Dillard University - ARC-AMA Collection. 173

namely, a dark, ill-ventilated room, uncomfortable seats, want of desks.-books and all sorts of school apparatus....37

She reported similar problems when she opened up her

new Sunday school class:

We commenced a Sunday-school four weeks ago; present, thirty-six; there are now forty members, and much interest is manifested both by parents and children, some coming in inclement weather the distance of two or three miles. We are entirely destitute of bibles, there being four testaments in the school, one of these being minus several chapters...,38

By spring 1851, Bibb clearly felt the financial

bind that would plague the black Canadian schools. In

April, she reported that most of her pupils had quit

school after the winter term in order to hire

themselves out to farmers for the spring and summer.

Bibb complained to the editors of the Anti-Slaverv

Bucle in Salem, Ohio that the parents whose children

had attended that winter had failed to pay her salary,

adding that she would even have accepted partial payment, "but even this has not yet been given."39

Bibb's financial difficulties led her to seek aid from

American institutions, such as the American Missionary

Association, since the government in Canada had refused

37Voice of the Fugitive. Feb. 26, 1851; BAP. Reel 6, fr. 0836. *8Ibid. 39Anti-Slaverv_Bugle. April 12, 1851; fi&E, Reel 6, fr. 0899. 174 to provide financial assistance to the fugitive slave communities in its provinces.

Mary Ann Shadd faced similar financial hardships.

During her first year in Canada, Shadd wrote to George

Whipple, secretary of the American Missionary

Association, about the poverty she saw in the black communities in Windsor and Sandwich, particularly the lack of adequate facilities in the black schools.

According to Shadd, Windsor was "by universal consent, the most destitute community of colored people":

The school at that place [Sandwich], though a government affair, does not afford apparatus nor anything for instruction, nor support to the teacher; the very trifling sum to be paid by parents is not furnished, and they even express the inability to provide firewood.40

Shadd added that the twenty parents in Windsor who had originally agreed to pay for their children's education in her school had not lived up to their agreement, which resulted in a high absentee rate: "...some who have purported to be of the twenty are not able to pay at all, and at least twenty-five children are out of school...."41 Despite the problems she encountered,

4uMary Ann Shadd Cary to George Whipple, Oct. 27, 1852, Windsor, Canada; BAP. Reel 7, fr. 0160-0161; contributor: Dillard University, Amistad Research Center (ARC) - American Missionary Association (AMA) collection. 175

Shadd remained a strong supporter of emigration and self-help in the Canadian black communities.

Shadd was so determined to encourage self-help in her community that she hesitated to accept a grant from the American Missionary Association to finance the private schools, fearing that once black parents knew of such a donation, they would stop paying altogether.

Her dealings with George Whipple over this issue resulted in another blow-up with the Bibbs. After finally accepting the grant, Shadd wanted to delay informing the black community. Henry Bibb, however, apparently knew of the deal and publicized the AMA's donation in his newspaper. Bibb later defended his action:

We heard her say that she was receiving 'three york shillings, from each of her pupils,' which sum was not enough to support her from about 29 children and after we learned that the above society [AMA] had granted her the sum of $125, we thought that they did well, and we even used to give publicity to the fact, for the encouragement of our people in Windsor as they were entirely ignorant of it to that time...and not knowing that she wished this information kept from the parents of the children, we gave publicity to it....42

For some black female teachers in the United

States, teaching was necessary for the economic survival of their families, yet they struggled to

42Voice of the Fugitive. July 15, 1852; BAP. Reel 7, fr. 0657. 176 maintain their schools financially. Commitment to community activism as well as economic necessity motivated at least two renowned black female teachers to continue the operation of their schools. Sarah

Douglass's affiliation with the racially-integrated

Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society enabled her to obtain financial aid from abolitionist circles. During the 1830s, Douglass received assistance from the

Pennsylvania Abolition Society when financial difficulties nearly forced her to close the school. The

Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society also contributed to Douglass's school. By the 1840s,

Douglass's teaching became vital to her family's survival, since the death of Grace Douglass in 1842 had eliminated the income she had brought to the family through her hat shop. Prominent white abolitionist

Sarah Grimke revealed in a letter that the Douglass family needed Sarah Douglass's income from teaching, despite the fragility of her health: "Sarah's health is so precarious that her physician tells her it will be almost the certain sacrifice of life for her to continue school-keeping...yet their circumstances 177

render it necessary, for her to do something for a

living "43 Susan Paul's family also relied upon her income as

a teacher after her father died. In addition to caring

for her elderly mother, Paul supported four nieces and

nephews after the death of her sister in 1837. Lydia

Maria Child, a leading white abolitionist, once noted

that Paul's job as a schoolteacher was essential to the

family's economy, but apparently was not enough, for

Paul also worked as a seamstress in her spare time:

"For several years she [Paul] has taught a primary

school, the proceeds of which have supported her and a widowed mother....The few hours when she is not in

school are diligently employed in sewing for their

support."44

Economic, race, and gender responsibilities shaped

the participation of black women in black education.

Clearly, as black women, they bore a dual

responsibility to both their gender and their race by

engaging in activities to improve the condition of the

free black community. Education, according to many

black leaders, was essential to the eventual success of

4^Sarah Grimke to Gerrit Smith & Mrs. (Ann Carroll Fitzhugh) Smith, Belleville, N.J., July 11, 1842. Gerrit Smith Papers, Reel 10. 44 Lydia Maria Child to Jonathan Phillips, Jan. 23. 1838. Schlesinger Library. 178 blacks. Black spokespersons had argued during the early

1830s that the intellectual improvement of blacks would eventually result in the abolition of race prejudice and, hence, erase the racial barriers that prevented black men from obtaining well-paying jobs. Economic independence for black men would enable black men and women to attain complete freedom. For the black family, freedom meant the ability to create a sexual division of responsibility that placed men in the workplace and women in the home and community.

Black women who participated in organized efforts to promote education fulfilled contemporary expectations of women's "proper" place. Those who organized to improve their own education formed intellectual societies. The object of the societies was to continue the principles of female education, in which girls and young women learned traditional subjects to prepare them for roles as educators of their own children and interesting companions for their husbands. When black women organized with black men to promote education, they served as auxiliaries to the male organizations.

As teachers in their own schools, education was a career as well as a way to improve the free black community. Black women teachers, like some white women, 179 faced constant financial hardship that forced then to find outside sources of support in order to keep their schools open. Throughout their careers, black women educators in both the United States and Canada faced continual financial hardship and struggled constantly to find sources of funding in order to keep their schools open. And, although schoolteaching often brought in only a meager income, it was often necessary for the survival of their families. Within the free black community, therefore, schoolteaching was a form of black activism reflecting an economic, racial, and sexual commitment on the part of black women. Unlike teaching, benevolence and moral reform activities promised no economic return, but reflected black women's commitment to the improvement of the free black community.

BENEVOLENCE AND MORAL REFORM

Both men and women in the free black community had formed a variety of benevolent organizations during the antebellum period. Through the formation of charitable organizations, fraternal lodges, literary, temperance, and moral reform societies, black men and women provided assistance to needy members of their 180 community. The exact number of these societies is difficult to assess, since many dissolved soon after their foundation and those that survived often left no available records. In addition, contemporary observers often disagreed over the estimated numbers of community organizations. Despite these limitations, however, the existence of these societies throughout the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, however sporadic, indicates a continuous effort by free blacks to provide assistance to their communities through a variety of self-help organizations.45 The goals of these societies were varied and included aid to widows and orphans, temperance, education, crime-control, and the abolition of slavery.

As in the larger free society, black men and women organized and belonged to separate male and female societies. Men in the free black community had organized self-help societies earlier than did black women. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick have found that two black ministers in Philadelphia, Richard Allen and

Absalom Jones, formed the first black benevolent organization in the country in 1787, the Free African

Society. Leading black men in other cities also formed

45Perlman, "Organizations of the Free Negro in New York City, 1800-1860,"p. 181-182. 181 self-help societies and fraternal lodges, both of which dispensed aid to needy black men, women, and children. In Boston, black men founded the African Society in 1796, which functioned simultaneously as a benevolent and antislavery society, in 1808, a group of black men in Mew York city met in one of the schools for black children to form the New York African Society. 46

For black men as for white men, fraternal lodges also functioned as benevolent societies and actually differed little from the mutual aid organizations, except that members of lodges shared the same forms of employment. The Masons and the Odd Fellows were the oldest black fraternal orders in the United States. The black Odd Fellows organized their lodge in 1843.47 One

46James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc.), pp. 28-29. The historian for the Society, black activist John Zuille, asserted that several other black men's benevolent societies in New York City eventually sprang from the African Society. Zuille claimed that the many members of the African Society eventually broke to form the Clarkson Society, the Wilberforce Benevolent Society, and the Woolman Society of Brooklyn; see John T. Zuille, Historical Sketch of the New York African Society for Mutual Relief (New York, 1892), p. 20, cited in Perlman, "Organizations of the Free Negro in New York City, 1800-1860," p. 184. 47In 1787, Prince Hall, a black mason and Methodist preacher founded the first black masonic lodge, the African Lodge #459 in Boston. Horton, Black Bostonians, p. 29; August Meier and Elliott Rudwick, From Plantation to Ghetto (New York: Hill & Wang, 1970), pp. 90-91. 182 black leader wrote In 1857 of the importance of community service to members of fraternal lodges: "The relief of the widow and orphan is the greatest boast as well as the brightest diadem in our Masonic crown."48

Black women also formed a variety of self-help organizations, and participation in benevolence and moral reform fulfilled prevailing expectations of both gender and race in the free black community. Their involvement in these activities represented a deep commitment to improving the condition of blacks through their own initiative and the realization of an ideal that gave women a special responsibility for the welfare of their own communities. Within the past decade, historians have enriched our understanding of women's role in society by exploring the participation of upper and middle-class white women in community-based benevolent and moral reform activities. The works of Carroll Smith-

Rosenberg, Barbara Berg, Anne Boylan, Mary P. Ryan, and Nancy Hewitt have shown that the experiences of white women in organized community reform and benevolence were different from those of male reformers. White female reformers often came from prominent or middle-

4 James T. Holly to Lewis Hayden, Jan. 9, 1857, New Haven, Connecticut? BAP. Reel 10, fr. 0485. 183 class families whose male members were politically and economically powerful, but the involvement of white women in reform and benevolence meant more than simply a fulfillment of the social obligation of a local elite to the poor. Not all of them perceived their roles as assistants to their reformer husbands, whose main purpose was to control the growing urban masses.49

Although historians do not always agree upon the source of motivation for white female activism or upon the impact of these activities on the lives of women, they have effectively argued that the participation of white women in charitable work and reform represented an exertion of women's power that was based upon their status as moral custodians of their households and communities. The application of prevailing ideas of women's superior morality and their association with

4gBarbara J. Berg. The Remembered Gate: Origins of American Feminism. The Woman and the Citv. 1800-1860 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1978); Anne Boylan, "Women in Groups: An Analysis of Women's Benevolent Organizations in New York and Boston, 1787-1840," Journal of American History (December 1984): 497-523; Nancy A. Hewitt, Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester. New York. 1822-1872 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1984); Carroll Smith Rosenberg, "Beauty and the Beast and the Militant Woman: A Case Study in Sex Roles and Social Stress in Jacksonian America," American Quarterly 23(October 1971): 562-84; Mary P. Ryan, "The Power of Women's Networks," in Judith L. Newton, Mary P. Ryan, and Judith R. Walkowitz, eds., Sex and Class in Women's History (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1983): 167-186. 184

other groups of women in local churches and reform

organizations enabled them to shape their own

communities by imposing stricter standards of behavior.

In the process, reform women also created a sense of

"sisterhood" with other women that transcended class,

religion, and, perhaps, race. Thus, in exploring white women's participation in benevolence and reform, historians have examined the relevance of moral

stewardship, social control, women's power, and the creation of a sisterhood in the lives of white women activists.

While much literature exists on the motivations and experiences of white female activists, historians have just begun to explore the experiences of black women who participated in similar reform and benevolent activities on the community level. Such a study, however, reveals that white and black women activists were motivated by different circumstances. Unlike white women, black women who organized societies to aid the poor, widowed, and orphaned and campaigned to stop prostitution and excessive alcohol consumption were motivated by a responsibility to both gender and race in the free black community.

Black women worked extensively to help needy blacks in their own communities by organizing 185

benevolent societies, some of which served as

auxiliaries to male organizations. Black women had

been active in benevolent societies as early as 1828,

when a group of black women and men met in New York

City in January at the local Manumission School on

Mulberry Street to discuss plans for creating a

"Fragment Society" among "Females of Colour."5®

Twenty-one black women, advised by a committee of male ministers, formed the leadership of the African Dorcas

Society(ADS) when they officially formed their

organization in February 1828. In their constitution, these women linked benevolent activities with education when they pointed to black school children as the primary recipients of their largesse. The leaders of the ADS attributed the frequent absences of children who were enrolled in the African Free Schools as "owing

to want of suitable clothing." The central goal of ADS members was to "afford relief in clothing, hats, and shoes, as far as our means may enable us, to such

children as regularly atend [sic] the schools belonging to the Manumission Society...."51

Black women activists performed the tasks that were typical of most women during the nineteenth

^ Freedom's Journal. Jan. 25, 1828, p. 175. ^ Freedom1 s Journal. Feb. 1, 1828, p. 179. 186 century. Twice each month ADS members met in small sewing circles to make and mend clothing for "the destitute boys and girls" enrolled in the local schools.52 Black observers viewed black women activists as naturally suited to charitable work. One writer, known only as "A," praised these women for their activism and suggested that benevolent activities were extensions of black women's domestic responsibilities:

How pleasant and how profitable must it be to our females to spend their leisure evening, in clothing and making comfortable, & thus keeping in school (where they may learn wisdom and virtue) many little children, who may be otherwise running the streets at this inclement season, suffering from the want of clothing and learning nothing but wickedness!53

As with other forms of community activities, black women often cooperated with black men and supported male leadership. In 1837, black men and women in Troy, New York celebrated the Fourth Anniversary of the Female Benevolent Society at their new church. The secretary of the Society praised the members and suggested that their activities had produced positive results for the black community: "Sisters of benevolence, do not your hearts beat high with

^ Freedom's JournalT March 7, 1828, p. 197. ^Freedom's Journal. Feb. 7, 1829, p. 355. 187

gratitude to God for his goodness to us?.... We see in

various forms, the improvement of our people...."54 In

New York City, the women of the all-black Female

Assistant Society demonstrated their acceptance of male

leadership when they requested that black leader Henry

Highland Garnet read their annual report at a meeting

they held in the Zion Church in 1838. At the meeting,

Garnet also delivered an address to the men and women

in the audience, pointing to women as central figures

in benevolent activities, both as recipients and as

dispensers of charity: "The charitable woman, while she

sits by her quiet fireside, enjoying the bounties of a

kind Providence, remembers the poor. When she hears

the keen north wind whistling around her dwelling and

her children draw closer and closer to her bosom, she thinks of the many mothers who are houseless and

roaming in penury and want....1,55

Despite the increase in the numbers of black

benevolent organizations, some black women apparently

believed they needed to form more societies in order to

fulfill the needs of all groups of poor blacks. A

group of black women in Troy, New York organized the

54John J. Mitre to [Samuel E.] Cornish, Colored American. April 1, 1837; £AE, Reel 2, fr. 0007. o:>Henry Highland Garnet, Colored American. Feb. 28, 1838; £AE, Reel 2, fr. 0433. 188

United Sons and Daughters of Zion's Benevolent Society

In 1835, two years after the formation of the Female

Benevolent Society. The United Sons and Daughters

functioned under the direct control of the local black

Methodist Church in Troy and was designed specifically

to help destitute church members.56 The formation of

this organization among black women Methodists in Troy

demonstrates the importance of the church in black

women's lives as community activists; it enabled them

to form alternative organizations to suit the needs of

specific groups of destitute blacks.

Black women also established orphanages for black

children. A group of black women in New York City

helped found the Colored Orphan Asylum during the 1830s

after the three existing orphanages in the city had

refused to admit black orphans. One male benefactor of

the Asylum asserted that the managers of other

orphanages in the city had refused admittance to black

children because they feared that anti-abolitionists might label them "abolitionists, fanatics, or [that

they might] incur the odium of an unpopular cause."57

Black men expected the women of their race to expand

5oMitre to Cornish. Colored American. April 1, 1837? BAP. Reel 2, fr. 0007. ^'colored American. Dec. 15, 1838; M E , Reel 2, fr. 0681. 189

their efforts to establish orphanages for black

children "in all towns and cities of our happy country

where colored orphans are denied the benefits of their

institutions." In 1838, the same writer expressed hope

that the managers of the New York Orphan Asylum would

set an example for other female reformers, that "the

good ladies whom God has blessed with friends and

plenty...will follow the example of the good ladies of

New York."58

The history of the Colored Orphan Asylum reveals

the commitment of blacks to racial solidarity and

abolitionism and the important place women occupied in

benevolent organizations. Some members of the black

community in New York City expressed their commitment

to keeping black women employed in their institutions.*

In 1839, black leaders James McCune Smith and Samuel

Cornish expressed their opposition to the replacement

of the black matron of the Orphan Asylum, Rachel

Johnson, with a white person: "If Mrs. Johnson was in

any way incompetent, or if she did not answer her purposes, they were justifiable in discharging her; but

it is somewhat strange they could not find a colored woman to fill that important position." Although black b8Ibid. 190 leaders later claimed that Johnson left voluntarily due to ill health, their earlier comment reflected a deep concern for keeping black women employed in benevolent organizations.59 The importance of black women in community benevolent activities is clear from this incident. Not only did black leaders want to maintain racial solidarity by expressing a preference for placing a black person in that position, they wanted a woman to fill the post.

During the 1840s, the managers of the Asylum included the education of black children as part of their benevolent responsibilities by establishing a school within the Asylum. The Colored Orphan Asylum was still in operation in 1860, under the direction of prominent free black women such as Mrs. Charles B. Ray and Mrs. A.N. Freeman, whose husbands were abolitionist leaders in the free black community in New York city.

Black women in Boston and Philadelphia also participated in a variety of benevolent and reform activities. Black female benevolent organizations existed in Boston at least as early as 1831, when the directors of the Female Benevolent and Intelligence

5yCornish to James McCune Smith, Colored American. Jan 19., 1839? BAEf Reel 2, fr. 0979. 191

Society, "whose members are persons of color," placed a notice of an upcoming lecture in Garrison's

Liberator.**0 One year later, a group of black women formed the Colored Female Charitable Society in Boston.

As usual, the primary objects of benevolence were widows and orphans, a responsibility that black women reformers believed was rooted in Biblical teachings.

In her call for volunteers, "Hope" stated that "to visit the widow and fatherless in their afflictions, is a scriptural injunction, that ought to be obeyed...."61

In Philadelphia, black women, some of whom were members of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, participated in activities to aid fugitive slaves. In cooperation with men, these women formed an auxiliary committee to the Vigilance Association, in which they raised funds to clothe, shelter, and feed newly arrived runaway slaves.

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 and the subsequent increase in black emigration to Canada prompted leaders of benevolent societies in northern cities and Canada to increase efforts to aid fugitive slaves, most of whom arrived in a destitute condition.

The desire to help fugitive slaves obtain clothing,

°°The Liberator. March 12, 1831. The Liberator. Dec. 29, 1832, p. 207. 192 housing, and food led to the formation of a number of charitable organizations in the black Canadian settlements, but also resulted in further competition and conflict between Henry and Mary Bibb and Mary Ann

Shadd Cary. The conflict that had emerged between Shadd and the Bibbs over benevolent activism in the Canadian settlements revolved around the Refugee Home Society, an organization that the Bibbs and others had formed in

1852 with the assistance of white philanthropy. Shadd opposed the society, calling it a "begging scheme" that undermined self-help efforts by blacks. The need for bare necessities in the black settlements was well publicized and may have led to fraud. Shadd continually warned her readers to remain wary of blacks and whites posing as agents of the Society. According to Shadd, the real objective of these "agents" was to defraud contributors out of food, clothing, and money.

The extent to which "begging" actually occurred in Canada is difficult to determine, since most of the information on begging comes from Shadd's own writings.

Nevertheless, the begging issue became another source of conflict between Shadd and the Bibbs. The real issue may have been who would control black benevolent activities in the black Canadian communities. In 1861, 193

Shadd herself was accused of begging by a group of

black Canadians who evidently opposed her activities.62

Several other organizations besides the controversial Refugee Home Society were also

established in black Canadian communities. In 1855,

both black men and women formed the True Band Society

of Amherstburg, Canada West and vicinity "for the

benefit of the colored people in Canada, and to

invigorate the panting Fugitive, who is fleeing before

the baying bloodhounds of the slaveholder...." Black

women also established all-female benevolent

organizations. The Victoria and the Daughters of

Prince Albert, both of which boasted about forty

members in 1861, assumed the responsibility of caring

for the poor and sick and burying the dead.63 But

despite the efforts of many black women, most fugitive

slaves remained in need. Mary Bibb had expressed

concern in 1851 about the effectiveness of efforts by

fellow missionaries to alleviate the destitute

condition of fugitive slaves in the Canadian settlement

at Sandwich. Bibb lamented that "many dollars have

o2J(ames) C. Brown, J(ohn) W. Menard to Toronto Globe, pec. 24, 1861; BAP. Reel 13, fr. 1002a. 63Provincial Freeman. April 7, 1855; M E / Reel 9, fr. 0522; Pine and Palm. Sept. 7, 1861; M E / Reel 13, fr. 0743. 194

been expended In sending agents, clothing and £ood, to

this Province...yet they are in need...."64

The dual responsibility of black women to their

race and to their sex led them to extend their

participation even beyond charity work. Closely

related to benevolence was black women's involvement in

moral reform activities, which reflected prevailing

beliefs in women's superior virtue and morality. In

1833, black women in Salem, Massachusetts organized the

Colored Female Religious and Moral Society of Salem to

address all types of moral issues. The president of

this society was Clarissa C. Lawrence, who also served

as vice-president of the all-black Salem Female Anti-

Slavery Society before it reorganized as a racially-

mixed organization. A group of black women in Troy, New

York joined with men in 1836 to form the Moral Reform

Society among "the people of color." One woman,

Clarissa Jefferson, served as an officer of the new

organization.65

Black women clearly perceived anti-prostitution

and temperance as part of their moral reform

°*Mary Bibb to Oliver Johnson, Antislavery Buglef April 12, 1851; £&£, Reel 6, fr. 0898. 65J(ohn) Miter to (Amos A.) Phelps, The Emancipator. BAP. Reel 1, fr. 0705; contributor: Friend of Man. Sept. 29, 1836. 195

activities. Hetty Reckless of Philadelphia was well-

known for her work with prostitutes. In 1849, Reckless, "an untiring and most excellent colored lady" and a

member of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society

and the Vigilant Association, opened a boarding house

in Philadelphia. The Moral Reform retreat, where

Reckless served as head matron, was designed to reform

"illicit" females.66

Black women also participated in the drive to

promote "entire abstinence from all that can

intoxicate." Several leaders in the temperance movement

who were also abolitionists encouraged black-white

cooperation in ridding society of the evil of drink. In

1833, William Lloyd Garrison published a notice of a

state temperance convention and encouraged blacks to

attend, since "there is no exception made to colored

skins in the notice, and we hope our colored friends in

this city [Boston], who have united in the Temperance

Reform, will take measures to secure a representation

in the Convention."67 Black men and women perceived alcoholism as a problem that obstructed the elevation of the black community. Like white temperance

°°Martin R. Delany to Frederick Douglass, North Star. March 9, 1849; BAP. Reel 5, fr. 0998. 67The Liberator. Aug. 3, 1833, p. 114. 196 advocates, black reformers pointed to men as the perpetrators and to women as the victims of an intemperate community. Male leaders of the New England

Temperance Society of Colored Americans expressed this attitude in the 1838 meeting of the Society in Boston.

The members pushed for total abstinence, arguing that alcohol was the source of "physical debasement and misery as well as the degradation and suffering, entailed upon unoffending wives and innocent children by cruel husbands and unnatural fathers."68

In the black Canadian communities, black abolitionist Samuel R. Hard observed that women as well as men were intemperate. Ward wrote to Frederick

Douglass in 1852 that drinking alcoholic beverages was fashionable, "so fashionable that ladies who profess religion, minister's [sic] wives included, drink without blushing."69 He reported that among blacks in

Canada, drinking was so common that to abstain was the exception, not the rule.70 In 1856, Mary Ann Shadd

”%The Liberator. Nov. 9, 1838, p. 180. ^ Frederick Douglass's Paper. Feb. 12, 1852? M 2 , Reel 7. fr. 0405. 70Temperance advocates in white communities also apparently perceived a serious alcohol problem. By 1851, the American Trace Society had flooded American communities with nearly 5 million pamphlets and circulated copies of the annual reports of the American Temperance Union. See W.J. Rorabaugh. The Alcoholic 197

Cary charged that both black and white churches in

Canada were actually the centers of the liquor traffic.

Shadd's solution for curbing alcohol consumption was to

rid the black community of drinking establishments,

suggesting that blacks establish boarding houses in

their communities that forbade alcohol consumption. The

year before, she had argued that black Canadians should

establish "a good temperance house of high tone11 since

"we do not know of a public boarding house that is not

also a drinking house."71

As the moral protectors of the home and as

agitators for community improvement, black women

participated in temperance organizations within their

communities. Some of these women joined with male

temperance advocates, while others formed all-female

societies. During the 1830s, many black temperance

organizations were sexually integrated. Temperance

meetings were open to all members of the black

community and received considerable attention in the

black and white abolitionist newspapers and temperance

journals, such as the Genius of Temperance. In July

Republic: An American Tradition (New York: Oxford University Press, 1979), pp. 196-197. 7•‘•Provincial Freeman, March 28, 1857; BAP. Reel 10, fr. 0597; Provincial Freeman. Dec. 6, 1856; BAP. Reel 10, fr. 0393. 198

1835, The Liberator published an announcement of an upcoming meeting of the Boston Colored Temperance

Society for a discussion of "Total Abstinence," which invited both "ladies and gentlemen to attend." In the

Hartford Colored People's Society in Connecticut, women outnumbered men 45 to 32 when they established the society in 1832.72

Like other instances of male-female cooperation, sexually integrated temperance activities placed men in leadership positions and women in supportive roles.

Sexually-integrated black temperance organizations, like the parallel white organizations, were often headed by prominent male abolitionists and religious leaders. The Home Temperance Society, for example, was founded in Middletown, Connecticut by "the colored population of Middletown."73 Reverend Jehiel C. Beman, a respected black abolitionist minister, served as president of the organization. No woman served in any leadership position. Black women exercised autonomy when they formed all-female temperance societies in the

1840s, but they often revealed their support of male temperance and abolitionist leaders when they named their organizations after men, such as the Hudson i^The Liberator. Feb. 22, 1834, p. 32. The Liberator. May 11, 1833, p. 74. 199

Female Gerrlt Smith Society In Lenox, Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Female E.C. Delavan Society, and the Edwin Jackson Society. In these organizations, women filled all the leadership positions.

Black women often brought the temperance message to the public when they wrote or spoke publicly against alcohol. Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, a black writer,

poet, and speaker, published several poems on

temperance and the evils of alcohol in abolitionist newspapers and her own poetry collections. In her poems, "The Drunkard's Child" and "Nothing and

Something," Harper focused typically upon the family as the victim of alcoholism.74 Although speaking in public to mixed audiences was contrary to women's "proper" place, the act was justified when the topic was moral reform. Sarah Parker Remond, an abolitionist lecturer during the late 1850s and early 1860s, included in her speaking itinerary public addresses on temperance. Reports of her speeches reinforce the idea that women were particularly suited for temperance reform activities. During her tour in England, Remond

M See Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects and Atlanta Offering Poems (Miami, FL: Mnemosyne Publishing inc., 1969), p. 43. 200 delivered a lecture on "Total Abstinence" to the Total

Abstinence Society in England in 1861:

Miss Remond delivered a lecture on total abstinence from intoxicating drinks....She at considerable length urged the importance of female efforts to promote the cause of abstinence, and showed the great influence which females might exert in the training of the rising generation in habits of total abstinence.75

Free black women participated actively in benevolent and moral reform activities in the United

States and in the black Canadian settlements. An exploration of black women's experiences in these activities further illuminates our understanding of both women's role in nineteenth century American society in general and of black women's dual responsibility of fulfilling race and gender expectations within the free black community. Black women's participation in mutual aid societies, anti­ prostitution, and temperance reform reveals that contemporary ideas about women's proper role in their households and society-at-large transcended racial barriers. But, for black women, these activities meant more than a commitment to help the poor; rather, they represented a more general effort to help members of

^ Dumfries and Galloway Courier. Jan. 1, 1861; £&£, Reel 13, fr. 0218. 201

their own community through their own efforts and their own institutions.

CONCLUSION

As this chapter has shown, black women's

responsibility to their gender, race, and, at times, to their own families shaped their lives as activists within the free black community. Prevailing expectations of women among free blacks, based upon a desire to mirror free society, placed black women in the same position that middle-class white women held. Leaders in the black and white communities perceived women as morally superior to men, which gave women a

special responsibility for the moral upkeep and social improvement of their communities. Thus, both black and

white women devoted a great deal of time and energy to education, benevolence, and moral reform. Both groups of women also occupied a subordinate position in

organized community activities when cooperating with the men of their race. But, unlike most white women activists, black women shouldered a much greater

burden. For black women, economic realities required them to earn a wage in order to support their families

in addition to their usual household responsibilities.

Yet the social expectation of women in the black 202 community did not change, despite this additional economic responsibility. As a result, many black women engaged in some self-help activities, such as schoolteaching, that would provide them with a wage.

The experiences of several well-known black women educators indicate, however, that they struggled financially to keep their schools open. Nevertheless, the small wage they earned was vital to their own families' survival.

But despite the economic hardships that many free blacks faced, some black women demonstrated their commitment to their race by participating in self-help activities that did not provide a wage, yet benefited many destitute blacks in both the United States and

Canada. Free black women participated in several activities to help poor and orphaned blacks and to rid their communities of prostitution and alcohol consumption. Such activities represented a clear commitment to their race, but also demonstrated the pervasiveness of gender expectations among free blacks.

A strong commitment to self-help remained a vital part of black women's activism throughout the nineteenth century. When white and black abolitionist leaders gave the antislavery movement momentum in the early 1830s, black women participated in the drive to 203 end slavery and obtain racial equality for blacks. Like black men, black women continued a tradition of activism within the free black community. But, as women, their self-help activities also represented the fulfillment of their responsibilities to their community as women by educating children, purifying society of vice, and helping the poor. This chapter contributes to scholarship on black women's experiences and abolitionism by demonstrating the connection between gender conventions and black activism. Black men and women activists used contemporary notions of gender roles as a way to define the place of women in the struggle for black liberation. Black women's commitment to community activism gave them a special role to play in the abolition movement in which they combined their commitment to the black community with efforts to end slavery.

Many black women abolitionists also participated in women's rights, a movement that emerged from organized abolition. But throughout their careers as activists, a commitment to their community remained central. Whether they worked within or outside of organized antislavery, black women abolitionists stressed the importance of self-help. Even when slavery ended and many white abolitionists saw their work 204 coning to a close, black women continued their work in the black community as educators and as participants in the black women's club movement, temperance, and anti­ prostitution. CHAPTER V

BLACK WOMEN AND ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETIES

In 1848, Frederick Douglass praised the black women of Cincinnati and Columbus, Ohio for organizing an antislavery fair in order to raise funds for his abolitionist newspaper, the North Star. According to

Douglass, support for the black press could come only from black societies that expounded both antislavery and the "moral elevation of the colored people." The duty of the women of these societies, he argued, was to hold bazaars and fairs to help sustain "a good and efficient newspaper," which he believed was an important means to the elevation of the free black community. A strong believer in black initiative

Douglass asserted that black women, not white women abolitionists, were central to the attainment of black abolitionist goals: "We do not look up to the ladies of the American Antislavery Society, but should we desire assistance from any source, it will be mainly to the colored Anti-Slavery ladies we shall look for such 206 leaders, the agenda of antislavery societies included the improvement of the free black community as well as the commitment to end slavery. As Douglass suggested, black women played a specific role in organized abolitionism. Historians have not completely ignored the role black women played in the antislavery movement. In fact, several scholars of abolitionism and women's history have identified a number of leading free black women who participated in their local female antislavery societies.2 Quarles, in his study of black abolitionists, has even identified several all-black female antislavery societies. Black scholars have demonstrated the importance of community self-help activities in the lives of free black women; as women, they were expected to participate in activities that would improve the social and moral condition of the free black community.3 But neither abolitionist historians nor scholars of the free black community

2See Lerner. ed. Black Women in White America: A Documentary History. Bert James Loewenberg and Ruth Bogin, Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life. Alma Lutz, Crusade For Freedom; Women of the Antislaverv Movement. Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free: Blacks' Search For Freedom. 1830-61. Quarles, Black Abolitionists, and Sterling, ed., W? Are YbUf Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. JSee Horton, "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks," and Perkins, "Black Women and Racial 'Uplift' Prior to Emancipation." 207 have recognized the connection between community activism and antislavery in black women's roles as abolitionists.

Race and gender expectations in the antebellum free black community determined the place of black women in organized abolitionism. Antislavery societies provided black women with a structure that enabled them to continue their work in the black community and at the same time participate in the growing movement to end slavery. By participating in antislavery societies, black women continued a tradition of organized black activism in the United States.4 In these societies, they attempted, as did black men, to combine antislavery with self-help activities, which included dangerous work in the Underground Railroad as well as community improvement. Their involvement in organized abolitionism, however, also confirmed the existence of a sexual division of responsibility within the free black community as within American society at large.

Black and white women shared the same status in organized abolitionism. Black female antislavery

4Free blacks had organized societies to protest slavery and racism at least as early as 1826, when black men formed the Massachusetts General Colored Association, and they organized black conventions in 1830 in a national movement. See Quarles, Black Abolitionists, p. 28. 208 societies functioned as auxiliaries to local male organizations and, ultimately, to the state and national antislavery organizations. The primary responsibility of both black and white female abolitionists was to organize fund-raising bazaars in order to support the abolitionist press and lecturers.

While black women abolitionists formed societies to raise funds to help support male activities, such as newspaper publishing, they also continued to participate in teaching, benevolence, and moral reform within the free black community. Women, according to the black press, were particularly suited to these kinds of community activities. Sometimes black women joined with white women in racially-mixed societies.

But black women also organized all-black antislavery societies in order to pursue their own abolitionist goals as well as in response to the racism that existed among white abolitionist women. Racism and differences in abolitionist goals limited the extent to which abolitionist women could create a cross-race sisterhood. As many black women discovered, not all white abolitionists viewed racial equality as a goal.

Racial obstacles, however, did not prevent cooperation between black and white women abolitionists in racially-mixed antislavery societies. This chapter will 209 demonstrate that community activism ultimately shaped black women's participation in antislavery societies and helped define their goals within these organizations. Whether they participated in all-black or racially-mixed female antislavery societies, black women abolitionists struggled to combine their commitment to antislavery with their desire to help free blacks. ALL-BLACK FEMALE ANTISLAVERY SOCIETIES

Frederick Douglass had urged free blacks to participate in organized antislavery activity. In his

"Address to the Colored People" in 1848 he supported interracial cooperation but also encouraged blacks to organize on their own. In his address, Douglass warned blacks, however, not to adopt segregationist policies:

Attend anti-slavery meetings, show that you are interested in the subject, that you hate slavery, and love those who are laboring for its overthrow. Act with white Abolition societies wherever you can, and where you cannot, get up societies among yourselves, but without exclusiveness....

Black women had organized the first female antislavery society in February 1832, when a group of

"females of color" in Massachusetts formed the Female

Anti-Slavery Society of Salem. This group of women had

°North Star. Sept. 29. 1848, cited in Foner, ed., The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. 1, p. 333. 210 organized their society one year after William Lloyd

Garrison emerged in Boston as the leader of the new and more radical antislavery campaign and had established the New England Anti-Slavery Society as the parent regional antislavery organization. Although many black leaders may have perceived abolitionism as a black fight, they had welcomed Garrison as a sincere ally.6

Black male leaders had conducted organized abolitionist activities within the free black community since 1817.

Garrison's presence as an enthusiastic supporter of blacks and his cry for the immediate end of slavery added momentum and encouragement to black men and women activists.7

During the 1830s, black and white abolitionist men and women established hundreds of local antislavery societies in New England, which served as auxiliaries to the New England Anti-Slavery Society. After the establishment of the American Anti-Slavery Society

(AAS) in 1833 as the national organization, more societies appeared in the Northeast, Ohio, and

^Quarles. Black.Abolitionists, pp. viii, 18. 'Black leaders such as James Forten had organized free blacks in 1817 to protest the proposal by the American Colonization Society for the gradual emancipation of slaves and the establishment of colonies of free blacks in Africa. The American Colonization Society had attracted many supporters, including some blacks, such as John B. Russwurm, an editor of Freedom's Journal. During the 1820s, the ACS was in its heyday. 211

Michigan. Some blacks welcomed whites into their societies. In 1834, the members of the "Lexington

Abolition Society of Colored Persons, and Whites who

Feel Desirous To Join" made a special effort to include sympathetic whites. Quarles has found that at least six black auxiliaries to the AAS were formed in 1836 alone.8 Although abolitionists always remained a minority in the United States, they constituted a majority within the free black community. Admittedly, not all free blacks were abolitionists. As ex-slave

William J. Brown reported in his autobiography, some black men in Providence, Rhode Island had refused to support the Liberty Party and opted instead for the slaveholding Whig candidate, Zachary Taylor. Most blacks, however, did support abolitionism. While most whites in the United states shunned association with abolitionism, black participation had increased by 1840.9

8In 1837, Garrison reported in The Liberator the number and locations of antislavery societies in the United States. Maine-33; New Hampshire-62; Vermont-89; Massachusetts-145; Rhode Island-25; Connecticut-39; New York-274; New Jersey-10; Pennsylvania-93; Ohio-213. See The Liberator. August 4, 1837, p. 127. See also Quarles, Black Abolitionists, pp. 26-33; Dillon, The Abolitionistst Growth of a Dissenting Minority, p. 51; The Liberator. June 14, 1834, p. 90; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, p. 29. ^Quarles, Black Abolitionists, p. 56; See also William J. Brown, The Life_of William J. Brown of Providence. R.I. With Personal Recollections of Incidents in Rhode 212

Black women, like white women, supported Garrison

by donating funds to the American Anti-Slavery Society

and to Garrison's newspaper, The Liberator. Data on

these societies, found primarily in the antislavery

press, reveal the existence of a variety of black

women's antislavery societies. Some were affiliated

with the members' churches, while others were secular

groups which served as auxiliaries to the state

antislavery society and the AAS. A few were made up of

children and young girls, although most consisted of

adults. In most cases, notices in The Liberator

announcing the formation of a society, a meeting, or a

donation to the AAS or the state society are the only

indications that black female antislavery societies

existed. In 1834, for example, black women formed the

first female antislavery society in Rochester, New York

and, during the 1850s, organized another black female

society in Rochester, the Union Anti-Slavery Society.

Island. 1883; rprt. Freeport, NY: Books for Libraries Press, pp. 156-162. Brown wrote that in black men were given the right to vote in Rhode Island and that many voters perceived the Liberty Party as a tool of the Democratic Party to divide the black vote. Although Zachary Taylor was a slaveholder, Brown argued, he and other black men in Providence considered themselves Whigs for both economic and political reasons. White men who supported the Whig Party were frequent customers of Brown's shoemaking business, for example. These black men, then, voted for the party rather than the man. The only recorded activities of the Union Anti-Slavery

Society were the annual fairs the members held in order to raise funds for the North Star.10 In 1839, the

Female Colored Union Society of Nantucket,

Massachusetts donated nine dollars to the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society between June 6 and July 1, and the

"colored females" of the Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society of Salem, Massachusetts donated $15.00 to the state antislavery society in order to sponsor a white abolitionist, William B. Dodge, as a life member.11 In

1840, a notice appeared in the Colored American announcing the upcoming celebration of the Fourth

Anniversary of the Female Wesleyan Anti-Slavery Society of the Methodist Episcopal Church in New York City. A predominantly black female antislavery society also existed in Manhattan. Abby Hopper Gibbons, a white abolitionist, once noted that she was the only white member of this society: "Here I am, the only white female member of the Manhattan Anti-Slavery Society."12

Black women's interest in combining antislavery with community activism led many of them to organize

10Nancv A. Hewitt. Women's Activism and Social Change, p, 42. The Liberator. July 5, 1839, p. 107; The Liberator. July 12, 1839, p. 111. 12Sarah H. Emerson, ed., Life. of^Abbv Hopper Gibbons. Told Chiefly Through Her Correspondence. 2 vols. (New York: G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1897), vol 1, p. 99. 214

all-black female antislavery societies. Like black men,

black women gave community improvement a prominent

place-in their societies' constitutions. The

constitutions of the Female Anti-Slavery Society of

Salem and the Philadelphia Women's Association provide

the clearest evidence of black women's commitment to

community improvement in all-black female

organizations. As the names of these organizations indicate, the members identified themselves as women

rather than as blacks, which indicates that they defined their status within organized abolitionism in

relation to gender.

An exploration of these two organizations also

reveals that black women's abolitionist goals differed

from those of many whites. The members of the Female

Anti-Slavery Society of Salem, in fact, addressed the

needs of free blacks and mentioned nothing about

slavery:

We the undersigned, females of color, of the commonwealth of Massachusetts, being duly convinced of union and morality, have associated ourselves for our mutual improvement, and to promote the welfare of our color....13

Although the constitution contained nothing about

slavery, the women of this society maintained that in

i3The Liberator. Nov. 17, 1832, p. 183. 215

order to achieve their "mutual Improvement” and "to

promote the welfare" of blacks they had to support

Garrisonian abolitionism. In the first resolution, they

pledged financial support to The Liberator, noting that

Garrison's publication was "the means of enlightening

the minds of many" in opposition to African colonization and prejudice against "the free people of color."14

Two years after its founding, the Female Anti-

Slavery Society of Salem reorganized as the Salem

Female Anti-Slavery Society, a racially-mixed organization. Several black members held leadership positions in the new society. Clarissa C. Lawrence, who served as president of the Colored Female Religious and

Moral Reform Society of Salem, was an officer in the

SFAS. Sarah Parker Reroond, a black abolitionist lecturer during the 1850s, also participated in SFAS activities, although she may not have been a member.

Remond's mother, Nancy Lenox Remond, and several sisters did hold membership in the Society and participated in many SFAS activities. The emergence of the female antislavery society in Salem as a racially- mixed organization in 1834 suggests that the interest

14The Liberator. Nov. 17, 1832, p. 183. 216

of whites In abolitionism had increased during the early 1830s and that the original black members were willing to work with white women abolitionists.

Cooperation between blacks and whites, however, also resulted in the expansion of goals. While the original

organization focused upon the practical needs of the

free black community, the second organization emphasized abstract Garrisonian ideas of the sin and

immorality of slavery. In their constitution, the members of the newly integrated female society in Salem denounced slavery as immoral: ...we are fully convinced that the system based upon it [slavery] is subversive of every precept of Christianity, and hostile to the best interests of all who are under its influence...injuring the morals and tending to destroy all the kind and noble affectations of one class.15

In contrast to the original, all-black female

society, the new society cited the abolition of slavery

as its foremost objective. Anti-colonization and

improving the black community ranked second and third to the abolition of slavery. Black members may have ensured that the Society included community improvement as one of the major goals. The transformation of the female antislavery society in Salem from an all-black to a racially integrated organization ultimately

15The Liberator. June 21, 1834, p. 1. 217

resulted in the alteration of the goals that black

members of the original society had espoused.

In Philadelphia, black women organized an all­

black female antislavery organization that remained separate from white or racially-integrated antislavery

societies. A group of black women in Philadelphia also

demonstrated their dual commitment to community

improvement and antislavery when, in 1849, fourteen of

them met at the home of (Mrs.) Rachel Lloyd to form the

all-black Women's Association of Philadelphia. The fact

that the founders of this society had not included the

words "abolition” or "antislavery” in the name of the

new organization indicates that the members embraced a

- .broad program that included both antislavery and

community improvement. The formation of this

organization is especially revealing since a female

antislavery society already existed in Philadelphia.

The racially-integrated Philadelphia Female Anti-

Slavery Society had been the center of black-white

female cooperation in antislavery since the founding of

the society in December 1833.

The formation of the Women's Association of

Philadelphia reflected changes in black abolitionist

goals. When black women organized the Association in 218

1849, the black nationalist movement was gaining

momentum within black abolitionist circles. The

motivation for participating in self-help had changed

since the early 1830s, when black spokespersons such as

Maria Miller Stewart and William Wells Brown had argued

that black involvement in community improvement would

eliminate race prejudice. By the 1840s, it was evident

that such efforts had failed to change racial

attitudes. In fact, race discrimination actually seemed

to have increased during the 1830s and 1840s.16 By

1848, Frederick Douglass encouraged self-help for the

purpose of creating a self-sufficient black community,

not as a means of changing white attitudes.

Disenchanted with the way whites had conducted the

movement, several black leaders such as Douglass and

Martin Delany advocated separation from whites and

encouraged blacks to participate in activities within

their community that would promote self-sufficiency.

Blacks, they argued, were the only ones who, as a

loSee Dillon. The Abolitionistsi_Growth_of_a_Dlssenting Minority, p. 22. In 1832, for example, members of the state legislature of Pennsylvania proposed the passage of a law that would require all blacks to carry passes. Modeled after slave passes, these documents would mark the destination of the bearer and the time he/she expected to return home. Such a proposal, although never passed, signified the desires of whites to limit the movements of free blacks. See entry on Sarah M. Douglass in Notable American Women, vol. I. 219 group, could help their people obtain freedom and equality. In 1848, Douglass, in his "Address to the

Colored People," argued that self~help within the black community would reduce the dependency of blacks upon whites:

Now it is impossible that we should ever be respected as a people, while we are so universally and completely dependent upon white men for the necessities of life. We must make white persons as dependent upon us, as we are upon them.17

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850 had confirmed the failure of moral suasion as an abolitionist tactic* Black men and women recognized the gravity of the law. Black male leaders as well as whites condemned the law in the abolitionist press. At the fifteenth annual meeting of the Rhode Island State

Antislavery Society in Providence in November 1850,

Sojourner Truth had "thanked God that the law was made-

-that the worst had come to worst: now the best must come to best."18 Although black abolitionist men and women still retained community improvement as an important abolitionist objective, the emphasis on community improvement after 1840 may have been influenced more by the movement for black empowerment,

17North Star. Sept~29. 1848; Foner, ed., hifg anfl Writings of Frederick Douglass, vol. I, p. 335. •‘■‘’National Anti-Slaverv standard. November 13, 1850; b a p . Reel 6, fr. 0671. 220

nationalism, and unity than by the desire to overturn race prejudice.

Some free black women in Philadelphia evidently believed that the PFASS had not done enough to aid the

free black community. Although some of the founding members of the new society also belonged to the PFASS, they supported the black nationalist movement that

Douglass and Delany had organized an an alternative to the white-dominated antislavery movement. At the organizational meeting of the Association, Delany addressed the members, encouraging them to maintain as their primary goal the "elevation of our people." He also wrote and presented a constitution for the

Association, which the women adopted.19 The fact that male leaders had guided the formation of this organization and helped formulate its goals reflects the auxiliary status of the Association, and the women's acceptance of Delany's constitution demonstrates their acceptance of subordination to male i9Curiously, Delany had not included emigration as part of the women's constitution, although he was a leader in the movement to encourage blacks to leave the United States and establish self-sufficient black communities in Canada and Africa. For more information on the emergence of black nationalist movement and the divisions between white and black abolitionist leaders, see Floyd J. Miller, The Search for a Black Hatlonalitv: Black Emigration and Colonization. 1787- 1863. e »

221

leadership. The primary function of the Association

was to raise funds to support black male leaders, and,

specifically, to aid Frederick Douglass's newspaper,

the North Star. Nevertheless, women controlled the

operations of the Association by electing their own

officers and organizing annual antislavery fairs.

The Association assumed the role of both an

antislavery society and a community self-help

organization. In the preamble to the constitution, the

women accepted the responsibility of supporting self-

help within the free black community and agreed that

existing antislavery societies had not done enough to

achieve the goals of black abolitionism: Whereas The Necessity of an efficient organization for the support of our cause has long been apparent and its absence deplored; and Whereas, Believing Self-Elevation to be the only true issue upon which to base our efforts as an oppressed portion of the American people; and believing that the success of our cause depends mainly upon Self-Exertion are the most powerful means by which an end so desirable can be attained: Therefore, we do agree to form ourselves into an Association, to be known as the Women's Association of Philadelphia....20

The members pledged to support the "Press and

Public Lectures" by holding fairs, which resembled

antislavery fairs. The members of the fair committee,

Harriet Smith, Rachel Lloyd, and Amy M. Cassey,

“^North Star. March~3. 1849 222 appealed to "a benevolent public, and to the friends of the Slave everywhere" to purchase items at the upcoming fair. Unlike most other antislavery fairs, however, the proceeds did not go to support Garrison’s

Liberatorf but to the North Star. The appeal of the

Association women to both benevolent-minded persons and to "friends of the Slave" demonstrated their dual commitment to both antislavery and the welfare of the free black community.21 At least two Association members, Sarah Douglass and Hetty Burr, also held leadership positions in the

PFASS. Undoubtedly, the experience of these black women helped the other members of the Association to operate the new organization. Both Douglass and Burr also held leadership posts in the Association. For example, Douglass, in 1848, served as Corresponding

Secretary and, in 1850, as a spokesperson for the upcoming fair. Burr served as vice-president of the

Association in 1848. None of the other members of the

Association, including Harriet Smith, Rachel Lloyd, and

Amy Cassey, apparently belonged to the PFASS. The names of the Association members Elizabeth Appo, Nary

Barrott, Louisa Bristol, Hester Bustill, Lydia Ann

^ North Star. Julv~13. 1849; see also Black Abolitionist Papers , Reel 6, fr. 0044. 223

Bustill, Helen Johnson, and Charlotte Mills, do not appear in the records of the PFASS. Either they never were members and never participated in PFASS activities, or they participated in the Society's functions without ever obtaining membership.

By organizing the all-black Philadelphia Female

Women's Association, black women founders had responded to Frederick Douglass's call for black unity and initiative in the abolitionist movement. True to their duties as women, they had accepted their roles as supporters of male leadership. Not only did the members commit themselves to working for the end of slavery, they worked equally hard to aid the free black community, devoting themselves to the "Elevation of the Colored People in the United States by Self-Exertion."

Such a statement also reveals their concern more with encouraging self-sufficiency among free blacks than with changing the racial attitudes of whites.

Both the Salem Female Anti-Slavery Society and the

Women's Association of Philadelphia represented alternatives to racially-integrated or all-white female antislavery societies. Black women may have welcomed cooperation with whites, but all-black organizations clearly allowed them to map out agendas that allowed them to pursue their own goals. Like black men, black 224

women abolitionists emphasized the need to participate

in community self-help efforts in addition to

supporting antislavery.22 As the case of the Salem

society indicates, the agenda of all-black and racially mixed societies might differ. Several black women in

Philadelphia, although they did not end their

affiliation with whites, believed that a separate all­ black female society could better respond to the needs of the free black community.

RACIALLY-MIXED SOCIETIES

Although black women organized all-black female antislavery societies in an effort to pursue their own

abolitionist goals, the founding of these organizations

also was a response to racism in racially-mixed

antislavery societies and exclusion from white female

antislavery organizations. Despite the efforts by white members of integrated female antislavery societies in

Philadelphia and Boston to encourage social mixing between whites and blacks, members of other female antislavery societies remained conservative in their racial views and discouraged racial mixing. White

22For a further example, see the "Preamble and Constitution of the Lexington Abolition Society of Colored Persons, and Whites Who Feel Desirous to Join". One of the goals was to "improve the character and condition of the free people of color." The Liberator. June 14, 1834, p. 90. 225 members of antislavery societies in New York and Fall

River, Massachusetts, attempted to exclude black women from membership. Although members of the conservative

New York and Massachusetts societies opposed slavery and, in some cases, supported the efforts to "uplift" the black community, they drew the line at social equality between the races, preferring to maintain the contemporary social division between themselves and blacks.

Throughout the "nominally free states" in the

North, most whites accepted prevailing racial assumptions of the inherent inferiority of blacks and the maintenance of a "natural" social order that physically separated blacks and whites in Northern cities. Most whites, even those who supported abolitionism, believed that blacks and whites were too different to live together in harmony and feared that social mixing between the races would result in intermarriages between blacks and whites. Amalgamation, they believed, would ultimately result in the degradation of the white race rather than the physical and intellectual improvement of blacks.23 Whites often

23Leon F. Litwack. North of Slaveryr The_Negro_in the Free States. 1790-1860. chapters 1-2. An anonymous 226

used violence to express their opposition to social

mixing between the races. White attacks against blacks

took place in cities throughout, the North during the

antebellum period.24

In the case of the Ladies' New York city Anti-

Slavery Society (org. 1835), historian Amy Swerdlow has

argued that the commitment of white members to

evangelical revivalism was the basis for their

conservative attitudes toward race relations. The

religious movement that had swept the Northeast during the 1820s and 1830s had been devoted to preserving middle-class notions of the social order, family life,

and morality. Swerdlow has found that the members of

the New York City group were more homogeneous in their

constituency and in their ideology than were the Boston

writer for the Hampshire Republican expressed both abolitionist and anti-amalgamation sentiments:

Slavery is an evil of a great magnitude....We do not believe it was the design of the Creator, that marriages should take place between negroes and whites, and certain we are, that such alliances will never be tolerated in New England.... See The Liberator. Feb. 28, 1839, p. 21.

24Most of these attacks were economically motivated, as unemployed whites believed that the presence of free blacks produced competition for jobs. Race prejudice, however, was also an important factor. Violence against the free black community took place in New York City, Boston, Philadelphia, and Cincinnati. See Litwack, North of Slavery, pp. 100-102, 159. *

227

or Philadelphia societies. Unlike either the BFASS or

the PFASS, the Ladies' New York city Anti-Slavery

Society was exclusively white.25

Not surprisingly, the women of the LNYCASS

opposed the social mixing of the races even in the

antislavery movement. Many members of the Society were

transplants from the rural regions of New York where

the preachings of the leading revivalist, Charles

Grandison Finney, echoed the loudest. Their

abolitionist activity was an extension of their earthly

duty to perform good works. They opposed the idea of

enslavement and supported benevolent aid to blacks,

which befitted their roles as women and as reformers.

Their reformist vision, however, did not include

^ A l l of the members of the LNYCASS were Protestant. The organizers of the Society had recruited one antislavery woman from every Protestant church in the city to serve on the Board of Managers of the LNYCASS. They apparently had not considered recruiting non- Protestants. Unlike the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, the New York City society did not include women from all denominations as the founding members had claimed. The BFASS consisted of Unitarians, Congregationalists, Quakers, Episcopalians, Methodists, and several Swedborgians. Although the religious makeup of the PFASS was primarily Quaker, the Quaker members of the PFASS had advocated racial equality and welcomed black friends into their social circles. See Amy Swerdlow, "Abolition's Conservative Sisters: The Ladies' New York City Anti-Slavery Societies, 1834- 1840," unpublished paper, delivered at the Third Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Bryn Mawr College, June 9-11, 1976, pp. 2-4. 228

disturbing the structure of social relations. Thus,

their interests did not embrace equality either between

the sexes or the races.2®

The constitution of the Ladies' New York City

Anti-Slavery Society did not explicitly exclude any

particular group of women from membership. According

to the constitution, "Any lady approving of the

principles of Our Society, and contributing to its

funds, shall be a member, and entitled to vote at the meetings. The contribution of twenty-five dollars will

entitle the donor to 1ife-membership."27 The exclusion

of blacks from membership in the Ladies' New York City

Anti-Slavery Society apparently was an informal policy.

Several women from integrated antislavery societies in

other cities expressed disapproval of such an

exclusionary practice. In 1836, Anne Warren Weston wrote to her sister, Deborah Weston, denouncing racism

among some prominent members of the LNYCASS. The Weston sisters belonged to the Boston Female Anti-Slavery

Society. Anne Warren Weston specifically criticized

Abigail Ann Cox, a leader in the New York Society, for allowing the exclusion of blacks:

2°Ibid, pp. 9-11. 27Ladies' New York City Anti-Slavery Society, First Annual Report, 1836, Article III. 229

Mrs. Cox is the life & soul of the New York Society and she is in a very sinful state-full of wicked prejudice about colour; they do not allow any coloured women to join their society.28

Anne Weston also mentioned that Lydia Maria Child, a

BFASS colleague, objected to the racial attitudes of

the New York women: "Mrs. Child thinks [their racial

policy]- prevents a blessing on them, and they are very

lifeless." Weston noted, however, that although most members of the LNYCASS approved of the exclusion of

blacks, a few members had objected to the policy.

According to Weston, Julianna Tappan and her family

apparently disagreed with Abigail Cox over the

Society's refusal to mix with blacks. Weston declared

that the Tappans "have none of this prejudice [and]

therefore they & Mrs. Cox are hardly on speaking

terms."29

2SAnne Warren Weston to Deborah Weston, Oct. 22, 1836? Boston Public Library - Anti-Slavery Collection, Department of Rare Books & Manuscripts. 29Ibid. Julianna Tappan's father was Lewis Tappan, a leader in the evangelical and abolitionist circle in New York City. Lewis Tappan and his brother, Arthur, were wealthy textile merchants who provided a great deal of financial support for the abolitionist cause. They eventually broke with Garrison over abolitionist ideology and tactics and spearheaded the formation of the American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in 1841. The members of this new national organization supported the involvement of abolitionists in the government and in the churches and opposed "extraneous" reform movements, especially women's rights. Julianna Tappan, a leader in the women's petition drive in New York City, never challenged the idea of maintaining separate codes of behavior for women. 0- *

230

The exclusion of black women from the New York

society, however, did not stop the members from

claiming that a "sisterhood" existed between themselves

and slave women. In the first annual report of the

LNYCASS in 1836, the members emphasized the bonds of

womanhood that white and slave women shared:

The thought is forced upon us...that all this and much more, if necessary, might be meekly borne by us, in such a cause, when we remember the unspeakable injuries endured by our sex in slavery, and remember too how long we remained insensible to those injuries, and with an indifference that now shocks us in the retrospect, withheld from the poor hearted-broken victims ever our sympathies and prayers.30

The fact that the women of the New York City Society

believed a sisterhood existed between themselves and

slave women but, at the same time, excluded black women

from joining their society reveals that the members

limited their feelings of unity between black and white

women. The members of the LNYCASS clearly distinguished

between the slave and the free black, between social

equality with blacks and social obligation to the "poor

heart-broken victims" of slavery. Unlike many other

antislavery societies, male or female, the members of

the LNYCASS declined to engage in the "elevation" of

the free black community in New York. In a rare

iuLNYCASS, First Annual Report, 1836, p. 6. 231

Instance of independence from the parent male society

in New York, the women in the LNYCASS and the smaller

Chatham Street Chapel Anti-Slavery Society declined to

include in their constitutions the improvement of the

free black community as the male societies had done.

The larger, city-wide LNYCASS did exhibit a greater

interest in the religious improvement of blacks than

did the Chatham Street Society. The members of the

Chatham Street Society declared in the Constitution and

Address that they would not "join in the hypocrisy to

persecution by dictating to them [blacks] how they are

to improve their character and their prospects."31 On

the one hand, their declaration demonstrates a less

paternalistic attitude toward blacks than that

exhibited by most antislavery societies, male or

female. On the other hand, such a pronouncement also

demonstrates their support of racial separation and the unwillingness of white members to break down racial barriers.

Another female antislavery society in New York also exhibited racist attitudes toward blacks. In upstate New York, the Western New York Female Anti-

Slavery Society split over the admittance of blacks in

3^Swerdlow, "Abolition's Conservative Sisters," p. 6. 232

1842-43. Sarah Burtis, a white leader and manager of

the Society, wrote to Abby Kelley In 1843 about the

dissension within the society over integration. Burtis

reported that some women "had left us on account of our

admitting colored persons to our society." she assured

Kelley, however, that "we do not sacrifice principles

to numbers, neither will colored people be

rejected.... "32

A similar incident had occurred in Fall River,

Massachusetts in 1835, when twenty-seven women from

respected white families organized the Female Anti-

Slavery Society of Fall River. Elizabeth Buffum Chace,

one of the founding members of the Society, reported in

her diary that some abolitionists, although committed

to the antislavery cause, shunned association with

blacks: "In some cases, persons who were opposed to

slavery and were willing to work for its abolition,

nevertheless strongly objected to any association with

colored persons in their Anti-Slavery labors." The new

society almost disintegrated that same year when three

"respectable" free black women, who had been attending the meetings, applied for membership. Chace noted that

32Sarah Anthony Burtis to Abby Kelley, Jan. 17, 1843? Stephen and Abigail Kelley Foster Papers, American Antiquarian Society.

1 233

although many of the women did not mind that black

women attended the meetings, they believed that to

accept them as members meant' accepting them as social

equals. These white women were not prepared to violate tradition:

In the village of Fall River, were a few very respectable young colored women, who came to our meeting. One evening, Lucy and I went to see these negro women and invited them to join. This raised such a storm among some of the leading members, that for a time, it threatened the dissolution of the Society. They said they had no objection to the women attending the meetings, and they were willing to help and encourage them in every way, but they did not think it was at all proper to invite them to join the Society, thus putting them on an equality with ourselves. Lucy and I maintained our ground, however, and the colored women were admitted. 3

Debates within several local female antislavery

societies over racial integration were well known to

members of integrated organizations. Phebe Matthews, a

white abolitionist from Cincinnati, wrote to Theodore

Weld about some of the members of her antislavery

society who exhibited race prejudice:

I said to Br. [Augustus] Wattles the other evening I shall be glad when Mrs. Mahan, Mrs. Gridley, Misses Dewey, Fletcher, etc...are gone, for none of them are more than half-hearted abolitionists and I cannot endure to be shackled as they wish me to be....I love these dear sisters, but they do

■^Malcolm R. Lovell, ed., Two Quaker Sisters: From the Original Diaries of Elizabeth Buffurn Chace and Lucv Buffum Lovell (New York: Liveright Publishing Corporation, 1937), pp. 118-119. 234

wish us to stoop so often to race prejudice....And they feel so bad if perchance we lay our hands on a curly head, or kiss a coloured face. It distresses me to be in the society of the coloured people with them. I am afraid I shall offend their nice taste. 4

Even the racially integrated BFASS was not devoid

of white members who wished to maintain the tradition

of separating the races at meetings and public events. Apparently at BFASS meetings, blacks and whites occupied separate sections of the hall. When Charlotte

Coleman, a black woman, dared to sit in the white section at a BFASS meeting, she met with severe disapproval from Elisha Blanchard, a white woman who was a life-member of the Society. Blanchard informed

Coleman that although whites were willing to help blacks, "traditions must not be violated." She quickly added, however, that blacks "were very well in their place," implying that despite Coleman's indiscretion, most blacks behaved well and did not violate traditional codes of propriety that kept them separate from whites.35 Such attitudes must have provoked Maria

Weston Chapman to address "Female Anti-Slavery Societies throughout New England On Behalf of the

3^Phebe Matthews to Theodore Weld, Cincinnati, March 1835; Gilbert H. Barnes and Dwight Dumond, eds., Letters of-Theodore Dwight Weld. Angelina Grltnke and Sarah Grimke. 1822-44. vol. I, p. 217. James O. Horton, Black Bostonians, p. 94. 235

Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society." She encouraged

white members to eliminate policies that excluded women

on the basis of race, class, or religious affiliation:

"Let there be no exclusive system adopted in our

societies. Ask no one's sect, rank, or color. Whoever

will, let them come...."36

Despite hostile reactions from anti-black and

anti-abolition mobs and the desire by some whites to

maintain racial separation, the female societies in

Philadelphia and Boston welcomed black women as

members. In fact, black women had helped form both the

Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society and the Boston

Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1833 and, as members,

worked actively to combine community self-help with

antislavery. Black women's participation in racially-

mixed antislavery societies encouraged these

organizations to support self-help activities in the

free black community, within organized abolitionism,

black women's commitment to community activism as well

as antislavery led the majority of black women

abolitionists in Philadelphia and Boston to support

William Lloyd Garrison amidst increasing criticism of

3oMaria Weston Chapman to "Female Anti-Slavery Societies throughout New England," Boston, June 7, 1837, in Barnes and Dumond, eds., Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld, vol. I, p. 397. 236

his ideology and tactics. Susan Paul in Boston and Hetty Reckless, Sarah Douglass, and the Forten sisters in Philadelphia, in particular, not only combined community activism and antislavery in their own lives

as abolitionists, but provided important links between

their antislavery societies and the black community.

For the black members of the Boston Female Anti- Slavery Society, community activism was central to their participation in organized abolitionism. At least

thirteen black women participated in the Boston Female

Anti-Slavery Society. Lucy and Martha V. Ball, Susan

Paul, Louisa Nell, and Nancy Prince were well-known black women members of the BFASS.37 Lesser known black members were Eunice R. Davis, Margaret Scarlett, Eliza

Ann Logan Lawton, and Anna Logan. Other black women, however, may have participated in BFASS activities without officially joining the organization. For instance, Anna Murray Douglass, wife of Frederick Douglass, participated in the annual antislavery fairs

in Boston, although her name never appears on membership lists. Most of these women combined community activism with antislavery by participating in

37Louisa Nell was the wife of black abolitionist William C. Nell. 237

a variety of self-help activities within the Boston

free black community.

In 1837, when the BFASS members split into pro-

Garrison and anti-Garrison factions, the majority of

black members remained loyal to Garrison. Throughout

his career, Garrison had encouraged black community

improvement. The split in the BFASS signified the

disagreement over abolitionist ideology and tactics

. that had been brewing within white and black

abolitionist circles since 1836. During the first few

years of Garrison's leadership, most abolitionists

supported his commitment to moral suasion as well as

his criticism of the government and the church. By the

mid-1830s, however, Garrison had embraced a more

radical view of abolitionism, arguing that

abolitionists must not only fight for the end of

slavery, but the end of all evil in society through

universal reform. His newspaper, The Liberator, became a forum for a variety of ideas. The responsibility of

abolitionists, Garrison maintained, was to purify and

perfect human society by engaging in all types of

reform that would remove inequality and oppression.

Supporters of Garrison agreed that abolitionists should

not associate with the government or the churches, 238 since these institutions had traditionally condoned slavery. They also embraced non-violence and promoted other reform movements such as women's rights.

Opponents of Garrison argued that issues besides abolition detracted from the original objective to end slavery. They also opposed Garrison's anti-government, anti-church position, arguing that the most effective way for abolitionists to end slavery was to infiltrate the government and the churches and to cleanse these institutions of corruption. Anti-Garrisonian leaders such as James G. Birney and Lewis Tappan even proposed the formation of a third political party that would espouse abolitionist goals. The division between supporters and opponents of Garrison finally resulted in a formal split in the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1840. While Garrisonians stayed with the AAS, anti-

Garrisonians formed their own national antislavery organization, the American & Foreign Anti-Slavery

Society. In 1840, most black abolitionists still supported Garrison, although a few sided with the new organization.38

-^For more detailed discussions of the organizational split in 1840, see Dwight L. Dumond. Antislaverv: Crusade for Freedom (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1961); Merton Dillon, The Abolitionists: Growth of a Dissenting Minority, pp. 124-126; Aileen Kraditor, Ends and Means in American Abolitionism: Garrison & His 239

Debate over Garrisonian ideology and tactics also occurred among female antislavery societies. While the

PFASS remained loyal to Garrison, the BFASS split in

1840 into pro-Garrison and anti-Garrison factions. The majority of the BFASS, in fact, opposed Garrison. For conflict to arise within the Boston society over abolitionist ideology and tactics is not surprising.

Garrison's presence in Boston may have created a conflict in abolitionist circles between principles of natural rights and Garrison's emphasis on sin and morality. Boston had been the center of political agitation during the Revolutionary period in America.

Influenced by the ideals of the American Revolution, the founders of the BFASS approached abolitionism from the perspective that slavery threatened basic principles of human freedom and natural rights.39 When

Garrison's moral suasion tactic failed to persuade slaveholders to free their slaves, the majority of

Critics on Strategy and Tactics. 1834-1850. pp. 10, 51- 52. Pantheon Books, 1967). For analysis of black reactions to the split, see Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists, chapter 3. In the Address of the Boston Female Anti-Slaverv Society to the Women of New England, the founders wrote that "the children of the far sighted founders of New England cannot fail to perceive that while, under any pretence, one human being is held in slavery in a nation of which they are a part, their own freedom is in peril."BPL-Address of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society? see also Amy Swerdlow, "Abolition's Conservative Sisters," p. 7. 240 white female abolitionists in the Boston society could easily abandon Garrison's position and adopt new approaches to eradicating slavery. The anti-Garrison majority of the BFASS, led by Mary S. Parker, expressed disapproval of Garrisonian ideas in the Seventh Annual

Report of the BFASS in 1840, declaring: "We are an antislavery society - not a non-resistance society."40

Conflict between the two factions manifested itself in 1839 in the areas of fundraising and the election of officers to the Society. Maria Weston

Chapman, a leading white member and a supporter of

Garrison, attempted to call a special meeting of the

BFASS to raise the customary $1,000 to support the AAS.

The anti-Garrison president, Mary Parker, however, declared Chapman's request unconstitutional. At the regular meeting, the members finally voted to collect the annual pledge and to gather subscriptions to The

Liberator. In the meantime, Chapman and fourteen other pro-Garrisonians had met on their own to arrange a fund-raising fair in October 1839. Thus, while Chapman and her supporters held their own fair in October, the majority of the BFASS held the annual fair in December.

The heated dispute over the election of officers

4uBFASS, Seventh Annual Report, 1840, Oct. 14, 1840. 241

finally led to the dissolution of the BFASS in 1840 and

placed Lucy Ball at the center of the controversy. In

October 1839, at the meeting to elect officers for the

upcoming year, Lucy Ball, as secretary, had recorded a majority voting for Mary S. Parker as president.

Members of the pro-Garrison minority protested the

election, arguing that Parker had not actually received

a majority.41

At least thirteen black women were members of the

BFASS. At least seven of these women signed the

certificate protesting Parker's election and nine voted

against the dissolution of the Society. In the Spring

of 1840, the majority anti-Garrison faction of the

BFASS voted to dissolve the organization. These

antislavery women, under Mary Parker's leadership,

formed the Massachusetts Female Emancipation Society, which supported the political involvement of

abolitionists as part of their strategy.

Most black men and women abolitionists still considered Garrison a true friend of the slave, despite the fact that moral suasion had not resulted in the end

of slavery. For the majority of black women of the

Boston society, their work together within the black

4iThe Liberator. Nov. 15, 1839, p. 183. 242

community was a factor in their decision to stay with

the pro-Garrison group, since Garrison had consistently supported black community improvement as part of the

abolitionist agenda. Not surprisingly the majority of

black women in the BFASS sided with the minority

faction that remained loyal to Garrison.

It would seem that black women's commitment to

community activism as well as their personal ties with

each other and with white members of the BFASS were the

most important factors that determined whether black

women sided with the pro or anti-Garrison faction of

the Society. The absence of information on the economic

status of most black women members of the BFASS,

however, makes it difficult to determine whether class

also influenced their decisions. Most of the women who

voted to support Garrison and voted against Mary Parker

participated actively in the free black community,

particularly in black education, temperance, and local

church activities. Susan Paul operated a school for black children in Boston and had organized the Garrison

Juvenile Choir. She also maintained close personal ties with prominent white women members of the Society who remained loyal to Garrison.42 Eunice R. Davis,

42Susan Paul had forged lasting friendships with leading white women, such as Henrietta Sargent, Lydia 243

Margarett Scarlett, Eliza Ann Logan Lawton, and Anna

Logan worked together in fighting segregation in the

Boston public schools. Church activities within the black community also bound black women abolitionists together. Eunice Davis, Anna Logan, and Caroline F.

Williams all belonged to the Zion Church in Boston and participated together in various church functions. In

1843, Logan served as president of a committee to host a fund-raising fair in order to "liquidate the debt" of the Zion Church.43 Louisa F. Nell, wife of black abolitionist William C. Nell, may have supported

Garrison because her husband had also supported

Garrison.44 Susan Paul, Jane Putnam and Nancy Gardner

Maria Child, and Hannah Southwick, who helped provide financial assistance to Paul's family and tended to Paul when she was ill. For description of Paul's financial troubles, see Lydia Maria Child to Jonathan Phillips, Jan. 23, 1838 and Feb. 26, 1838, William Phillips, Jr. Coll. Salisbury, Conn. Schlesinger Library. For an account of her illness and death, see Anne Warren Weston to Mr. & Mrs. H.G. Chapman, Weymouth, May 18, 1841; BPL-Rare Books & Manuscripts. 43Xn 1844, they signed a petition to prevent the establishment of separate schools for black children. See Josiah Smith, et. al. "Petition on Separate Schools to the Boston Committee," Boston, 1844; BAP. Reel 4, fr. 0723-0726; contributor: Boston Public Library. In 1845, Davis and Williams served on a committee at a "meeting of colored citizens of Boston" to appropriate money for a monument in memory of the late white abolitionist Charles T. Torrey. See James Oliver Horton, Black Bostonians, p. 91. For Logan's association with the Zion Church, see The Liberator. Oct. 20, 1843, p. 168. 44William C. Nell had briefly supported Frederick Douglass's campaign for black nationalism and 244

Prince participated in temperance activities in Boston.

Gardner also worked outside the boundaries of the

United States to improve the condition of blacks, especially in the area of education. Julia Williams had been a close associate of Garrison and often travelled with him and other white abolitionists to antislavery conventions. For those black women who supported

Garrison, then, community activism as well as antislavery society activities had been central to their work in abolitionism.

Four black members of the BFASS had voted to dissolve the Society in 1840. Chloe Lee and C.L.

Barbadoes, probably related to black abolitionist James

Barbadoes, favored dissolution, although their names do not appear in the dispute over Parker's election. Lee had also participated in the fight against racial segregation in the Boston schools. Lee and Barbadoes may not have agreed with the anti-Garrisonians over abolitionist tactics, but perhaps preferred to see the society dissolve in order to avoid further infighting. separatism from white abolitionist leadership and joined Douglass's staff in Rochester, New York as publisher of the North Star in 1852. Nell left Douglass one year later after disagreeing over the issue of separatism. In 1853, Nell returned to Boston as an ardent supporter of Garrison and racial cooperation in the antislavery effort. 245

Lucy and Martha V. Ball had been the only black members who voted both in favor of Mary Parker and the dissolution of the Society. The Balls had consistently sided with Mary Parker and the other more conservative members of the BFASS. Although the Balls operated a school for black women in Boston, friendship ties with anti-Garrisonians and differences in abolitionist ideology proved stronger than their work in the free black community.

In Philadelphia, no such divisions occurred among members of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery

Society. Throughout the controversy over ideology and tactics, black and white members of the PFASS. remained unified in their loyalty to Garrison. Unity over abolitionist ideology and tactics reflected a general agreement with Garrison over the use of moral suasion as the best way to end slavery. As Amy Swerdlow has pointed out, most of the women of the PFASS were

Quakers who equated the issue of political inequality with sin and immorality. In their Constitution, the members of the PFASS declared that slavery was sinful as well as "contrary to the...principles of our

Declaration of Independence.45 Thus, they found

45Swerdlow, "Abolition's Conservative Sisters," p. 8. 246

Garrison's ideas compatible with their own. Harriet

Martineau, an English traveller, once remarked that upon meeting Garrison in 1835, he had "a good deal of a

Quaker air; and his speech is deliberate like a

Quaker's...."46 Black and white members of the PFASS also supported the radical idea of granting women the right to vote and occupy positions of leadership in the

AAS and to perform traditionally male roles such as public speaking. In 1836, for example, five black women signed a Certificate of Recommendation supporting

Angelina E. Grimke, a southern-born white abolitionist, and her speaking tour. In the black community, male leaders encouraged and supported black women who engaged in public speaking, believing that such nontraditional activity was part of the responsibility of black women to the improvement of their race. At least two black members expressed their support for

Garrison. In June 1839, almost one year before the split in the AAS and Boston Female Anti-Slavery

Society, Sarah and Grace Douglass wrote to Garrison, offering sympathy and encouragement:

We have felt much for you....Your enemies may say what they will of you; they can never convince us, that you are recreant to the cause of the crushed, degraded slave....We don't believe that the cause

4oHarriet Martineau, Retrospect of Western Travel, vol. Ill, (London: Saunders & Otley, 1838), p. 255. 247

of the slave will be Injured by the dissention in the antislavery ranks....You will please remember us affectionately to Mrs. Garrison. 7

Their feelings may have changed, however, by the late

1840s, when Sarah Douglass helped organize the all­

black Women's Association of Philadelphia in 1848. Yet,

although she supported Frederick Douglass's cry for black nationalism, she gave no indication that she had given up Garrison ideals of cooperation between black

and white abolitionists.

As in Boston, black women helped found the female

antislavery society in Philadelphia. Ten black women

appear regularly in the records of the PFASS: Grace

Douglass, Sarah Douglass, Charlotte Forten, Margaretta

Forten, Sarah Forten, Harriet Forten Purvis, Sarah

Lewis, Sarah McCrummell, Hetty Reckless, and Hetty

Burr. Sarah McCrummell and Margaretta Forten had

attended a "meeting of Females convened at the school

room of Catherine McDermot" in February 1833 "to take

into consideration the propriety of forming a Female

Anti-Slavery Society" in Philadelphia. Most of the

white members of the PFASS and at least one black member were Quakers. Black and white members of the

PFASS cooperated on a number of issues relating to the

4/The Liberator. June 21, 1839, p. 98. 248

black community and women*s activism in the movement.

McCrummell and Forten served on the committee to form

the PFASS and draw up a constitution, which they

presented in December 1833. Of the eighteen women who

signed the constitution, at least seven were black.

Black women consistently served in leadership

capacities throughout the existence of the

organization, although none ever served as president.

In 1847, three of the six members of the Board of

Managers were black. Several of the black women came

from prominent families in the Philadelphia free black

community that had been active for many years. The

comfortable lifestyles these women enjoyed freed them

to devote a great deal of time and energy to outside

activities. Less fortunate black members simply

shouldered the double burden of community activism and

domestic responsibilities.

The members of the PFASS founding committee set

forth as goals the abolition of race prejudice,

improvement of the free black community, and the

immediate abolition of slavery.' According to the minutes of the organizational meeting, the committee agreed to "propose such measures as will be likely to promote the Abolition of Slavery and to elevate the 249 people of colour from their present degraded situation, to the full enjoyment of their rights and to increased usefulness in society."48

Grace and Sarah Douglass and Charlotte Forten and her daughters were members of the PFASS and participated in the Society in a variety of ways.

Charlotte Forten had been a founding member of the

PFASS. Margaretta Forten usually served as recording secretary of the PFASS until its dissolution after the Civil War. Sarah Forten often submitted her original poems on slavery at PFASS meetings as well as for the antislavery press. Grace Douglass had helped found the Society and was one of the original signers of the constitution. She frequently occupied leadership positions in both the PFASS and the Antislavery

Convention of American Women. These conventions, held in 1837, 1838, and 1839, were gatherings of women representatives from antislavery societies throughout the free states. In 1837 and 1839, she served as vice president at the Convention held in New York. Grace Douglass's daughter Sarah, a schoolteacher in the

Philadelphia black community, joined the Society

48PFASS, minutes; Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers (PASP), Historical Society of Pennsylvania. 250 shortly after its founding and served on the PFASS committee in 1840 to promote black education.

Education, in fact, was one of the ways the PFASS extended aid to the free black community in

Philadelphia, and Douglass's involvement in black education led the PFASS to continue its activism in this area. Before Douglass joined the Education

Committee of the PFASS in 1840, other members of the

Committee had supported her effort to operate a school for black children. Many of the white members of the

PFASS had participated in efforts to improve the education of blacks in Philadelphia. The members of the committee, which included Lucretia Mott, white president of the PFASS, committed the PFASS to assuming responsibility for establishing Douglass's school in

September 1836. In 1838, the Society assumed financial support of the school when several members learned that the school "does not yield a sufficient income to continue as she [Douglass] would wish."49 Although the committee decided to support Douglass's school, final approval for funding had to come from the parent society, the Pennsylvania Abolition Society (PAS). In

1836, the PAS approved the PFASS*s decision to fund

^ Notable American "women. Vol. I, p. 511. 251

Douglass's school after the committee submitted the following petition:

The undersigned having seriously felt the want of a suitable room for a female coloured school under the care of Sarah Douglass...present the claims of this school for your consideration and ask of you to rent the room....50

In 1841, Douglass allowed her school room to serve as a meeting place for the PFASS.51

By 1840, the PFASS had assumed responsibility for monitoring all of the educational facilities for black children in the Philadelphia area. In the Report of the 6th Annual meeting of the Society on January 1, 1840, members of the Education Committee criticized unnamed members for neglecting their duties. During the year, the individual committee members had agreed to evaluate the progress of black schools in the area.

Each member was to "have the charge of a school, advise

& instruct the teacher and report to the Committee the state of that school." In fulfillment of their social obligation to their community, these women pledged to visit the homes of black parents in order to convince them of the necessity of education, but believed that such efforts were useless unless they could hire "moral

5“PFASS, minutes, 1833-48, Sept. 29, 1836. 51PFASS, minutes, April 19, 1841. 252 and intelligent teachers." The concern for morality and community responsibility was part of "woman's influence" that abolitionist leaders had expected of female activists. In the case of the Philadelphia women, however, several members apparently had failed to fulfill their duties as women and as abolitionists.

According to critics of the committee, "had the proposed plan been pursued by an efficient Committee, it might have been productive of good results, but many have been so neglectful that the report of the

Condition of the schools cannot be (so full) as it might have been."52

Despite the criticism the Education Committee endured, the women of the Philadelphia Female Anti-

Slavery Society apparently participated actively in the effort to improve education for blacks. Sarah

Douglass, in fact, believed the PFASS exerted too much control over her school, in March 1840, she submitted a letter to the PFASS Board of Managers "stating her wish to have her school under her own control...."

Although the Board expressed regret over her request, it left no indication that the members harbored ill feeling toward her or her school. Mary Grew, a white

PFASS, minutes, Jan. 1, 1840. 6th Annual Meeting. 253

member, offered a resolution in response to Douglass's

letter: Resolved, That this society deeply regretfs] the withdrawal of the school taught by S.M. Douglass from their charge, the supervision & maintenance of which has been a source of pleasure to them, & that they wish for it a continuance of prosperity & usefulness under her care.53

The Board not only voted to relinquish control over

Douglass's school but also continued to provide

financial support by appropriating an annual sum of

$125.54 Throughout the 1840s, the PFASS provided

financial support for Douglass's school despite periods

of decreasing enrollment.55 In 1847, the year Douglass

served as librarian of the Society, members of the

PFASS agreed to purchase a stove for her school room.56

Until the summer of 1849, the Society paid the rent of

■#

f3PFASS, minutes, March 12, 1840. 54Ibid. 55In 1841, the Education Committee of the PFASS reported a significant decline in enrollment in Douglass's school. The Committee members, which included Douglass that year, blamed the public school administrators in Philadelphia for the enrollment decline. The "controllers of Public schools" apparently feared that unless enrollment increased, they would have to close the public schools. To prevent the closing, parents, blacks included, removed their children from the private schools and enrolled them in the public schools. Despite the declining enrollment, Douglass, with the aid of the PFASS, managed to keep her school open until she assumed the responsibility for the girls' primary department at the Institute for Coloured Youth in 1853. PFASS, minutes, Jan. 14, 1847. 254 the school room since the members often held meetings there.

The PFASS also extended aid to benevolent and moral reform Institutions within the free black community and the Underground Railroad. Hetty Reckless

(sometimes listed as Hester or Esther Reckless) was a central figure who provided the link between the PFASS and the black community. Reckless encouraged the PFASS to continue Its aid to black education by supporting black Sabbath schools that blacks had established In

Philadelphia. In 1841, she reported on the progress of the Sabbath schools and urged members of the Society to continue their benevolent work in the black community:

Hester Reckless informed [us] that through the exertions of the coloured people a Sabbath School had been (lately) established among the ignorant & despised colored population of Bedford St. & its neighborhood which had already effected some information among them....The members of this Society were urged to give their countenance & aid to this work of benevolence.... 7

Reckless also persuaded the Society to provide aid to moral reform institutions in the black community. In

1847, the PFASS supported her involvement in antiprostitution work among blacks. At the meeting in which the members appropriated money for Sarah

PFASS, minutes, Oct. 14, 1841. 255

Douglass's stove, they donated $25.00 to the Moral

Reform Retreat, where Reckless served as the head

matron.58

In 1846, she spearheaded the drive to ally the

PFASS with the Vigilance Committee in Philadelphia.

The predominantly black female committee served as a

conductor of the Underground Railroad in the city,

providing food, shelter, and clothing to fugitive slaves. In July 1838, a group of black women in

Philadelphia formed the Female Vigilant Association,

auxiliary to the Philadelphia Vigilant Association,

which was headed by prominent black men. Mary Bustill,

a cousin of Sarah Douglass, also served on the

committee. Reckless's dual membership with the all­

black Vigilant Association and the racially-integrated

PFASS provided her with the opportunity to persuade the

other members of the Society to provide financial

assistance to the Vigilance Committee for the care of

fugitive slaves.58 Reckless approached the PFASS in

September 1841 "on behalf of the Vigilant Committee"

and "urged upon us their claims for our sympathy and pecuniary aid- She reported that since our last meeting they had assisted thirty-five fugitives in their escape

58PFASS, minutes, Jan. 14, 1847. 59Pennsvlvania Freeman. July 5, 1838. 256

to a land of liberty & that they now had three more

under care." The PFASS members resolved to "more

efficiently...bear in mind the wants of the Vigilance Committee...."60

The PFASS, however, expressed reluctance to commit

the Society's funds to the Underground Railroad. At the

meeting in September 1841, the Society did not pledge a

fixed amount of money to aid the Association. Instead,

the Society appropriated money according to the needs

of individual cases. In May 1845, Reckless reported

difficulties in obtaining funds to care for "several

fugitives" who "have passed into this city lately." The

following June, the Society agreed to pay Reckless .

$10.00 "for the benefit of fugitive slaves."61 Perhaps

the members saw no need to commit the Society's limited

funds to the Association, since several members of the

PFASS and their families had already aided fugitives in

their own homes. Perhaps some members were unsure about

how far the PFASS should go in supporting outside

organizations. The resignation of Esther Moore, a white member who served as the first president of the PFASS, prompted by her desire to devote more time to the

Vigilance Committee, indicates that the cause of the

j^PFASS, minutes, Sept. 9, 1841. PFASS, minutes, June 12, 1845. 257 fugitive slave threatened to draw members away from the

PFASS. Moore's resignation forced the remaining members of the PFASS to consider the ties of the Society to

"these mere branches of the Anti-Slavery cause":

A member stated that it was the wish of Esther Moore to have her name erased from the list of members of this society and incidently mentioned as her reasons that she was more interested in the Vigilance Com[mittee] operations and such like departments of the cause. This gave rise to a discussion as to how far these mere branches of the Anti-Slavery cause had claims on abolitionists for their support.62

In 1856, Lucretia Mott noted that although aiding fugitive slaves was important, it was "not properly

Anti-Slavery Work":

L.[ucretia] M.[ott] after acknowledging some contributions received for their [fugitive slaves] benefit said it was impossible not to be interested & excited by such narratives [of fugitive slave experiences], but we must remember that relieving the necessities of these was not properly Anti Slavery work.63

According to Mott, the primary goal of the PFASS was to eliminate slavery, since those born into slavery in one year outnumbered the slaves who escaped to the Northern states and Canada. Mott concluded that the goal of antislavery women was still "to destroy the system,

6^PFASS, minutes, Oct. 8, 1846. PFASS, minutes, April 10, 1856. 258

root and branch, to lay the axe at the root of the

corrupt tree."6*

The commitment of the PFASS to Garrisonian ideals

led the members of the organization to remain loyal to

Garrison despite the increase of criticism from

abolitionists who disagreed with his emphasis on moral

suasion, his anti-government and anti-church stance,

and his willingness to embrace universal reform.

Although the PFASS extended a great deal of support to

the black community, at least one leading white member

believed that the PFASS should limit its participation

in black community activities, since the foremost goal

of the Society was to end slavery, to "destroy the

system, root and branch." The reluctance of the PFASS

to extend too much aid to "these mere branches of the

Anti-Slavery cause" represented a fundamental

difference between the way many blacks and whites

interpreted abolitionism and reveals that some white

abolitionists did not view abolitionism as broadly as

did blacks. In addition, the fact that some white members such as Esther Moore left the PFASS to devote more time to the Vigilance Committee also reveals that whites themselves did not always agree on the extent to

o4Ibid. 259 which community activism was part of abolitionism.

Clearly, black women's influence in the PFASS, helped to shape the goals of the organization and raised questions about the balance between commitment to the black community and antislavery.

CONCLUSION

For black women abolitionists, community responsibilities ultimately shaped participation in organized antislavery. Whether they formed or joined racially-integrated or all-black female antislavery societies, community activism remained a central goal. Their participation in self-help activities represented a continuation of a tradition of black activism. But, within the black community, their gender gave them special responsibilities in organized abolitionism.

Community activism was a responsibility that the black community perceived as particularly suitable for women.

At the same time, black women shared with white women an auxiliary status that required them to assume a supportive role to male leaders. Like white women, black women organized regular fund-raising events in order to support the abolitionist press and antislavery lecturers. Thus, as black women abolitionists, they shouldered a dual responsibility to their gender and to 260 their race by combining community self-help activities with antislavery in abolition societies.

Their commitment to black community improvement, in fact, remained consistent throughout the nineteenth century, although the context of their activism changed. In the early years of the movement, black leaders had argued that self-help activities would eventually overturn prevailing ideals of black inferiority. In this way, blacks had hoped to achieve racial equality. By the 1840s, however, racial restrictions in the North had actually increased, and slavery was more firmly entrenched than ever in the

South. Black leaders such as Frederick Douglass and

Martin Delany turned away from the original hope of reforming whites, turning instead to black nationalism and the achievement of self-sufficiency within the black community. Although many black women supported '

Douglass's nationalist scheme, they did not sever the personal and professional ties they had forged with white women abolitionists. Cooperation between blacks and whites had resulted in the extension of valuable aid to the free black community.

The fact that some black women formed their own antislavery societies, however, reveals the limits of 261 cooperation between black and white abolitionists.

Black women organized all-black female antislavery societies as a way of pursuing their own goals and as a response to the racism of some white women abolitionists. The differences in perception of abolitionist goals and prevailing racist sentiments in the North not only prevented full cooperation between whites and blacks but, for women abolitionists, precluded the possibility of creating a sisterhood between black and white women.

Antislavery societies, whether all-black or integrated, provided the structure in which black women could continue their community work and still participate in the campaign to end slavery. As this chapter has shown, black women participated in organized abolitionism out of a commitment to both their gender and their race. At the same time, their participation in organized antislavery exposed them to conflict over reform issues besides slavery, and, at times, forced them to choose sides. As the conflict over Garrisonianism demonstrates, black women knew of the issues at hand and, like most other abolitionists, took sides. Most black women, in fact, continued to support Garrison. Their association with Garrison not 262 only reflected their continued allegiance to his tactics, but also to his support for "extraneous" issues such as women's rights.

Garrison and his followers upheld the right of women to become voting members of the national organization and to engage in public activities for the good of the abolitionist cause. As the next chapter demonstrates, some black women abolitionists extended their activism beyond organized abolition by engaging in activities that were often considered improper for

"respectable ladies." As writers, speakers, and petitioners, they, like white female activists, challenged traditional expectations of "proper" female behavior within their communities. But, unlike white women, black female activists also defied prevailing racist assumptions. For those black women who engaged in public abolitionist activity, their actions represented the continuation of the struggle by black women for an equal voice and equal rights. CHAPTER VI

BLACK WOMEN ABOLITIONISTS AND PUBLIC ACTIVISM

For many black women, commitment to abolitionism led them to participate in activities that challenged nineteenth century notions of acceptable behavior for women and blacks. In addition to their work in antislavery societies and the free black community, prominent black women also engaged in writing, public speaking, and petitioning as part of their activism.

For black women to employ such public tactics demonstrated an assertiveness that defied prevailing expectations of docility and submissiveness from both women and blacks. This chapter will demonstrate that when black women wrote antislavery poetry and prose, spoke from the public platform, or signed and circulated petitions condemning slavery and northern racism, they exhibited a willingness to ignore customary codes of behavior in order to express publicly their viewB on slavery, racism, and abolition.

In so doing, they, as individuals and as a group, 264

Hersh, DuBois, and Lerner have examined the experiences of leading white women who participated in public abolitionist activity. The careers of Sarah and

Angelina Grimke, Lucretia Mott, and Susan B. Anthony, for example, have received considerable attention from scholars in women's history.1 Historians have also acknowledged the contributions of outstanding individual black women to the abolitionist movement, such as Sojourner Truth, Sarah Parker Remond, Maria

Stewart, and Mary Ann shadd Cary and have published valuable collections of their writings and speeches.2

This chapter will demonstrate that black women activists as a group not only overcame limitations of race and gender in their abolitionist activities, but,

See Hersh. Slavery^of sex: Feminist-Abolitionists in 19th Century America. Ellen DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage: The Emergence of An Independent Women's Movement in America. 1848-1869. and Lerner, Iha_Grimke Slsters_from_South Carolina; Pioneers for Women's Rights and Abolitionism. See also Margaret Hope Bacon, I Soeak For Mv Slave Sister: The Life of Abbv Kellev Foster (New York: Crowell Books, 1974) ^See Lerner, Black Women in White_America: A Documentary History. Sterling, ed. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century 1984), Loewenberg and Bogin, Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life. Bogin, "Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist From Salem." Essex Institute Historical Collection. Porter, "Sarah Remond, Abolitionist and Physician," Journal of Negro History. Jeanne Noble, Beautiful Are the Souls of Mv Black Sisters (Englewood, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1978), and Jim Bearden and Linda Jean Butler, Shadd: The Life and Times of Mary Ann Shadd Carv (Toronto: NC Press, LTD), 265 in fact, created their own forms of public outcry that reflected their experiences as black women during the antebellum period.

Black women's participation in public activism, to varying degrees, challenged prevailing assumptions about black women's docility, submissiveness, and intellectual inferiority. As Gerda Lerner has pointed out, whites generally perceived black women as more docile than black men because they were women.3 Black women's participation in public speaking, writing, and petitioning directly challenged these stereotypes and threatened to erase existing racial and gender boundaries that defined acceptable behavior in nineteenth century American society. In 1843, the black president of the Detroit Female Benevolent Association, for example, announced her willingness to speak in public despite prevailing customs: "Sister members, you are aware of the fact that it is not customary for females to speak or read in public, but since it has fallen my lot, I sacrifice all feeling of diffidence, and yield to your request."4 Public speaking and writing traditionally had been a way for men to engage in intellectual self-expression. Between 1830 and 1865, jLerner. Black Women in White America, p. xxiii. 4Sianal of Liberty. Feb. 6, 1843; fiAE, Reel 4, fr. 0535. 266 several talented free black women engaged in these non- tradltional activities in order to express their individual views on slavery, racism, and abolition.

Their continued presence on the public platform led to the progressive acceptance of women speakers. Furthermore, petitioning provided a way for black women, as a group that had been disfranchised on the basis of both race and sex, to participate in the

American political process during the nineteenth century. As women, such activity was considered an intrusion upon the male world of politics.

Many of the leading black women who participated in public abolitionist activities shared similar social characteristics. Margaretta Forten, Sarah Forten, Maria

Miller Stewart, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Mary Ann

Shadd Cary, Sarah P. Remond, and Sojourner Truth were the leading black women abolitionists who chose public speaking and/or writing as a way to articulate their views and spread the word of abolitionism. Except for

Sojourner Truth, these women had been born into free black families and enjoyed some measure of economic privilege. Stewart, Harper, Shadd, the Fortens, and

Remond were educated free-born women who grew up in relative economic comfort, which set them apart from both slaves and most free blacks. In addition, most of their families had been active in organized abolitionist activities. As a result, they had developed close personal and professional ties with prominent black and white abolitionists. Unlike other black women who may have attempted to write for the abolitionist press or deliver public speeches, connections with abolitionist friends helped this group of black women activists gain entrance into leading abolitionist circles. Their status as a well-educated and well-connected group of female activists undoubtedly gained them access to the abolitionist press and the public platform.

PUBLIC SPEAKERS AND WRITERS

Although black women received support from black men for their writing and, eventually, for their speaking, black female public activists still found themselves bound by specific codes of "proper" behavior for women. As in the white community, social custom in the free black community required women to act like

"ladies." The careers of Maria Stewart and Mary Ann

Shadd Cary, in particular, illustrate the gender conventions under which free black women lived. Black women speakers joined the ranks of other prominent abolitionist men and women who often placed themselves at the mercy of hostile audiences in order to proclaim 268 the evils of slavery and the possibility of racial equality. Participation in the antislavery lecture circuit was always a risky endeavor. Like those abolitionist writers and editors who faced the destruction of their presses and physical violence from anti-abolitionist mobs, abolitionist lecturers also risked their personal safety when they travelled to various cities and towns to deliver antislavery speeches. Often, hostile audiences harassed them physically and verbally. Violence against black women activists, however, was an even greater possibility than it was for black male and white abolitionists.

Physical and verbal harassment of black women activists could have originated at any time or place from three sources: anti-black crowds and anti-abolitionist crowds, or those who were hostile to "public" women.

Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, for example, wrote of the harassment she and her colleagues received when they held abolitionist lectures in small towns in Ohio. At

Columbiana, where they held two meetings, Harper wrote that their meeting "was interrupted by a manifestation of rowdyism." When they travelled to Churchill, Ohio, they also encountered verbal and physical harassment and only barely escaped injury: 269

At Churchill we had some more persons of the same spirit [as in Columbiana], who made a noise during the time of speaking, and removed some of the linch pins from our wagon. It was, however, discovered in time to prevent any injury to life or limb.5

Unlike male abolitionists, women who spoke in public invited criticism from audiences who believed that they violated basic ideals of "proper" behavior for women. The period between 1830 and the 1860s was one in which female public speakers only gradually gained acceptance from both abolitionist leaders and their audiences. In 1845, black leader Jeremiah

Sanderson proclaimed the progress of women speakers in a letter to prominent white abolitionist Amy Post:

A few years ago, men in this city [New York] hissed at the mere idea of Women's speaking in public in promiscuous assemblies, now men come to Anti-Slavery Conventions attracted by the announcement that Women are to take part in the deliberations and they are often more desirous of having Women, than men The world is becoming habituated to it....Woman is rising up, becoming free....

Even as late as the 1850s, however, audiences in some cities still objected to the presence of women speakers. In 1856, Mary Ann Shadd Cary wrote that in

Rockford, Illinois, "the citizens are so conservative

^Frances Ellen Watkins [Harper] to Marius R.J. Robinson, reprinted in the Anti-Slaverv Bugle. Nov. 13, 1858; M E , Reel 11, fr. 0404. 6Jeremiah Sanderson to Amy Post, May 8, 1845, New York, New York; BAP. Reel 5, fr. 0002. 270 on the question [of Women's Rights], as not to tolerate lectures from women...."7

Public opinion was slow to accept female speakers because both black and white women violated contemporary codes of female behavior when they engaged in public speaking.8 Public speaking had been the traditional domain of political leaders and the clergy, who, except for black clergymen, had been white and male. As a result, when women, regardless of race, chose public speaking as a form of expression they often encountered resistance and disapproval from observers who considered female participation in this activity unseemly. The majority of criticism came from white clergymen, who consistently condemned this form of public activism as not only improper for

"respectable" women, but in violation of Biblical teachings of female subordination. These clergymen argued that by speaking in public women violated St.

Paul's order for women to "keep silent". In 1837, a group of clergymen from Andover, Mass. denounced Sarah and Angelina Grimke for delivering public addresses. In

^Mary Ann Shadd Cary to Isaac Shadd, Provincial Freeman. March 8, 1856; BAP. Reel 10, fr. 0075. °William Lloyd Garrison and his followers constituted a minority of people who had advocated equality between both the races and the sexes in an effort to rid society of injustice. 271 a letter to the New England Spectator, this group condemned women speakers: "The public lectures of females we have discountenanced and condemned as improper and unwise" and a violation of religious faith and a "departure from propriety."9

During the 1820s and 1830s, when women speakers were a rare sight, black as well as white men indicated that women acted improperly when they engaged in public speaking. In 1828, Samuel Cornish and John Russwurm, editors of the black newspaper Freedom's Journal. criticized Frances Wright, a white English woman who was the first woman to deliver public speeches: "This woman ought to get into pantaloons immediately, she is a disgrace to the fairer part of creation."10 In the

Colored American. Cornish again criticized Wright:

LADIES BEWARE....Fanny Wright's first step toward scepticism were her masculine assumptions. Male speculations and male experiments addled her brain, and male achievements engrossed her soul. The fatal result was to be expected— she is now the leader in masculine infidelity— one of the grossest sceptical disorganizers that ever cursed the world. Ladies are lovely, truly lovely in their place, but alas! when they abandon it!!11

Such reactions are not surprising, since many of the

Afro-American newspapers during this period championed

^Reprinted in The"Liberator. Aug. 25, 1837, p. 139. ■^Freedom's Journal. Dec. 12, 1828, p. 291. XJ-Colored American. May 18, 1839? BAP. Reel 3, fr. 0067. 272 traditional middle-class values of "true" womanhood such as women's virtue, domestic responsibilities, and piety.12 Black male audiences were particularly hostile when women speakers publicly criticized the behavior of black men. In 1831, in Boston, an audience of black men jeered and threw rotten tomatoes at Maria Miller

Stewart when she criticized them for failing to follow basic Christian principles of thrift, sobriety, and hard work.13 After only two years of public speaking,

Stewart concluded that her appeals to her fellow blacks had accomplished little. On September 21, 1833, she delivered her farewell address and announced her decision to leave Boston. Her last speech revealed her bitterness and disappointment, noting that it was "no use for me as an individual, to try to make myself useful among my color in this city." The black itinerant preacher Zilpah Elaw, one of the only female preacherB during this period, fared only slightly better. She travelled to England in 1842 to preach to

"large assemblies...." The leading members of the

-^See Donald M. Jacobs, ed., Antebellum Black Newspapers (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1976) for indices to Freedom's Journal. Rights of All, the Weekly Advocate, and the Colored American. 1JSee Stewart's address in Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters, p. 157. 273

British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society apparently received her "rather coldly." Lucretia Mott speculated that the Society had treated Elaw this way "probably because she was a woman, travelling in the capacity of public teacher or exhorter."14 As Mott understood, public speaking was an activity in which the individual assumed the role of an authority, a position that women, outside of Quaker circles, were forbidden to occupy.

Black and white women speakers sometimes invited additional criticism when they spoke to audiences made up of both men and women. Tradition dictated that male and female audiences were to be kept separated, sometimes occupying different rooms. This tradition was not confined to the United States. At the World

Antislavery Convention held in London in 1840, for example, male and female members of the audience sat in separate sections of the hall; women sat in the back of the hall behind a curtain and were not allowed to participate in the proceedings. Despite strong support from some men for including the women as equal participants and not just as silent observers, the majority of men in the audience rejected the proposal.

•^Lucretia (Coffin) Mott? to Lydia Maria Child (editor), National Anti-Slaverv__Standard. April 7, 1842. 274

For white women, in particular, public speaking posed a threat to domestic stability. Unlike writing and other forms of abolitionist activity, public speaking required women to leave their homes and towns and, hence, their domestic duties. Abolitionist women who wrote poetry and essays did not have to leave their households and women who attended local antislavery society meetings or antislavery sewing circles usually convened at the homes of other members who lived in the same town. Public speaking, however, was another matter. Female abolitionists who participated in the movement as public speakers threatened to eliminate existing boundaries that limited the acceptable ways women could participate in public activities. The men and women who opposed the idea of women speaking in public feared that, because participation in public speaking drew women away from their homes and into the political arena with men, women would eventually abandon their domestic responsibilities.

For black women speakers, however, this argument held little validity. Unlike middle-class whites, most free blacks were accustomed to women working outside of their homes. Economic necessity in many free black families required women to earn a wage. In addition to taking in boarders and extra laundry, many black women 275 also worked as domestic servants.15 Further, as James

Oliver Horton points out, it was not unusual for free black women to engage in reform activities in addition to their other duties. In fact, within the free black community, male leaders of the black press encouraged black women to participate in outside reform activities, since black women evidently had not abandoned their family responsibilities when they worked away from their homes. Thus, although some black leaders like Cornish may have opposed women speakers, other leaders such as Frederick Douglass and Charles

Lenox Remond supported women who expressed their antislavery views by speaking in public. These leaders particularly perceived black women speakers as an asset to the campaign to promote race pride as well as a way publicly to oppose slavery and racism. By the 1840s and 1850s, many male leaders believed that black women speakers, in particular, occupied an important place in the abolitionist movement. The black leader William C.

Nell wrote to William Lloyd Garrison in 1858, for instance, in praise of Frances Ellen Watkins Harper:

Hiss Watkins's exertions in the lecturing field cannot but yield an abundant anti-slavery harvest. Her audiences during this campaign were always so

15See Sterling, ed. We Are Your Sisters, pp.72, 95-96. 276

impressed as to urge her continuance, or at least promise o£ her early return.16

The appeal to race pride, in particular, helped to justify black women's participation in public activities. Such support made it more acceptable for black women than for white women to engage in non- traditional activities such as public speaking. Mary

Ann Shadd Cary, for example, received praise from black colleagues for her speaking efforts. Her co-editors of the Provincial Freeman, in 1856, portrayed her as a positive representative of the free black community and one who would help dispel assumptions of black inferiority:

Remember, that they [Blacks] belong to a class denied all social and political rights, and after they had been listened to, will the people say they are inferior to ANY of the lecturers among white fellow citizens? O' why will the people not be just?1*

Male leaders within the black community and in abolitionist circles applauded black women speakers as long as they did not criticize black men directly or assume a position of authority in all-male gatherings.18 The male delegates at the eleventh

}°The Liberator. Nov. 12, 1858; £&£, Reel 11, fr. 0403. x'Provincial Freeman. March 29, 1856? BAP. Reel 10, fr. 0097. 18James Oliver Horton, "Freedom's Yoke: Gender Conventions Among Antebellum Free Blacks," Feminist Studies. 12(Spring 1986), pp. 62-63. 277

Colored National Convention in Philadelphia illustrate the hostility of some black men to women who- purported to advise them on policy matters. At the meeting, the delegates had to take a vote in order to allow Mary Ann

Shadd Cary to deliver an address.19

The fact that many black female speakers were delivered effective lectures also helped make them more acceptable to their audiences. Black and white observers could not deny that many of the black women who gained prominence as public speakers were actually talented orators who often expressed ideas that intrigued their audiences. The black abolitionist and ex-slave William Still praised Frances Ellen Watkins

Harper for delivering effective speeches, yet described her in terms traditionally used to describe men. He noted that "perhaps few speakers surpass her in using language and arguments, more potently...."20 When the delegates at the eleventh Colored National Convention finally allowed Shadd to speak, at least one observer complimented her for her effort, although he opposed her stand on emigration:

Her ideas seem to flow so fast that she, at times hesitated for words; yet she overcomes any

•^Provincial Freeman. March 29, 1856; M E / Reel 10, fr.

Z0Provincial Freeman. March 7, 1857; M E , Reel 10, fr. 0571. 278

apparent imperfections in her speaking by the earnestness of her manner and the quality of her thoughts, she is a superior woman; and it is useless to deny it; however much we may differ with her on the subject of emigration. She obtained the floor and succeeded in making one of the most convincing speeches in favor of Canadian emigration I ever heard.21

When she delivered an address at Elkhorn, Indiana, one observer noted that although Shadd's speaking style was

"nervous and hurried," it was "replete with original ideas and soundest logic...and unmistakeably showed that she is a woman of superior intellect, or high literary cultivation, and the most persevering energy of character."22 Sarah Parker Remond, who delivered the majority of her lectures in England, also received praise for the effectiveness of her speeches. Observers in Bury noted that Remond demonstrated a "very eloquent style of address" when she delivered "a most impressive lecture" on "the horrors of slavery." other English witnesses described her style as both "eloquent and thrilling."23

Finally, the fact that black women speakers exuded

"feminine qualities" when they spoke from the public

^Sterling, ed.. We^Are Your Sisters, pp. 170-171. ^Provincial Freeman. March 29, 1856; £&£, Reel 10, fr. QQ97. ^•^Anti-Slavery Standard. October 1859; BAP. Reel 12, fr. 0072-0073; Anti-Slaverv Advocate. Nov. 1, 1859; BAE, Reel 12, fr. 0187; Warrington Times. January 29, 1859; BAE, Reel 11, fr. 0557. platform undoubtedly helped make them more acceptable to their audiences. William Still once described

Frances Harper as "gentle" as well as an "earnest, eloquent, and talented heroine."24 When Mary Ann Shadd

Cary delivered an address at Elkhorn, Indiana, in 1856, one observer not only praised her for the content of her speech, but described her manner as "modest, and in strict keeping with the popular notions of the 'sphere of women'...."25 In England, where codes of social propriety were even stronger than in the United States,

Sarah Parker Remond also received praise for exhibiting feminine qualities when she spoke. In Bristol, she

"spoke for an hour with the utmost readiness and clearness, with an admirable choice of words, and with a womanly dignity, which was the admiration of all who heard her." The editors of the Warrington Times once described her as "one of the best female lecturers we have heard; her gentle and easy manner, combined with an animated and intelligent countenance, rivets the attention of her auditors...."26 Black and white audiences expected that women should still retain

^ Provincial Freeman. March 7, 1857; M E , Reel 10, fr.

9§Provincial 7 1 * Freeman. March 29, 1856; M E , Reel 10, fr. 0097. ^Warrington Times. January 29, 1859; M E , Reel 11, fr. 0557. 280 feminine qualities if they insisted on expressing their opinions publicly.

Like white men, black men opposed the participation of women in public speaking. Over time, however, as women continued to express their views publicly, black and white men eventually became accustomed to the idea that women could participate in this traditionally male activity and still retain their

"femininity." For blacks, however, the commitment to race pride helped black leaders justify black women's participation in antislavery lecture tours.

The act of writing also posed a potential challenge to contemporary codes of appropriate behavior for women since writing was a form of public expression. One woman overcame her reluctance to write for the "public press" in order to express her views on the "proper" behavior of women in 1836:

There is a delicacy in a young and unknown female writing for the public press, which nought but my anxiety for the elevation of my people, and the improvement of my sex, together with the importance of the subject, could induce me to overcome.27

Both black and white women had created a tradition of writing as a means of expression. The act of writing, however, held a different meaning for black

Colored American .~~BAP. Reel 2. 281 women writers than for white women. In her article on nineteenth century white women writers, historian Ann

D. Wood has suggested that these women found themselves limited by contemporary gender expectations. They found a large, receptive audience as long as they wrote on "feminine" subjects such as female piety and domesticity and were not aggressive or political. Such works received praise from most male and female reviewers. At the same time, however, the success of white women writers such as Catharine Maria Sedgewick and Lydia H. Sigourney led them to compete with male writers in the already limited literary market. Such an obvious intrusion into a traditionally male domain led many white women writers to argue that their writing would not lead them away from their homes and domestic duties.28

While white women writers struggled to reconcile their writing with contemporary views on women's

"sphere", black women writers contended with both race and gender barriers. For Afro-American women, the act of writing challenged prevailing stereotypes of black intellectual inferiority as well as woman's "place." black women poets and essayists followed earlier Afro-

^bAnn D. Wood, "The 'Scribbling Women' and Fanny Fern: Why Women Wrote," American Quarterly 23(Spring 1971), pp.4-6. 282

American women writers such as Lucy Terry and Phillis

Wheatley, who had established writing as a form of black female expression during the mid-eighteenth century.29 Between 1830 and 1865, Sarah Forten,

Margaretta Forten, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, and

Mary Ann Shadd Cary continued the tradition of black female writing within the context of abolitionism. Black women who chose to write poetry and essays in order to express their views on slavery, race, and abolition challenged prevailing racial and sexual expectations. For black women writers, the issue of gender was not the same as for white women writers.

Unlike white women, black women faced prevailing notions of the "bad" black woman, which portrayed them as sexually promiscuous, physically strong and aggressive, and intellectually inferior to whites. Race prejudice often prevented black women from getting their works published.30 Lucy Terry's poem, "Bar's

^Little biographical information exists on Lucy Terry (1730-1821) except that she wrote one famous poem, "Bars Fight, August 28, 1746" on an Indian raid, in which she depicts whites as the losers. Her poem was not published until 1895. Phillis Wheatley (ca. 1753- 84) was a slave who arrived in North America when she was about eight years old. She received an extensive education from the family who owned her and later published several collections of poetry. See Erlene Stetson, ed., Black Sister; Poetry Bv Black American Women. 1746-1980 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1981), pp. 3-5; 12-15. 30Stetson, ed., Black Sisterf p. xiii. ■ ♦

283

Fight," for example, was not published until 1895,

although Terry had written the poem in 1746. During the

antebellum period, black women poets and essayists were

only able to publish their works through the aid of

prominent male abolitionists. Black women writers

gained the most public exposure when they wrote for

abolitionist audiences. Abolitionist leaders such as

William Lloyd Garrison, Lydia Maria Child, and William

Still helped several black women writers publish

collections of poetry and essays.

Readers often praised the women and their works

for providing shining examples of black progress and

refuting common notions of black intellectual

inferiority. In 1836, one reader, known only as "S.s.",

praised Sarah Forten and her poem, "The Grave of the

Slave":

We have here another proof of the folly of the assertion which ignorance and prejudice, united, have attempted to palm upon the world; viz, - that the colored race are incapable of intellectual and moral elevation."31

"S.S." also used Forten's work to refute the claim that

black women could not attain the status of "ladies."

According to "S.S.", "a colored female residing in

Philadelphia" had written a poem:

31Philanthroplst. March 11, 1836? BAP. Reel 1, fr. 0650. 284

I ought to have said young lady, even at the risk of exciting a sneer among certain doughfaces; for her whole deportment hears testimony to the fact that she is truly such.32

William Lloyd Garrison, in his preface to Frances

Ellen Watkins Harper's poetry collection, Poems on

Miscellaneous Subjects, suggested that Harper's work would help the black community gain respect and, eventually, freedom and equality. Garrison noted that

Harper was not only a representative of "intelligence, talent, genius, and piety," but that her poems would

"deepen the interest already so extensively felt in the liberation and enfranchisement of the entire colored race." William Still once described Harper as "gifted" and a member of the "downtrodden class-in complexion and proscription" who, while working as a seamstress and a teacher, devoted her spare time to improving her skills as a writer. In a letter to Mary Ann Shadd Cary, in 1854, Still commented that Harper's selection of poems demonstrated her ability to judge "of what kind of material is best suited to reach the heart."33

Mary Ann Shadd Cary, the first black female editor of a newspaper, also received praise for providing a

•^Philanthropist. March 11, 1836; ME# Reel 1, fr. 0650. 33Provincial Freeman. Sept. 2, 1854; M E , Reel 9, fr. 0060. 285 vehicle for black voices and for expanding the role of black women in the abolitionist movement. Shadd even congratulated herself for setting a precedent for black women:

To colored women, we have a work— we have 'broken the Editorial ice'...for your class in America; so go on editing, as you are ready....34

H.T. Williams, a black male abolitionist, commended

Shadd for breaking the gender barrier in publishing, despite criticisms by those who believed she had intruded upon a male domain:

Although this routine of business for a female looks masculine, in the eyes of some, and is sneered at by the same class...yet it is creditable and prais[e]worthy, and never fails to produce a salutary effect. If Miss Shadd has gained any new plumes to her wreath, she is fully deserving of them, for her intrinsic value is not half known, nor appreciated by the people she has so faithfully served.35

The act of public speaking and writing among black women represented both a defiance of racist assumptions of black docility and resistance to attempts by whites to keep blacks subjugated. Black male leaders and many white abolitionists generally considered black women writers and speakers as symbols of black success and perseverance. Unlike white women, black women speakers i4Provlncial Freeman. June 30, 1855; M E, Reel 9, fr. 0227. JDProvlncial Freeman. March 1, 1856; BAP . Reel 10. fr. 0069. 286 and writers were perceived as assets to both the black community and the abolitionist movement. Their writings and speeches symbolized black protest and self- expression for the black community. At the same time, their activities provided black and white abolitionist leaders with fuel for abolitionist propaganda.

Several common themes emerge from black women's writings and speeches: the special impact of slavery on women, the possibility of creating a sisterhood between black and white women, and the need for black community improvement efforts. An examination of black women's speeches and writings reveals the special contribution they made to abolitionist thought and rhetoric. Sarah

Forten, Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Sarah Remond, and

Sojourner Truth described the harshness of slavery, although only Truth had actually been a slave. Even those women who had born free related vivid descriptions of the black woman's experience under slavery, knowledge they probably gained through contacts with fugitive slaves. Their families' involvement in the Underground Railroad and their connections with prominent abolitionists undoubtedly brought these women into contact with runaway slaves, who may have related details of their experiences to abolitionist rescuers. In Sarah Forten's poem, "Grave 287 of the Slave," she suggests that death for the slave was better than life In bondage:

Poor slave! shall we sorrow that death was thy friend! The last and the kindest that Heaven could send:- The grave to the weary is welcome and blest; And death to the captive is freedom and rest.36

Harper, Remond, and Truth argued that slavery was especially difficult for slave mothers, who often saw their children sold away from them. These women focused specifically upon slave motherhood, the breakup of the slave family, and the sexual exploitation of slave women. Frances E.W. Harper, the most prolific black woman writer of the nineteenth century, wrote several poems depicting the experiences of slave mothers. In

"The Slave Mother," Harper described the break-up of the slave family and the powerlessness of slave parents to prevent the sale of themselves or their children:

She is a mother, pale with fear, Her boy clings to her side, And in her kirtle vaihly tries His trembling form to hide.

He is not hers, although she bore For him a mother's pains; He is not hers, although her blood Is coursing through his veins!

He is not hers, for cruel hands May rudely tear apart

3°Philanthropist. March 11, 1836; fiAE, Reel 1, fr. 0650. 288

The only wreath of household love That binds her breaking heart.37

Sojourner Truth, an ex-slave, described her own trials as a slave mother in her famous "Ain't I a Woman" speech in 1851: "I have born[e] thirteen children, and seen them most all sold into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard meI"38

In "Eliza Harris," Harper's central character is a slave woman who tries to escape from slavery with her child. Eliza's desire for freedom was so strong that she preferred to see her child die rather than remain a slave:

She was nearing a river - in reaching the brink, She heeded no danger, she passed not to think1 For she is a mother - her child is a slave — And she'll give him his freedom, or find him a grave.39

As Harper suggested, death for slaves provided the freedom they could not obtain in life. By emphasizing a common bond of motherhood, perhaps Harper and Truth

■^Ibid, pp. 7-8. 38Loewenberg and Bogin, eds., Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life: Their Words. Their Thoughts. Their Feelings, p. 235; See also Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Joslyn Gage, eds., History of Woman Suffrage (Rochester, New York, 1881), I, p. 116. The speech was recorded in part by Mrs. Frances D. Gage, who presided over the meeting. 9FranceB Ellen Watkins, Poems on Miscellaneous Subjects (Philadelphia: Merrihew & Thompson Printers, 1857), pp. 9-10. 289 hoped to appeal to white women and to provide a common bond between women abolitionists and slave women.

During the 1830s, Sarah Forten expressed the hope of creating a black and white sisterhood. In 1836, she stressed the importance of "women's influence" in the movement and, in one poem, revealed her own acceptance of women's "appropriate sphere." Writing under the pseudonym "Ada," Forten wrote in her poem entitled

"Lines" that participation in abolitionism was women's duty:

Yes, this is woman's work, Her appropriate sphere; and nought should drive Her from the mercy seat, til mercy's work be finished. ®

At the Convention of American Women held in New

York City in 1837, she contributed a poem entitled, "We are thy sisters":

We are thy sisters. God has truly said, That of one blood the nations he has made. 0, Christian woman1 in a Christian land, Canst thou unblushing read this great command? Suffer the wrongs which wring our inmost heart, To draw one throb of pity on thy parti Our skins may differ, but from thee we claim A sister's privilege and a sister's name. 1

40The Liberator. Oct. 6, 1836; see also Stetson, ed., Black Sister: Poetry Bv Black American Women.... 17.4^ 1933., p. 18. ^Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society; Proceedings, Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women, 1837. 290

Forten expressed her belief that "women's influence" was essential to the success of abolitionism and that women of both races should unite in the cause. Forten's cry for unity among women of all races also suggests that white women had not always accepted black women as sisters.

Sarah Parker Remond, in her speech in 1859 on the differences between slave women and white women, used the theme of sexual exploitation as a way to draw a link of common womanhood between black and white women, as a way of urging white women to support abolitionism:

If English women and English wives knew the unspeakable horrors to which their sex were exposed on southern plantations, they would freight every westward gale with the voice of their moral indignation, and demand for the black woman the^protection and rights enjoyed by the white....45

In a report on Remond's speech, a writer for the Anti-

Slaverv Advocate argued that by emphasizing the sexual exploitation of slave women Remond intended to evoke sympathy and cooperation from white women in England:

...she called especially on the women of England to sympathize in the atrocious wrongs of the colored women of America, who are sold for their bases purposes, their value on the auction block being raised by every quality of beauty, talent, piety, and goodness which should have commanded

4iBogin, "Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist From Salem," p. 139. 291

the respect and tenderness of their fellow- creatures....43

Although Remond used the theme of sexual exploitation and motherhood to demonstrate that both black and white women shared the experience of womanhood, she suggested that slavery had made black women's experience profoundly different from that of white women:

There was this ^unmeasurable difference between the condition of the poorer English woman and that of the slave woman— -that their persons were free and their progeny their own, while the slavewoman was the victim of the heartless lust of her master, and the children whom she bore were his property.44

While Remond perceived gender oppression as common to both black and white women, she also recognized the inseparability of gender and race in the lives of black women. In the United States, race was the determining factor that allowed some women freedom and placed others in bondage. Even the poorest white women were at least free, although, as Remond admits, planters sometimes treated poor whites "with more contempt than the slaves themselves.1,45 More important, however, was

43Antl-Slaverv Advocate. Sept. 1, 1859? M E # Reel 12, fr. 0001. 44Bogin, "Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist From Salem," p. 139. 4Frederick Douglass' Paper. Feb. 17, 1860; BAP. Reel 12, fr. 0496. 292

her suggestion that sexual and reproductive

exploitation characterized the lives of slave women

and, hence, distinguished the lives of slave women from

those of white women.

Although Remond suggested that a universal

sisterhood between black and white women was a doubtful

possibility, she apparently was more optimistic about

at least forging a sisterhood between black and white

women abolitionists. In February 1859, when she

addressed an all-female audience at the Red Lion Hotel

in Warrington, the Englishwomen at the meeting

presented her with a watch. The inscription read: "Presented to S.P. Remond by Englishwomen her sisters,

in Warrington, February 2nd, 1859." Remond responded,

"I have been received here as a sister by white women."46

Black women writers and speakers also encouraged

free black men and women to participate in black

community improvement activities. Not all audiences,

however, appreciated this advice. As noted above, Maria

Stewart encountered hostility from black men in 1832 when she attempted to advise them on "proper" ways of

4°Warrington TimesT"[Feb. 5, 1859], cited in Bogin, "Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist from Salem," p. 131. 293 living. Like other reformers of her generation, Stewart promoted middle-class values of thrift, sobriety, and hard work. She advised black men to avoid gambling and dancing. According to Stewart, these activities undermined efforts to achieve self-sufficiency in the black community: "I would implore our men, and especially our rising youth, to flee from the gambling board and the dance-hall; for we are poor, and have no money to throw away...."47

Both Maria Stewart and Frances Harper argued that improved education in the free black community would convince whites of the "moral worth and intellectual improvement" of blacks and, hence, bring an end to racial prejudice. Stewart predicted that "prejudice would gradually diminish, and the whites would be compelled to say— Unloose those fetters1 Though Black their skins as shades of night, Their hearts are— pure-

-their souls are white."48 Harper maintained that education in "virtue and morality" as well as in practical skills was necessary for improving the condition of free blacks and would result in their

47Sterlinq. ed.. We~Are Your Sisters, p. 157. 4tlFrom Stewart's speech on Sept. 21, 1832 in Franklin Hall, Boston; reprinted in The Liberator. Nov. 17, 1832. 294

reception "as citizens, not worse than strangers...."49

Harper added that material wealth was also important

for improving the free black community, but noted that

those free blacks who had accumulated material wealth

had a special responsibility to the slave. In an essay she submitted to the Anqlo-African Magazine in May

1859, Harper urged blacks to use their time and money to support the movement to end slavery:

We have money among us, but how much of it is spent to bring deliverance to our captive brethren? Are our wealthiest men the most liberal sustainers of the Antislavery enterprise? Or does the bare fact of our having money, really help mould public opinion and reverse its sentiments?50

Although black women abolitionists usually

received praise for their writings and speeches from

black male abolitionists, social custom within the

black community Btill required them to act like

"respectable ladies" and defer to the authority of

black men. The career of Mary Ann Shadd and her

tumultuous relationship with Henry Bibb suggests that

even by the 1850s, when black male leadership supported

female public activism, black society still required women to behave like "ladies." The feud between Shadd

4s>Anti-Slaverv Bugle. Ohio, July 9, 1859; BAP. Reel 11, fr. 0852. 50Anglo-African Magazine. May 1859; M E , Reel 11, fr. 0721. 295

and Henry Bibb had developed over "caste" schools and

the Refugee Home Society in the free Black settlements

' in Windsor, Ontario. (See Chapter on Self-Help) Their

disagreement over these issues contributed to Shadd's

decision to establish her own abolitionist newspaper in

Windsor that rivaled Henry Bibb's Voice of the

Fugitive. The existence of competing black newspapers

in Canada symbolized the permanent rift between Shadd

and Bibb. Shadd published lengthy articles in her

newspaper, the Provincial Freeman, on a variety of

subjects, such as anti-colonization, emigration,

slavery, self-help, and the moral improvement of the

black community. The publication of this rival

newspaper in the Canadian free black community,

however, was more than simply a vehicle for printing

anti-Bibb articles. Part of her intention was to open

the way for black women who desired careers in editing

and publishing. White abolitionist women such as

Elizabeth Chandler and Lydia Maria Child already had

broken the gender barrier in newspaper editing for

white women.51 By claiming that she had "'broken the

Editorial Ice'" for black women, Shadd clearly

51Elizabeth Chandler edited the "Ladies Department" in Benjamin Lundy's Genius of Universal Emancipation and Lydia Maria Child edited the Anti-Slaverv Standard in Boston. 296

identified herself with her female readers and urged

' them to pursue careers in writing and publishing.

Shadd wrote in a style that was clearly

uncharacteristic of other black women writers of the

period. Her plainspoken and direct style contrasted

markedly with the eloquent poetry and prose of Sarah

Forten and Frances Ellen Watkins Harper. In her

writings, Shadd never hesitated to criticize persons

and institutions she considered harmful to antislavery

or to the progress of the free black community. For

example, Shadd attacked the Canadian and American

churches for allegedly supporting slavery, arguing that

the "American church is the pillar of American

slavery." In 1856, she expressed disdain for Frederick

Douglass in an article she wrote for the Provincial

Freeman; "Having been permitted so long to remain in

our tub, we would rather that the great Frederick

Douglass, for whose public career we have the most

profound pity, would stay out of our sunlight."52 Her

b2Shadd's obvious disgust with Douglass probably originated in the ongoing conflict between Black leaders over emigration and Black nationalism. Although Douglass had been a staunch supporter of Black • nationalism, race pride, and separatism, he had consistently opposed the Canadian emigration movement, arguing that for Blacks simply to leave the country that oppressed them was no solution to the problems of race prejudice or slavery. See Provincial Freeman. July 19, 1856; ME, Reel 10, fr. 0226. 297 outspokenness inevitably invited criticism from those who already disagreed with her opinions. Henry Bibb once wrote in his newspaper that "Miss Shadd has said and writes many things which we think will add nothing to her credit as a lady...."53

Black women abolitionists who used the pen and/or the public platform to articulate their opinions demonstrated an individual independence and a willingness to challenge prevailing expectations of gender and race in order to express publicly their views on slavery, racism, and abolition. Black women writers continued the tradition of black female writing established by Afro-American female writers a century earlier. Black women speakers, like white women, however, engaged in a traditionally male domain. During the early 1830s, they often encountered resistance from men. For black women, public speaking gradually became a justifiable form of participation just as long as they did not criticize men directly or challenge male authority. Black men, then, generally perceived black women speakers as assets to abolitionism.

biVolce of the Fugitive. July 15, 1852; fiAE, Reel 7, fr. 0657. Black female writers and speakers focused upon

Issues that were central to the lives of black women.

The sexual exploitation of slave women by white men and

the impact of slavery on slave mothers were prominent

themes in their speeches, poetry, and prose. Their

writings in the abolitionist press and public speeches

on these particular subjects served a dual purpose for

the abolitionist movement. For abolitionist leaders,

the writings and speeches of black women served as a way to challenge existing racial assumptions of black

intellectual inferiority. Moreover, black women

perhaps also hoped to recruit white women into the movement by appealing to the common experience of motherhood. Their writings and speeches, however, not

only served as abolitionist tools, but, more

importantly, represented their own forms of public

outcry against slavery and the subjugation of free blacks in the United States. As black women

abolitionists, they undoubtedly identified themselves with both black male activists and white female

abolitionists. Whether as black women they perceived

themselves as a distinct group of activists, however,

is not altogether clear. Nevertheless, as a group they did set a precedent for other black women who wished to write or speak publicly. At least one black woman in 299

this group, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, clearly perceived

herself as a black woman who had set a precedent for

other black women who wished to pursue a career in

editing.

PETITIONING

Free black women who dared to intrude upon the

male domain of politics by signing and circulating

petitions clearly exhibited a group consciousness as

black activist women. Male and female abolitionists of both races had frequently used the petition as a way

to protest slavery and race discrimination in the

"nominally free states." Abolitionists had flooded

Congress with antislavery petitions throughout the

antebellum period. Southern Congressmen had become so

incensed by these petitions that they succeeded in passing a "gag rule," forbidding the discussion of

slavery on the floor of Congress.

For women and black men, however, the petition was more than an abolitionist tactic. Political

disfranchisement was a condition women and black men

shared until 1869, when the passage of the Fifteenth

Amendment left women as the only adult group without

the right to vote. For women and black men, petitioning

represented their disfranchisement from the American 300 political system. For disfranchised groups, the petition was the only means to make their voices heard and effect changes in the law. During the antebellum period, both women and black men petitioned their state legislatures and Congress for the end of slavery and race discrimination in the District of Columbia and the

United States. By participating in petition campaigns, black women also protested their exclusion from the political process on the basis of both sex and race. A black male contributor to the Colored American, known only as "A Friend", expressed support for women's involvement in petitioning because both women and black men were excluded from voting: "I think, as they are identified with us in our sufferings...they are the aggrieved with us, and being aggrieved with us, certainly ought to have the right to petition also to have these grievances removed."54

Many male observers perceived women's participation in petitioning campaigns as improper behavior for women and an intrusion upon a traditionally male domain. One defender of female petitioners described some of the criticisms launched against women's participation in this activity:

54Colored American?"November 13, 1841. 301

The New York Sun is very severe upon the 'Eastern women' who are getting up petitions against the admission of Texas [as a slave state], and thinks they had better be shaking bed ticks rather than politics....55

Supporters of female petitioners combined ideas of women's "nature" and patriotism to justify their participation in a political activity. In 1837, one "Female Petitioner" wrote a lengthy defense of women petitioners for The Liberator, suggesting that the common bond of womanhood between free women and slave women necessitated women's participation in petitioning:

But now that our attention is called to the most dreadful scenes which are daily occurring in our own country, where the female slave murders her infant...that it may never know the horrors of slavery; where husband and wife, parents and children, are separated under the hammer of the auctioneers...and we have formed societies for the dissemination of light on this subject, and petitioning Congress to abolish the soul- destroying system; at least so far as they have the exclusive power to do it— -why we immediately overstep the bounds of female delicacy and propriety!56

The critic of the New York Sun supported women petitioners by arguing that "women's influence" would help to purify the nation: "if our 'State Laws' exclude them from Voting, they ought not to be excluded from

55The Liberator. Sent. 15, 1837, p. 152. 56Ibid. 302 exerting an influence upon the morals and prosperity of the nation."*57 Supporters also argued that female petitioners were merely following in the patriotic traditions of their Revolutionary foremothers. "A

Female Petitioner" wrote:

Well remember their [Revolutionary women's] readiness to aid their husbands, fathers, and brothers. Now loading fire arms; now moulding bullets, now exposing deep laid schemes of treachery....Did they overstep the bounds of female delicacy and propriety?58

One writer for the Boston Times, in his criticism of the New York Sun writers, argued that "Our grandmothers of the revolution did not confine themselves to

'shaking bed ticks'.... When those good grandmothers assisted in shaking the redcoats we had no squeamish editors...to cry out against it."59

Female antislavery societies and activist groups within the black community provided black women with the opportunities to participate in abolitionist petitioning drives, protesting both slavery and race discrimination. Between 1834 and 1850, for example, the members of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society sent petitions to the state legislature of Pennsylvania and to Congress, demanding the end of slavery. To

57Ibid. 5958Ibid. 303

Congress, the PFASS wrote: "The undersigned respectfully ask that you will...abolish everything in the Constitution or Laws of the U.S. which in any manner sanctions or sustains slavery."60 In the PFASS Annual Report in 1836, members of the Society wrote of their commitment to petitioning as an abolitionist tactic:

Since the year 1834, we have annually memorialized Congress, praying for the abolition of slavery in the District of Columbia and the Territories of the United States. We are frequently asked what good have petitions done: The full amount of good produced by them, is yet to be revealed....We knew that our petitions were not ineffectual, when the wise men of the South, sent back to us the cry, 'Impg^tinent intermeddlers1 incorrect devilsl &c. *

Black women members of the PFASS frequently served on committees to coordinate petitioning drives in the

Philadelphia area. The committee members drew up detailed maps of the city and assigned individuals and groups of PFASS women to cover specific neighborhoods.

In 1835, for example, Sarah Forten and Hetty Burr were the two black members appointed to a committee to

"obtain signatures to a petition to Congress."62

DUPhiladelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, Minutes, Oct. 12, 1843; Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society Papers £PASP) Reel 30. « I b i d * 6ZPhiladelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, Minutes, Sept. 10, 1835; PASP, Reel 30. 304

In Boston, members of the Female Anti-Slavery

Society also signed and circulated petitions. In 1837,

Maria Weston Chapman, representing the BFASS, coordinated women's petitions protesting the annexation of Texas as a slave state. In addition to petitioning against slavery, members of the BFASS also circulated petitions protesting race discrimination against free blacks. Black and white abolitionists petitioned, in particular, against discrimination on railroads, racial segregation in public schools, and the state marriage law which forbade interracial marriages.

In 1839, black members Susan Paul, Eunice R.

Davis, Lavinia Hilton, Chloe Lee, Jane Putnam, and

Julia Williams joined with other "undersigned women of

Boston" in submitting a petition to the Massachusetts legislature denouncing laws that forbade interracial marriage. Their protest of marriage laws represented a commitment to overturn social customs of racial separation in the North. Such a protest also revealed a radical side to the predominantly white middle class

BFASS. Horton has argued in his study of the Boston free black community that the movement to abolish the marriage law was the result of white initiative.

According to Horton, blacks recognized the sensitivity of the issue and, therefore, cautiously supported the 305

movement.6^ Additional evidence, however, indicates

that the black community may have felt more strongly

about the issue. In 1843, a group of '’Colored Citizens

of Boston" met in February to draw up resolutions to

support The Liberator and to denounce the state

marriage laws and race discrimination on railroads. The

group agreed to circulate these resolutions as petitions within the black community in Boston. Eunice

R. Davis was one of three black women appointed to a committee to obtain signatures for the petitions.64

Not all black women, however, supported the petition against the marriage laws. In fact, the reaction of one group of black' women indicates that the anti-marriage law campaign actually caused dissension among black women in Boston. In an effort to counter the resolutions of the "Colored Citizens of Boston," twenty black women in Boston presented their own petition to the state legislature supporting the effort to end race discrimination on railroad cars, but denouncing the attempt to abolish the state law that prohibited interracial marriages. This particular group of black women apparently interpreted the existing b-JJames Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle In the Antebellum North (New York: Holmes & Meier Publishers, Inc., 1979, pp. 70. 64The Liberator. February 10, 1843, p. 22. 306 marriage law as a form of protection for black women, an assurance that black men would marry only black women. These women argued that if petitioners succeeded in abolishing the law, black women throughout the state "will be deserted by their natural protectors and supporters, and thrown upon the world friendless and despised, and forced to get our bread by our own vile means that may be proposed to us by others, or that despair may teach us to invent...."65

Such a reaction indicates that some black women feared that black men would choose to marry white women instead of black women if the existing marriage law were abolished. In their petition, they suggested that if black men married white women, black women might resort to prostitution in order to survive. The counter-petition also reveals the pervasiveness of nineteenth century ideals about gender responsibilities within the free black community. Although economic realities within the community may have prevented the realization of these ideals, this group of twenty black women still believed that the role of black men waB to act as providers for and protectors of black women. Not surprisingly, the tradition of sexual exploitation of black women by white men led black women to assume that o5The Liberator. February 24, 1843, p. 30. 307

either women of their race probably would not marry white men or that white men would not want to marry

them.

Black women also participated in the abolitionist

drive to eliminate racial discrimination in the schools in Hay 1838, black and white petitioners in Connecticut obtained the repeal of a state law prohibiting the education of "colored persons" who came to Connecticut

from another state without the permission of local officials. In 1833, the Connecticut General Assembly

had passed the "Black Law," sometimes referred to as

the "Canterbury Law," after Prudence Crandall attempted to operate a racially-integrated female school in

Canterbury, Connecticut the year before.66 In March 1838, the newly-organized Connecticut state Anti-

Slavery Society passed a resolution urging inhabitants

°°Prudence Crandallwas a white teacher in the small community of Canterbury. In 1832, she admitted a young black student, Sarah Harris, into her exclusive Female Boarding School as a day student. Parents of many of the white students demanded Harris's removal from the school. When Crandall refused, her white students withdrew. Crandall then reopened announced the opening of a new school for "Young Ladies and Little Misses of Color." Her students came from New York, Providence, and Boston as well as from Connecticut. Whites in Canterbury harassed both Crandall and her black students. The state legislature passed a "new law" the following year prohibiting the teaching of blacks from out of state without permission from local authorities. See Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters. pp. 181-182. 308

of the state to sign and circulate petitions requesting

the repeal of the law. Perhaps in response to the

Society's appeal, 85 black women and 54 black men in

New Haven and 36 black women and 26 black men in Middletown, signing themselves "the colored

inhabitants", submitted petitions to the Connecticut

State Legislature requesting the repeal of the "Black

Law."67

In addition to working with their local anti­

slavery societies, black women abolitionists also

coordinated petition drives within the black community

in protest against discrimination in the public

schools. In 1844, black women signed a petition to

prevent the establishment of separate schools for black

children. In the "Petition on Separate Schools to the

Boston Committee," Eunice R. Davis, Margarett Scarlett,

Eliza Ann Logan Lawton, and Anna Logan, all members of

the BFASS, identified themselves as "the undersigned,

colored citizens of Boston," not as representatives of

the BFASS. In the petition, they argued that "the

establishment of separate schools for the coloured

0,1838 Petitions re: Repeal of the Act Prohibiting the Education of Colored Persons; courtesy of the Connecticut State Library, Box 27. 309 children of this city appears to us inexpedient."68 The decision of theBe women to identify with their community rather than the female antislavery society indicates a sense of racial commitment that existed apart from organized antislavery.

Black women's participation in petition campaigns waB a political form of public protest against slavery and race discrimination. Petitioning had been a popular tactic for black and white abolitionists since the early 1830s. But for black women, petitioning was more than an abolitionist tactic. By signing and circulating petitions, black women abolitionists exercised the limited political power of a doubly disfranchised group. For white male abolitionists, petitioning was not the only way they could participate in the political process. In addition to petitioning, they found other ways to protest slavery within the political arena. In 1840, they formed an antislavery political party in hopes of overthrowing the "Slave

Power" in Congress. For women and black men during the antebellum period, the formation of political parties was a meaningless option, since they could not vote.

Petitioning was the only way for these groups to

68Joshua Smith, et. al., "Petition on Separate Schools to the Boston Committee," Boston, 1844; BAP. Heel 4, fr. 0723-0726; contributor - Boston Public Library. participate in the political process. Although they failed to convince Congress to abolish slavery and prevent its extension into the territories in the Southwest, black and white petitioners did succeed in obtaining the repeal of some discriminatory laws on the state level. In Boston and Philadelphia, centers of abolitionist activity, black women participated actively in petition campaigns. Black women, in fact, had provided a large portion of black signatures on some of the petitions circulated within the free black community. In both New Haven and Middletown,

Connecticut, black women outnumbered black male signers against the "Black Law." For black women, petitioning served as both a way to protest slavery and race discrimination and to participate in a political system that excluded them from full citizenship on the basis of race and sex.

CONCLUSION

Black women who participated in abolitionism as speakers, writers, and petitioners to some degree publicly challenged sexual and racial expectations of behavior for women of color in nineteenth century

America. As women and as blacks, they shared 311 subordinate status with white women and black men. By engaging in writing and speaking, black women abolitionists challenged contemporary assumptions about the intellectual inferiority of blacks and women.

Petitioning provided black women with their only opportunity to appeal to the state and federal governments for the end of slavery and race discrimination. For black women, these forms of public activism were ways to make their voices heard in a society in which they, as blacks and as women, had been expected to keep silent.

Many free black women who engaged in organized antislavery and public abolitionist activities also supported the antebellum women's rights movement, which had evolved from female participation in abolition. As the next chapter will show, black feminist- abolitionists encountered both sexism from black men over the "woman question" and racism within the white- dominated women's movement. For black feminists, unlike white feminists, their involvement in women's rights represented a commitment to both racial and sexual equality. CHAPTER VII

THE CONTINUING STRUGGLE FOR EQUALITY: BLACK WOMEN ABOLITIONISTS AND

THE ANTEBELLUM WOMEN'S RIGHTS MOVEMENT

Blanch Glassman Harsh, in her study of feminist- abolitionists, excluded black women from her profile of leading women, arguing that black women had played a

"peripheral" role in the organized women's rights movement, "although they were important as abolitionists."1 Yet the abolitionist movement provided the context in which both black and white women campaigned for women's rights. On every level of activism, women, regardless of race, found that gender ideals limited their roles as abolitionists. In their interactions with men, women occupied traditional roles as supporters of male activities and male leadership.

For those women who engaged in antislavery activism, public opinion made them acutely aware of the consequences of engaging in traditionally male activities. It was in organized abolition that black lHerstr— The Slavery of Sex: Feminist Abolitionists in America, p. 120. 313 and white women publicly demanded an equal voice with men in the proceedings of state and national antislavery conventions. Traditionally, only men had served in decision-making capacities in the state and national organizations, in 1840, at the convention of the American Anti-Slavery Society, Abby Kelley Foster, a white woman, won a crucial victory on the "woman question" when she was elected to the Board of Managers of the AAS. Nearly a decade later, black women in

Columbus, Ohio demanded equal voting rights with men in the proceedings of the black conventions. Although women of both races had a stake in women's rights, white women controlled the organization of the movement from the beginning and adopted tactics which tended to exclude black women. Historians have argued that racism and sexism were formidable obstacles that prevented black women from participating as equals in the emerging women's rights movement. They have suggested further that racism within the suffrage movement prevented the creation of a cross-racial sisterhood and that black women responded to racism by conducting suffrage activities within their own organizations. Ellen DuBois has pointed out that the handful of black women who participated in the Equal Rights Association after the 314

Civil War played minor roles. Moreover, although the

image of the black woman as a victim of double

oppression had been a favorite rhetorical device of

abolitionists for denouncing slavery, white feminist-

abolitionists paid less and less attention to black women as the women's rights campaign developed into an

independent movement after the war. Rosalyn Terborg-

Penn, Bettina Aptheker, and Gerda Lerner have argued

further that white feminists often discouraged black women from joining predominantly white suffrage

organizations and from delivering addresses at suffrage meetings. Such discriminatory attitudes had increased by the end of the nineteenth century as white leaders

sought support from Southern white women and worried that associating with blacks might jeopardize that alliance.2 White women's treatment of black women ultimately prevented the possibility of forging a bi- racial feminist alliance, a situation that remained problematic for the women's movement into the 1980s.

2 DuBois. Feminisra~and Suffrage; The Emergence of an Independent Women's Movement in America. 1848-1869 , pp. 69-71; Rosalyn Terborg-Penn, "Discrimination Against Afro-American Women in the Woman's Movement, 1830-1920," pp. 17-27; Lerner, The Majority Finds Its Past; Placing Women in History, pp. 33, 68; and Bettina Aptheker, Woman's Legacy (Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1982), pp. 9-52. For earlier studies on the women's movement, see Eleanor Flexnor, h Century of struggle;_The_Woman»s Rights Movement in the United States (New York; Atheneum Books, 1968. 315

Scholars of both Afro-American and women's history

have also examined black men's attitudes and the extent to which they supported women's rights. Many white men,

especially members of the clergy, vigorously opposed

women's rights, arguing that political equality for

women would eventually draw them away from their

domestic responsibilities. Benjamin Quarles and Rosalyn

Terborg-Penn have argued that most black men

sympathized with the women's rights campaign because

they, like all women, had experienced political

disfranchisement.3 In particular, black men supported

equal rights for black women because both had suffered

race discrimination. To black men, black women's

suffrage was a means of achieving racial solidarity

through self-improvement and black empowerment. But as

black women's experiences in the black convention movement demonstrate, gender ideals were strong enough

to prevent most black men from giving their full

support to women's equality. Thus, although black men as a group expressed less opposition than did white men to women's rights, they were sometimes reluctant to grant women an equal voice in black antislavery and

•^Quarles. Black Abolitionists. p. 177; Terborg-Penn, "Black Male Perspectives on the Nineteenth-Century Woman," in The Afro-American Woman: struggles and Images. p. 29. 316

self-help organizations. By 1869, political expedience

led most of these men to abandon their support for

women's rights in favor of universal manhood suffrage.

Although Lerner, Terborg-Penn, and DuBois have

acknowledged that racism and sexism discouraged black women from supporting women's rights, they have not

fully explored the implications of the early women's

rights movement for black women's participation in the

ongoing struggle for equality. The nineteenth century

women's rights movement evolved from women's

participation in abolition, but the dominance of white

women in the movement and their decision to separate

women's rights from abolition accounted for the

alienation of black women. While many white feminists

sought to disconnect women's rights from abolition,

black women retained their commitment to both abolition

and women's rights.

For the most part, then, the number of black women

who participated in organized feminism was small. Yet

this does not mean that black women were uninterested

in women's rights. Their demand for equal rights with men in the black conventions provides the strongest evidence of a developing feminist consciousness among black women and the seriousness of their claim for female equality. This chapter explores the activity of 317

black feminist-abolitionists, as individual spokeswomen

for female equality and as participants in the black

convention movement. As this chapter will demonstrate,

black women supported women's rights in the abolition movement and racial equality in the women's movement, but encountered resistance from black abolitionist men

and white feminists. Despite these obstacles, however, black feminist-abolitionlsts maintained their support for the achievement of racial and sexual equality.

The efforts by several black and white women to

engage in non-traditional antislavery activities during the 1830s produced debate among blacks and whites over

the extent to which women could participate as public

activists without losing their womanhood. Maria

Stewart, as we have seen, had suffered verbal and

physical abuse when she attempted to deliver public

speeches. Stewart demonstrated her own feminist views

during the early 1830s when, as the first American-born

female speaker, she defied tradition as a black woman by delivering public speeches.

Several years before the "woman question" became a divisive issue among abolitionists, Stewart advocated economic independence and education for all women, regardless of race. In an address to the Afric-American 318

Female Intelligence Society in 1832, Stewart urged

women to save money and- build their own businesses,

arguing that economic independence would enable women

to exercise their capabilities beyond the domestic

realm. Stewart advised all women to "unite and build a

store of your own. We have never had an opportunity of displaying our talents; therefore the world thinks we know nothing." Although Stewart was unquestionably a strong supporter of women's rights, she, like many others, upheld male behavior as the standard. She also told the women in her audience to exhibit independence:

"Possess the spirit of independence.... Possess the spirit of men, bold and enterprising, fearless and undaunted. Sue for your rights and privileges."4

By the late 1830s, Garrison and his supporters raised the issue of women's participation as voting members in the proceedings of state and national antislavery societies, ihe controversy divided the

Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society in 1839 and finally resulted in the formal division of the American Anti-

Slavery Society in 1840. other issues, such as non- resistance, universal reform, and abolitionist involvement in the political system, had contributed to

4Loewenberg and Bogin, eds., Black Women in Nineteenth Century American Life, p. 189. 319

the dissension that had been developing within

antislavery ranks since the mid-1830s. While pro-

Garrisonians believed in universal reform, women's

rights, and the continuation of "moral suasion," anti-

Garrisonians perceived political action as the most

practical means of ending slavery and believed that all

other issues besides abolishing slavery were

extraneous. It was the "woman question," however, that

had been the final straw which led anti-Garrisonians to

walk out of the AAS meeting in 1840 when the pro-

Garrison majority elected Abigail Kelley Foster as the

first woman to the Executive Committee by a vote of

557-451. The results of the vote revealed that

disagreement over women's rights had cut the national

- 'organization nearly in half.5

After the election, the dissenting members, led by

Lewis Tappan, left to form their own national

antislavery organization, the American & Foreign Anti-

Slavery Society, which was committed to supporting an

antislavery party and keeping women out of executive

positions. Although Lewis Tappan argued that the "woman

question" had not been the sole reason for the breakup

of the AAS, it was the primary one. In a letter to

5Pillon. The Abolitionists, p. 124. 320

Theodore Dwight Weld after the split, Tappan made clear

his position on women's rights:

When the Constitution of the A. Anti S. Soc. was formed in 1833, and the word "person" introduced, all concerned considered that it was to be understood as it is usually understood in our benevolent Societies. All have a right to be members, but the business to be conducted by men.... Women have equal rights with men, and therefore they have a right to form societies of women only. Men have the same right. Men formed the Amer. Anti S. Society.6

The split in the AAS also produced divisions among

black male abolitionists.7 Although most black men

sided with Garrison, many others joined the new

organization primarily because they had become

disillusioned with "moral suasion" as a tactic and

agreed with the Tappan wing that the formation of an

antislavery political party was the only realistic way

of defeating the Slave Power in Congress and ending

slavery. Although some black men may have supported

°Lewis Tappan to Theodore D. Weld, May 26, 1840, Letters of Theodore Dwight Weld. Angelina Grimke Weld and Sarah Grimke. 1832-1844 (New York: D. Appleton- Century, Inc., 1934), vol. II, pp. 836. 7Thomas Van Rensselaer, David Ruggles, and Charles B. Ray, for example, stayed with Garrison. Many black men who defected with the Tappan faction were members of the clergy, who had encouraged women activists to remain within their "proper" sphere. The eight black men who attended the meetings that created the American & Foreign Anti-Slavery Society included Rev. Samuel E. Cornish, Amos & Rev. Jehiel C. Beman, and Rev. Theodore S. Wright. 321

women's participation in the movement, this issue was

not a priority for many of the black male delegates.8

Some black men, however, openly opposed the equal

participation of women. Such opposition challenges the

arguments of Quarles and Terborg-Penn by demonstrating

that not all black abolitionist men perceived equal

rights for women as a way to achieve racial solidarity.

Samuel Cornish, who had always believed that women

should engage only in "feminine" activities in the

movement, supported the Tappan wing and served as a

delegate to the new organization. Nearly one year after

the split, Cornish wrote about the "woman question" and

the breakup of the AAS:

Whilst most, if not all of us differ with those ladies on the question of women's rights, we do not therefore undervalue their successful and arduous labors in the Anti-Slavery Cause....9

Kelley-Foster's election to the Executive

Committee of the AAS clearly opened the way for

increased female participation in the affairs of the

Society, but the incident represented a victory more

8Quarles and Bell have shown that many black men in the movement supported the political approach to fighting the Slave Power in Congress by joining with the faction of the Tappan wing that favored the formation of an antislavery party. Quarles, Black Abolitionists, pp. 46-47? The Emancipator. Feb. 25, 1841? M E , Reel 3, fr. 0904, 0906-07. 322 for white than for black women. After the dissenting faction left the meeting, the remaining delegates nominated two white women and one black woman to serve on the Executive Committee. David Lee Child's nomination of Lucretia Mott and Lydia Maria Child carried, but Charles B. Ray's nomination of Hester

Lane, a black woman and ex-slave, was rejected. The response to the Lane incident reveals that blacks were well aware that racism existed among white abolitionists. A contributor to the Colored American blamed racism in the AAS for Lane's exclusion from the

Committee:

He [David Lee Child] therefore nominated Lucretia Mott, of Philadelphia, as a member of the Executive Committee— carried....Charles Ray, then moved, as there was still one vacancy in the committee, that the name of Hester Lane be added— lost. Hester Lane is well known in this city as a woman of good character and senses, and has been a slave, but the "principle" could not carry her color.— eh l10

Thomas Van Rensselaer, a black pro-Garrisonian from New

York, countered the charge in the Colored American by arguing that he had stopped Lane's appointment for ideological reasons, stating that Lane had supported the Tappan faction. In a letter to The Emancipator. Van

Rennsselaer defended his action:

10The Colored American. May 30, 1840 323

HESTER LANE - A great outcry has been made about the individual, being rejected as a member of the Executive Committee of the National Society.... Reasons for objecting, because I had a conversation with Mrs. Lane a few days before on the woman question, and found her opposed to us, and strongly in favor of the new oraanizationists. With those facts before my mind...I rose and said the committee was full, although it was found afterwards that another person could have been constitutionally added, so that all the blame, if blame there is, ought to be attached to brother Ray, for nominating a person who he knew, or ought to have known, was opposed to us.11

Whatever the truth about this affair, the charge that Lane had been rejected on the basis of her color reveals that racism within organized antislavery had by

1840 made black male leaders suspicious of any slights made against other representatives of their race and, perhaps, signified their growing disillusionment with white-dominated abolition.

The rejection of a black woman, rather than a black man from the executive committee reveals the subordinate position of black women in the hierarchy of organized abolitionism and the strategic importance of excluding black women from occupying such a powerful position in the national organization. In light of the divisions that had been brewing already among abolitionists, abolitionist leaders may have feared

J-LThomas Van Rensselaer to Joshua Leavitt, The Emancipator. June 25, 1840; BAP. Reel 3, fr. 0649. 324

that the election of a black woman to the executive

committee might offend white women abolitionists and

cause additional dissension, particularly among white

women. Such fears were not unfounded; many white women

abolitionists had already demonstrated extreme

reluctance even to associate with black women. It was

well known that white women's antislavery societies in Fall River, Rochester, and New York City had wanted to

exclude black women from membership.

During the formative years of the nineteenth

century women's rights movement, in fact, white

feminist leaders had done little to encourage the

cooperation of black women, even though women of both

races had experienced sexism in the antislavery

movement and had expressed strong support for female

equality. During the early years of organized feminism,

white women dominated the movement. Many of them

adopted racist tactics in order to create an

independent women's movement and attract a wider

constituency of white women.3*2 Abolition had attracted

a minority, albeit vocal, portion of the population in

the United States and had been unpopular among many

•^Angela Davis. Women. Race & Class (New York: Vintage Books, 1981), pp. 70-85;DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage, pp. 69-71, 77? Terborg-Penn, "Discrimination Against Afro-American Women in the Women's Movement, 1830- 1920," p. 20. 325

whites, who feared that the movement would result in

"amalgamation" between the races.

Thus, even though women's rights had evolved from women's participation in abolition, many white

feminists, by the 1850s, were determined to disassociate women's rights from antislavery and form

an independent movement. The white-dominated Women's

Rights convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851 revealed the anti-abolitionist sentiment of some of the constituents. Many supporters of the early women's rights movement, although they may have have worked for the end of slavery, perceived abolition as a separate issue and potentially divisive for women's rights. In their desire to disavow connections to abolition and, hopefully, attract a wider constituency of women, white

feminists considered the presence of black women detrimental to their goals.13

To discourage black women from participating with white women in the movement was not a difficult task,

since white feminists had ignored the concerns of black women from the beginning of organized women's rights. In 1848, white feminist leaders Lucretia Mott and

Elizabeth Cady Stanton held the first women's rights

x,JBettina Aptheker. Woman's Legacy, pp. 48-51; Dubois, Feminism and Suffrage, p. 52. 326

convention at Seneca Falls, New York, where they

outlined their goals in the Declaration of Sentiments.

Motivated by their own experiences as white middle- class women, the framers of the Declaration of

Sentiments addressed issues that were particularly relevant to their lives. Thus they concentrated on

issues such as the oppression of women within the

institutions of marriage and the family and discrimination in education and the professions.

Marriage and family, they argued, denied them the power to control their own finances and prevented them from pursuing other, more worldly, interests, and educational institutions and the professions had traditionally excluded women.

No black women attended the Seneca Falls convention, the issues addressed by the delegates held little relevance for most black women's lives. Marriage did not restrict most black women from fulfilling their domestic responsibilities. Marriage for slaves was, of course, illegal, and unlike middle-class white women, most free black women worked outside of the home in low-paying domestic jobs in order to support their families. Many free black women even operated their own 327

businesses.3-4 In addition, black women who had

organized for the repeal of state marriage laws had approached the issue from a racial standpoint. The

group of free black women who petitioned the

Massachusetts legislature in the 1840s demonstrated

that black women's interest in changing the marriage

laws focused on opposition to the laws that forbade

interracial marriages. Many of the white delegates at

Seneca Falls would undoubtedly have been appalled at

the thought of eradicating the marriage laws that

implicitly protected their own interests in the

marriage market. Black women, therefore, fought these

laws within the context of abolitionism rather than in

organized women's rights. Discrimination against women

in higher education and in the professions also meant

little to most black women, since, as Sojourner Truth

later noted, they "go out washing, which is about as high as a colored woman gets."15

14Sharon Harley focuses upon the exclusion of free black women from the northern factory system during the Jacksonian period. See Sharon Harley, "Northern Black Female Workers: Jacksonian Era," in The Afro-American Woman;_ Struggles and Images, pp. 6-8; Suzanne Lebsock, The Free Women of Petersburg: Status and Culture in a Southern Town. 1784-1860 (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1984), pp. 100-103. Jacqueline Jones explores labor patterns among free black women between Reconstruction and the Twentieth Century. See Jacqueline Jones, Labor of Love. Labor of Sorrow, chapters 2-8. 15Stanton, et al., History of Woman Suffrage, p. 193. 328

But, as Truth suggested later, black women too had

a stake in gaining control over their finances. In her

speech at the Equal Rights Association meeting in 1867,

she suggested that black women shared with white

working class women the dual burden of economic and

domestic responsibilities as well as lack of control

over their own wages: "and when the women come home, they [their husbands] ask for their money and take it

all, and then scold you because there is no food.... I want women to have their rights...."16 Nevertheless, most black women had stayed away from the early women's

rights meetings.

Previous attempts to interact with white women had made many black women painfully aware that white women,

as a group, could not be trusted to understand black women's concerns. As their experiences as abolitionists

had revealed, black women often pursued abolitionist

goals and strategies that differed from those of white women. The formation of the all-black Women's

Association in Philadelphia best illustrates this phenomenon. Black women abolitionists, some of whom had belonged to the racially-mixed Philadelphia Female

Anti-Slavery Society, organized their own society in

loIbid. 329

order to work for both the advancement of the free

black community and the abolition of slavery. Although

the PFASS had done much to aid free blacks, the

society's primary objective was to campaign for the end

of slavery. Moreover, some organizations, such as the

Boston Female Anti**Slavery Society, had required black

and white women to sit in separate sections when they

attended antislavery meetings. Other female societies,

such as the Ladies' New York city Anti-Slavery Society,

excluded black women altogether. Such racist attitudes carried over into the women's rights conventions. Thus, both a failure to understand black women's issues and the adoption of racist tactics in the early women's movement contributed to the alienation of black women

from organized women's rights.

Despite their alienation from women's rights organizations, black women fought for female equality either as independent spokeswomen or as participants in the black convention movements. All of the black women who supported women's rights before the Civil War, unlike many white women, retained their commitment to abolition. Mary Ann Shadd Cary and Sojourner Truth carried on the tradition of public speaking that Maria

Stewart had established twenty years before. Shadd and 330

Truth were two of the most outspoken black female

proponents of women's rights and abolition. These

leading black feminist-abolitionlsts demonstrated in

their own lives their willingness to defy prevailing

expectations of behavior for women and blacks.

Mary Ann Shadd Cary displayed her willingness to

engage in untraditional activities for the sake of

abolition by travelling unaccompanied by her husband on

lecture tours in order to promote Canadian emigration

and abolition and to solicit financial support for the

Provincial Freeman and destitute fugitive slaves in

Canada. Shadd*s activities as a newspaper publisher and travelling lecturer demonstrated an independence and assertiveness that defied contemporary expectations of black docility and female submissiveness. Based upon her own untraditional activities, it is not surprising that Shadd supported women's rights. In 1856, Shadd commented on the dearth of women's rights sentiment in one of the towns she visited on her lecture tour. In her report to the EE9.Ylnslal_F.r.gsman, Shadd noted that in Geneva, Illinois, "the cause of 'Women's Rights" does not flourish as it should..."17 She also

•^Provincial Freeman. April 26, 1856? M E / Reel 10, fr. 0118. 331

suggested that black men may have helped to undermine women's rights sentiment in Geneva:

...strange enough, the monkey tricks of such colored men are said to injure it. An honest and venerable abolitionist of Geneva was free to express his fears for me and for women generally, because of the many 'failures' of colored men in that region. What absurdity next?18

Sojourner Truth was one of the only black spokeswomen who attended predominantly white women's rights meetings before the Civil War and the only one who spoke directly to white women on racism and the particular condition of black women. Her experience as the only black woman at the women's rights convention in Akron, Ohio in 1851 clearly illustrates the attitudes of many of the white delegates toward the presence of black women and their determination to keep women's rights separate from abolition. At the Akron convention, Truth delivered her famous "Ain't I a

Woman" speech amidst hisses from the crowd. In this speech, she pointed out the hypocrisy of "chivalry" to the white women in the audience and asserted that racism had prevented black women from enjoying the respect and deferential treatment that white women traditionally received:

ldProvincial Freeman. April 26, 1856; ME# Reel 10, fr. 0118. 332

Nobody ever helps me into carriages, or over mud- puddles, or gives me any best place1 And ain't I a woman? Look at met I have ploughed, planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head meI And ain't I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man— when I could get it~and bear the lash as well! And ain't I a woman? I have born thirteen children and seen most all sold into slavery, and when I cried out with my mother's grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain't 1 a woman?19

Truth's legendary speech also addressed the racism of the white women in the audience, many of whom expressed discomfort when they saw her at the convention:

The leaders of the movement trembled on seeing a tall, gaunt black woman in a gray dress and white turban, surmounted with an uncouth bonnet, march deliberately into the church, walk with the air of a queen lip the aisle, and take her seat upon the pulpit steps. A buzz of disapprobation was heard all over the house....

When they saw Truth enter the convention hall,

several white observers assumed that the presence of a black woman meant that the women's rights convention was also an antislavery meeting: "there fell on the

listening ear, 'An abolition affair!' 'Women's rights

and niggers!' 'I told you so!"21 Several of the delegates were so determined to disassociate women's rights from abolitionism that they begged Frances Dana

19Ibid, p. 235. 20Stanton, et al., History of Woman Suffrage, vol I, pp. 115-116. 21Ibid. 333

Gage, the preeident of the convention, to stop Truth

from delivering her speech.

Again and again, timorous and trembling ones came to me and said, with earnestness 'Don't let her speak, Mrs. Gage, it will ruin us. Every newspaper in the land will have our cause mixed with abolition & niggers, and we shall be utterly denounced...,22

Gage apparently ignored their requests and allowed

Truth to speak, despite signs of disapproval from the

audience:

'Don't let her speak1' gasped half a dozen in my ear. She moved slowly and solemnly to the front, laid her old bonnet at her feet, and turned her great speaking eyes to me. There was a hissing sound of disapprobation above and below. I rose and announced 'Sojourner Truth,' and begged the audience to keep silent for a few moments.23

Truth's activities at the Akron convention held special

significance for her status as a black woman. By entering the convention hall with the "air of a queen" and delivering a public address to whites, Truth defied prevailing expectations of black docility and female subroissiveness.

The events of the Akron convention reveal a great deal about the state of the women's rights movement in

1851 and the attitudes of many white feminists.

^Ibid. 23Ibid. 334

Although the women's rights movement had evolved from

abolitionism, white feminist leaders wanted to attract

non-reformers into the movement. Thus, in their attempt

to attract a broader constituency, they perceived

abolition as detrimental to women's rights". Racism, however, also influenced the decision to disassociate women's rights from abolition. The attempt to exclude Truth, the only black woman at the convention,

demonstrates that many white women, however deep their

feminist convictions, were reluctant to violate the

traditional practice of separating the races at public

functions. The continuation of this policy destroyed

any possibility of creating a sisterhood between black and white women.

The careers of individual black women such as

Maria Stewart, Mary Ann Shadd Cary, and Sojourner Truth clearly demonstrated their commitment to both abolition and women's rights. While these spokeswomen articulated their feminist views to public audiences, lesser known black women abolitionists raised the issue of women's rights in the black conventions. Most black conventions allowed only men to obtain membership, although the delegates usually allowed women to attend and perform "feminine" tasks. 335

In 1830, black male leaders organized the first

national black convention at Bethel Church in

Philadelphia. The following year, fifteen male

delegates met in Philadelphia to attend the First

Annual Negro Convention, which several leading white

abolitionists attended as guests.In addition to

condemning slavery, racism, and colonization, the delegates also emphasized issues that were dear to black abolitionists. In particular, they promoted both practical and traditional education for blacks,

temperance, better employment opportunities for black men, and moral reform.25 These racially-based

conventions advocated some of the same goals that the white-dominated national and state antislavery

societies had supported. White male abolitionists, however, controlled the agendas of the AAS, the

American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, and the

state organizations. Although black men participated in the proceedings as full members, they often were not

included in policy-making decisions. The demonstration of such racist attitudes among white leaders irritated

^Herbert Aptheker, ed., A Documentarv_Historv of the Negro People in the United States (New York: The Citadel Press, 1951), p. 114. 25Howard Holman Bell, A Survey of the Negro Convention Movement. 1830-1861 (New York: Arno Press, 1969), pp. 1-2 . 336

many black abolitionist, several of whom eventually

broke from the white~dominated faction of the

abolitionist movement. The black conventions,

therefore, gave black men the power to formulate their

own goals and strategies for the antislavery movement, which they believed was, above all else, a black

struggle.

Black women's interaction with black men in organized abolitionism provided the context in which black women demanded an equal voice in predominantly male organizations. Like white women, black women

abolitionists also fought for the right to participate

as full voting members. Unlike the AAS, however, the black conventions did not split over the "woman

question." The records of black convention proceedings during the antebellum period reveal that black women made several attempts to obtain an equal standing with men in the proceedings.

Black women's first official cry for equality in black antislavery conventions occurred in 1848, the same year as the Seneca Falls Convention. That year, at the annual meeting of the National Convention of

Colored Freedmen in Cleveland, Ohio, one black woman, joined by prominent male leaders Martin Delany and

Frederick Douglass, raised the issue of the right of 337 women to participate in the convention proceedings, to

speak and vote as men did. Many black men, like their white counterparts, had not considered that black women might play more than an auxiliary role in the

antislavery movement. After considerable debate, however, the business committee agreed to classify women as "persons" and allow them to participate on an

equal basis with men.26

One year after the Cleveland convention, black women who had attended the Ohio State Convention held

in Columbus, Ohio, threatened to boycott the convention

unless they were permitted to participate. A Mrs. Jane

P. Merritt submitted a resolution to the Chairman of

the Business Committee at the evening session on

Friday, January 17, 1849:

Whereas the ladies have been invited to attend the Convention, and have been deprived of a voice, which the ladies deem wrong and shameful. Therefore, Resolved, that we will attend no more after tonight, unless the privilege is granted.27

After some debate, the Committee adopted the resolution and granted women an equal voice in the proceedings.

Black women's demands for an equal voice in the

“'’Willie Mae Coleman, "Keeping the Faith and Disturbing the Peace: Black women: From Antislavery to Women's Suffrage," unpublished dissertation, (University of California, Irvine, 1982), p. 18. 27Colored Citizens of Ohio, State Convention. Columbus, January 10-18, 1849. Minutes and Addresses, p. 15. 338

proceedings, however, did not mean that they had

rejected contemporary notions of womanhood. The black women at the Columbus convention proclaimed the right

to participate as "ladies.11

Despite official admittance of women into the national conventions, however, black conventions did not develop consistent policies on the participation of black women; decisions varied from state to state and at individual meetings when the issue arose.28 A sexual division of responsibility still prevailed in some black conventions even after the Ohio women had won their rights. In 1859, members of both sexes attended the New England Colored Citizens' Convention in Boston. Several prominent white male abolitionists also attended. But, while the men voted and determined policy, most of the women arranged the flowers that adorned the delegates' tables. Two women served on the

15-member Finance Committee: (Mrs.) Eliza Logan Lawton, a member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, and

Ruth Rice Remond, a member of the respected Remond family of Salem, Massachusetts.28

^Coleman, "Keeping the Faith," p. 20. 29Proceedings of the New England Colored Citizens' Convention, Boston, August l, 1859, cited in Philip Foner and George Walker, eds., Proceedings of the Black State Conventions. 1840-1865. vol. II, pp. 207-208. 339

During the 1850s, black men in at least two states

continued to thwart black women's attempts to obtain an

equal voice with men in the conventions. In 1855, a New

York black woman was expelled from a convention "for no

other reason than her sex."30 In Philadelphia that same year, delegates to the National Convention of Coloured

Hen excluded women from membership when they voted 23 to 3 against admitting Mary Ann Shadd as a member, although they allowed her to deliver an address.

Frederick Douglass had been one of the three men who favored admitting Shadd. A male observer at the convention, although admitting that Shadd had made "one of the best speeches," noted approvingly that the majority of the men at the convention had separated women's rights from black conventions and denied Shadd membership. He also criticized those men who favored her admission:

Great men, however, are not always wise; and Mr. [Frederick] Douglass himself supplied an example, in advocating the Motion, that 'Miss Shadd should be elected a member,' a proposition which was actually entertained, although a few men of sense protested, that 'that was not a Women's Rights Convention.'31

Frederick Douglass had been one of the most vocal advocates of women's rights, although he still held to

30The Trov Daily Times. Sept. 6, 1855, p. 2? cited in cpleman, "Keeping the Faith,"., p. 20. 3IBritish Banner. Nov. 20, 1855; M E , Reel 9, fr. 0938. 340 the common belief in women's moral superiority and delicacy. According to Douglass, the differences between men and women did not justify political inequality. In one editorial entitled "LADIES",

Douglass argued that women's intelligence, moral superiority, and benevolent nature were good reasons for granting them political rights:

The almoners of the race of man, superior to the opposite sex in all the offices of benevolence and kindness, fully equal in moral, mental and intellectual endowments, in short, entitled to an equal participancy in all the designs and accomplishments allotted to man during his career on earth. May the accumulated evils of the past, and those of the present, which superstition and bigotry have prescribed for them as a test of inferiority, be buried forever.32

In July, 1848, Douglass endorsed the Seneca Falls

Convention, even though he had not attended: "Our doctrine is that 'right is of no sex.' We therefore bid the women engaged in this movement our humble

Godspeed."33 At the same time, however, Douglass believed that ending slavery was a higher priority than achieving female equality. In a lecture to the

Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Society in 1855,

Douglass asserted that women's rights had been a "side

3

issue" which disrupted the national organization

fifteen years before:

I nay say, however, that the first grand division took place fourteen years ago, and on the very minor question— Shall a woman be a member of a committee in company with men? The majority said she should be; and the minority seceded. Thus was a grand philanthropic movement rent asunder by a side issue, having nothing, whatever to do with the great object which the American Anti-Slavery Society was organized to carry forward....While X see no objection to my occupying a place on your committee, I can for the slave.1 s sake forego that privilege. The battle of Woman's Rights should be fought on its own ground....34

Thus, prior to the debate over black male suffrage

during Reconstruction, even the most enthusiastic black

male supporters of women's rights believed that

abolition and women's rights should be separate movements, and that women's rights agitation actually hurt the cause of abolition.

The racist attitudes and tactics of white

feminists and the sexism of black male leaders manifested themselves in a political context after the

Civil War when feminists and former abolitionists debated the issues of citizenship and suffrage. As

Ellen DuBois has shown, the emphasis on these issues during Reconstruction set the direction of the women's

J4Lecture delivered before the Rochester Ladies' Anti- Slavery Society, January 1855; Foner, ed., The Life and Writings of Frederick Douglass (New York: International Publishers, 1950), vol. II, pp. 349-350. 342

rights movement for the rest of the nineteenth century;

suffrage became the primary focus of feminists, particularly after the passage of the Fifteenth

Amendment in 1869. Both the Fourteenth and Fifteenth

Amendments engendered conflict between those who wanted to grant only black men citizenship and suffrage and those who believed women should also receive political rights. The Fourteenth Amendment, ratified in 1867, defined citizenship but failed to guarantee the protection of civil rights. More importantly to

feminists, however, the framers of the amendment officially excluded women by inserting the word "male"

in the amendment. Abolitionists had initially opposed the Fourteenth Amendment because it had failed to

commit the federal government to ensuring the protection of civil rights for the freedmen.

Abolitionist leaders eventually accepted the measure, however, out of their fundamental support for the

Republican Party and its plans for Reconstruction.

Their acceptance of the measure also confirmed the

American Anti-Slavery Society's commitment to obtaining civil and political rights for black men first and women second. Some white feminist leaders opposed the

Fourteenth Amendment and used the exclusion of black women as a means of arguing against the measure. 343

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in an angry letter to Wendell

Phillips, stated:

May I ask just one question based on the apparent opposition in which you place the negro and the woman? My question is this: Do you believe the African race is composed entirely of males?35

Yet the ensuing debate over suffrage revealed that

white feminists had included the interests of black

women only as a rhetorical device. The proposed

suffrage amendment engendered further conflict between

former abolitionists who wanted to grant political

rights to black men and feminist leaders who campaigned

for women's suffrage by favoring "universal suffrage"

for all adults. The members of the predominantly white

Equal Rights Association campaigned vigorously for

"universal suffrage" between the formation of the

Association in 1866 and the passage of the Fifteenth

Amendment in 1869. Ardent white feminists and several

black women believed that the Fifteenth Amendment,

which granted suffrage to black men, had betrayed

women's rights.

Yet white women and black men both betrayed black women. Frederick Douglass, in a letter to white

^Elizabeth Cady Stanton to Wendell Phillips, May 25, 1865; cited in DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage, p. 60. For more information on the debate over the fifteenth amendment, see Bettina Aptheker, Woman's Legacy, pp. 9- 52. 344

feminist Mrs. Josephine White in 1868, attempted to

explain why he believed political equality for black

men was of more immediate importance than suffrage for

women. In his argument, he did not include black women

in his plea for "Negro suffrage," even though he knew

that black women had suffered as much as black men in

both slavery and freedom. Yet to include black women in

the suffrage package would have meant including all

women, a move that he knew would have been too radical

for Congress to accept. Thus, in Douglass's letter to

White, he excluded black women from his argument in favor of "Negro suffrage":

I never suspected you of sympathizing with Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton in their course. Their principle is: that no Negro shall be enfranchised while woman is not. Now, considering that white men have been enfranchised always, and colored men have not, the conduct of these white women, whose husbands, fathers and brothers are voters, does not seem generous.36

While black men supported suffrage for themselves

over political equality for women, white feminist

leaders made clear the class and racial bias of the

women's movement, particularly after the passage of the

Fifteenth Amendment. The Equal Rights Association split

3o"Griffing Papers," Columbia Univ. Library; published by Joseph Borone in The Journal of Negro History (1948), pp. 469-70; see also Aptheker, ed., h Documentary History of the Negro People in the United States. pp. 627-28. 345

in 1869 into the American Woman Suffrage Association

and the National Woman suffrage Association as a result

of disagreement over the amendment. The AWSA faction

agreed to accept the amendment on the condition that

the Republican Party promise to support future

campaigns for women's suffrage. The NWSA, however,

proposed the more radical "universal suffrage"

amendment. In Stanton's argument for a sixteenth amendment that would enfranchise women, she represented

the interests of white middle class women and exploited

prevailing fears and prejudices against non-whites in

the United States:

American women of wealth, education, virtue and refinement, if you do not wish the lower orders of Chinese, Africans, Germans and Irish, with their low ideas of womanhood to make laws for you and your daughters,... to dictate not only the civil, but moral codes by which you shall be governed, awake to the danger of your present position and demand that women, too, shall be represented in the government!37

The continuation of racist and sexist attitudes

during the debate over the Fourteenth and Fifteenth

Amendments had indeed placed black women in a

peripheral position in the struggle for equal rights

after the war, as both white women and black men

excluded them from their suffrage proposals. But the

37Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, and Matilda Jocelyn Gage, eds., HlstQrv_of Woman Suffrage, vol. II, p. 391. See also DuBois, Feminism and Suffrage, p. 178. 346

exclusion of black women from the suffrage movement, as

well as their commitment to both racial and sexual

equality, were instrumental in shaping the direction of black women's activism for the remainder of the

nineteenth century.

The debate over the Fourteenth and Fifteenth

Amendments forced black women to choose between racial and sexual equality. Political expediency led some black women to accept the Fifteenth Amendment. Frances

Ellen Watkins Harper, for example, campaigned for women's suffrage in the South after the Civil War and was one of the few black women who regularly attended

suffrage meetings. But during the debate over the Fifteenth Amendment, she had sided with the American

Woman Suffrage Association. Harper, who had been one

of the few black women to appear regularly at suffrage

meetings, had always expressed her loyalty to both

gender and race. At the meeting of the Equal Rights

Association in 1869, Harper commented upon the racist views of some of the white women at the convention:

"When it was a question of race, she let the lesser

question of sex go. But the white women all go for

sex, letting race occupy a minor position...."38

3flStanton. et al.. History of Woman Suffrage, vol. II, p. 391. Several prominent black feminist-abolitionists

supported the National Woman Suffrage Association when

the women's rights movement split in 1869. That they

sided with this faction, even though its leaders made

use of racist arguments, suggests that they may have

resolved to endure the racism they had always

encountered from white women in order to achieve a

common goal. Sojourner Truth, for instance, supported

the Stanton-Anthony branch of the women's movement and

intensified her own support for economic and political

equality for women after 1869. In a speech she

delivered when she was more than eighty years old,

Truth explained to the men in her audience that women

needed to achieve economic equality in order to escape

the power of men. Informed by her own experience as a

slave, Truth compared the power that men wielded with

that of slaveholders:

What we want is a little money. You men know that you get as much again as women when you write, or for what you do....You have been having our rights so long, that you think, like a slaveholder, that you own us...

Truth fully expected that political equality for women would accompany emancipation, and she clearly understood the precarious position of black women after emancipation. At the Equal Rights Association meeting

3aIbid, p. 194. 348

in 1867, she expressed a strong commitment to women's

suffrage, but clearly associated herself specifically

with the rights of black women:

I feel that I have a right to have just as much as a man. There is a great stir about colored men getting their rights; and if colored men get their rights and not colored women theirs, the colored men will be masters over the women, and it will be just as bad as before....40

As a woman, she saw her sex denied political rights

while all men received voting rights. As a black

woman, she saw only the men of her race receive full

emancipation.

For a few black women, disappointment over the

passage of the Fifteenth Amendment turned into hope

that equality for blacks and suffrage for women would

eventually follow. Sojourner Truth expressed optimism

that the end of slavery and suffrage for black men

would bring equality for blacks: "Now colored men have

the right to vote. There ought to be equal rights now more than ever, since colored people have got their

freedom." In 1872, Mary Olney Brown, a black contributor to the New National Era in Washington,

D.C., expressed her belief that black women had been betrayed by the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments in

4uIbid, p. 193; See also sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters, p. 411. 349

a letter to Frederick Douglass: "It is a gross

Injustice that the colored women have so long been

defrauded of their right to vote."41 Harriet Tubman, an

ex-slave and legendary conductor of the Underground

Railroad, expressed hope that women would also receive

political rights. In 1911, two years before she died,

Tubman attended a meeting of the suffrage club in

Geneva, New York, where a white woman asked her: "Do you really believe that women should vote?" Tubman

reportedly replied: "I Buffered enough to believe

it."42

Between 1830 and the 1860s, black women

abolitionists developed a collective feminist

consciousness that mirrored the experiences of their

white counterparts. While white women fought for female

equality in predominantly white antislavery

organizations, black women abolitionists campaigned for

equal rights within the context of organized black

abolitionism.

But, although both black and white women supported women's rights, their experiences differed in several

important ways. First, black women's participation in

41New National Bra (Washington). October 24, 1872? cited in Aptheker, ed., A Documentary History of the Negro People In the United States, p. 628. * “'Stanton, et al. History of Woman Suffrage, vol. II, p. 193? Sterling, ed., We Are Your Sisters, p. 411. 350

women's rights reveals the extent to which racism

characterized the early stages of the movement. White

feminist leaders had ignored the concerns of black women during the early stages of organized women's

rights. White women's racism ultimately prevented the

creation of a cross-racial women's movement, a

situation that would characterize the American women's movement into the twentieth century. Second, unlike many white feminists, black

feminists continued to support both abolition and women's rights. Their commitment to both movements held

important implications for their experience in the women's rights movement. As Sojourner Truth had

suggested at the Akron convention, black women brought

a perspective on women's rights that differed from that

of white women. For black women, the abolition of

slavery and racism were intimately related to women's

rights.

Third, black women's dual commitment to race and gender also affected their relationships with black male reformers. On the one hand, black women's continued participation in the fight to end slavery and racism led them to maintain cooperative ties with black men. Unlike white feminists, who had separated their interests from those of men, black women still shared 351

with black men a commitment to the advancement of their

race. Thus, while black women campaigned for women's

rights, they also worked with black men in a variety of

self-help activities in the black community. On the

other hand, the fact that black men had always

considered racial equality a higher priority than

women's rights motivated black women to continue their

struggle for women's rights. Black men's betrayal of

black women during the postwar period and the dominance

of racially conservative feminist organizations

throughout the nineteenth century ultimately prevented

the achievement of sexual or racial equality.

Nevertheless, black women voiced their opinions even

when white women and black men outnumbered them and

ignored their claims, and a few attended suffrage

meetings even when they knew they were not welcome.

After the Civil War, black women still supported

women's suffrage while, at the same time, continuing in

the struggle for racial equality. The strengthening of

Jim Crow laws and the gradual disfranchisement of and

increased violence against black men after the Civil

War signified to black men and women that the struggle

for racial equality was not over. Former black

feminist-abolitionists established a tradition of activism for future generations of Afro-American women. 352

During the post-Reconstruction period, a new generation

of black women activists emerged, some of whom were the

daughters of black feminist-abolitionists. The old and

the new generations of activists immersed themselves in

the continuing struggle for social and political

equality for black men and women by supporting suffrage and improved employment opportunities for blacks and

organizing the black women's club movement, in which

black women protested the lynching of black men and

promoted education, temperance, and moral reform in the

black community. Mary Church Terrell, Sarah Garnet,

Ida B. Wells, and Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, for

example, were instrumental in continuing black women's

organized struggle for equality.43 The commitment of black women activists to racial and sexual equality, influenced to a great extent by

political events, reveals a continuity in the pattern of black female activism. After the Civil War, they

retained a pattern of organization that black women had

4-iThe women were active in the National Association of Colored Women, which promoted woman suffrage. Garnet, the wife of black abolitionist Henry Highland Garnet, also organized the all-black female Equal Suffrage League, and Wells led the fight among black women against lynching. Bettina Aptheker, Woman's Legacy, p. 65. For more information on black women's suffrage organizations, see Tullia Hamilton, "The National Associatio of Colored Women, 1896-1920," (Ph.D. dissertation, Emory University, 1978) and Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter, chapter 7. 353

established during the antebellum period. Thus,

although racism had placed black women on the periphery

of the white-dominated women's rights movement, black

feminists found their own ways of achieving racial and

sexual equality. In their own organizations, black women played a central role in the struggle for black

liberation and women's rights.

t CONCLUSION

Free black women throughout the north participated

in a wide range of abolitionist activities. On the

surface, black women's experiences appear no. different

from those of other groups of abolitionists. Like

whites and black men, black women wrote essays,

editorials, and poems for the abolitionist press,

delivered public speeches, signed and circulated

petitions, and participated in antislavery societies.

Black women also shared with black men and a handful of

white abolitionists a broad interpretation of

abolitionism, demanding not only the elimination of

slavery, but the removal of barriers to black

achievement. Firmly convinced that the attainment of

these goals depended upon the efforts of their own

people, black leaders promoted activism in the free

black community. Black abolitionist men and women worked tirelessly among free blacks in a variety of

self-help activities, such as benevolence, temperance, moral reform, the Underground Railroad, and efforts to

improve black education. Like many white women abolitionists, black women also supported the 355

antebellum women's rights movement which had emerged

from abolition.

Black women's role in the movement was, however,

more complex than their activities might suggest.

Their commitment to the survival and advancement of the

black community was the most important factor that

motivated them to participate in the movement. At the

same time, gender ideals within the antebellum free

black community also influenced black women's activism.

For black women, as for no other group of activists, the limitations and responsibilities of being black and

female shaped their participation in the abolitionist

movement.

My findings support >Tames Oliver Horton's argument

that white middle class notions of gender roles

permeated the antebellum free black community. As this

dissertation has shown, however, the participation of

free black women in community activism reflected not

only the existence of gender ideals among free blacks, but also their attempt to fulfill their responsibility to their race. In the churches, the press, and the

schools, black leaders championed contemporary notions of "true" manhood and womanhood. In the case of black women, black leaders attempted to dispel prevailing white notions of the "bad" black woman, a legacy of the 356

slave experience. Thus, in the free black community,

ministers, writers, and teachers emphasized traditional

ideals of womanhood: purity, piety, submissiveness, and

domesticity. Such expectations, however, placed an enormous burden upon many free black women. Economic hardships had forced most of them to obtain outside employment. Nevertheless, in addition to fulfilling their usual domestic responsibilities, free black women were expected to extend their "female influence" into the community.

Thus, many black women activists, like middle- class white women, aided the poor and homeless, taught

school, and participated in temperance and moral reform activities. In many cases, the church served as a vehicle engaging in "legitimate" activities outside of

the home. But, unlike white women, black women's participation in these activities also reflected a

fundamental commitment to the advancement of their race. As the "colored inhabitants" of Chatham, Ontario had proclaimed, "female sympathy in the cause of freedom and humanity" was "of the most vital importance...in the elevation of our race."1 On this level of abolitionist activity, free black women performed traditional female roles in their community

■‘•Voice of the Fugitive. 1852. 357

and, at the same time, worked to achieve the goals of

black abolitionism.

Race and gender expectations and limitations

influenced black women's activism in different ways.

Black women, like other groups of abolitionists, were

not homogeneous, although they shared a number of

characteristics. As the profiles of fourteen prominent

black women abolitionists indicate, a variety of

factors shaped black women's activism. Although these women are not representative of all free black women,

they do provide some insight into black women's

experiences as abolitionists.

The fact that some were former slaves while others had been born into free black families was the most

obvious characteristic that distinguished free black women from one another and to some extent influenced their choice of activities. But, whether they were ex­

slaves or free-born, black women abolitionists, like black men, maintained the same goals: the abolition of

slavery and the protection and advancement of the free black community.

Many free-born black women, like other activists, had been born into families that had established a tradition of reform and protest. Family members, particularly their parents, had been instrumental in 358

preparing then for lives as activists by encouraging

and, perhaps, even pressuring their daughters to devote

their lives to activism. The economic and social

position of their families in the free black community

and in white abolitionist circles also influenced the

direction of their careers. First, their families had been prosperous enough to provide them with an adequate

education, which enabled many of these women to broaden their scope of activities to include writing and teaching. The formal education they received also instilled within them the importance of fulfilling expectations of womanhood, which they applied to their community work. Second, family connections to leading white and black abolitionists helped these women gain entrance into abolitionist circles. The ready-made personal and professional ties free-born black women abolitionists forged with other activists provided them with additional support for their activities.

Tubman and Truth, two of the best known ex-slave women, chose to participate in the movement as independent abolitionists. Unlike some of the leading free-born black women abolitionists, they had not enjoyed the advantages of education or economic prosperity. Such circumstances perhaps led them to choose an independent path; Tubman worked primarily as 359

an agent in the Underground Railroad and Truth

travelled throughout the countryside as a public

speaker. For Tubman and Truth, their own activism had

gained for them the recognition of abolitionists.

Black women abolitionists in various ways

challenged nineteenth century codes of behavior for blacks and women. When free black women participated

in self-help activities, they fulfilled expectations of womanhood within the free black community, yet, like black men, challenged white assumptions that blacks were incapable of creating a stable community as free persons. When black women engaged in public activism, such as writing, speaking, and petitioning, they, like black men, defied racial stereotypes which depicted blacks as docile and intellectually inferior to whites.

By participating in public activism, black women also challenged prevailing expectations of women's "place."

The extent to which racism and sexism affected black women's experiences as activists depended upon the types of activities in which they engaged. Like white women, black women who formed and joined female antislavery societies fulfilled the traditional roles of female reformers. As members of racially-integrated or all-black female antislavery societies, black women abolitionists performed conventional female activities 360

as fund-raisers for the parent male-dominated state and

national antislavery societies. It was well-known

among both white and black abolitionists that racism

existed within the abolitionist community. As a result,

black women frequently encountered racism from white women. As the incidents in Fall River, Rochester, and

New York City indicate, many white women abolitionists who considered themselves ardent supporters of the

antislavery movement were extremely reluctant to violate social customs by associating with black women.

Black women abolitionists who supported women's rights also confronted racism from white feminists who sought to disassociate women's rights from abolition. The racism of white women within both abolition and the women's movement resulted in the alienation of black women from white women and precluded the creation of a cross-racial sisterhood in the struggle for women's rights.

While some black women suffered exclusion from white female antislavery societies, many black women cooperated with white women abolitionists in racially- mixed organizations. The Philadelphia Female Anti-

Slavery Society and the Boston Female Anti-Slavery

Society were the largest and most active racially-mixed female antislavery societies. In both organizations, 361

black women participated in a variety of abolitionist

activities and maintained personal and professional

ties to white and black abolitionists. Nevertheless,

even racially mixed organizations did not completely

satisfy the needs of black members. Lucretia Mott's

assertion, for instance, that aid to free blacks was

not "properly anti-slavery work" illustrates how

differently black women and some white women

abolitionists viewed their responsibilities in the

movement.

To some extent, black women also encountered

sexism from black men, who often resisted attempts to

grant women an equal voice with men in the movement.

During the late 1840s and 1850s, black women demanded t the right to participate as voting members in the black

convention movement, as white women had done in the

American Anti-Slavery Movement in 1840. Some black

leaders also objected to black women's participation in traditionally male activities. As the views of Rev.

Samuel Cornish suggest, some of the black men who left the AAS in 1840 objected just as much to the equal participation of women as to other tactics that

Garrison advocated. But even those who supported women's rights, such as Frederick Douglass and Martin

Delany, regarded the struggle for racial equality as a 362

higher priority and eventually viewed women's rights as a liability to the success of abolition.

But to conclude that black women's status as ex­

slaves or free-born blacks or their confrontations with

sexism and racism completely determined the ways they

chose to participate in the movement oversimplifies the

significance of their activism and suggests that they

were simply victims of circumstance. Although

influenced by outside factors, they ultimately made

their own choices. A number of free black women who

shared similar backgrounds engaged in different

activities. For example, Grace and Sarah Douglass, the

Forten women, and Susan Paul preferred to adhere

closely to traditional conceptions of women's "place."

During their careers, they engaged primarily in

activities that were considered appropriate for

"respectable" women. Mary Ann Shadd Cary, Sarah P.

Remond, Maria Miller Stewart, and Frances Harper chose to ignore these ideals by engaging in public speaking, a non-traditional activity for "respectable" women.

As a group, black women's participation in abolition and the emerging women's rights movement led them to create a distinct pattern of activism. Black women, in response to white women's racism and a desire to pursue their own goals as community activists, 363

formed all-black female antislavery societies and

suffrage organizations. The first female antislavery

society, the all-black Salem Female Anti-Slavery

Society, in fact, had emphasized self-help within the

free black community. The formation of the all-black

Women's Association in Philadelphia by women who also

belonged to the PFASS best exemplifies black women's

determination to pursue their goals as black

abolitionists. As feminists, they persisted in their

attempts to participate in women's rights by forming

their own suffrage organizations, such as the Equal

Suffrage League of Brooklyn, New York. As feminists and

as abolitionist, black women established a pattern of

activism that reflected their dual commitment to the welfare of their race and their sex.

The study of black women's participation in the

abolitionist movement not only fills the gaps in abolitionist, Afro-American, and women's historiography, but also forces a reconsideration of traditional views of black women's participation in the struggle for racial equality. As this dissertation has shown, black women played a complex and unique role in the abolitionist movement. But black women's participation in abolitionism contains much broader implications for black female activism in the United 364

States. In all of their abolitionist activities, they supported efforts to create a self-sufficient and well- educated free black community in addition to fighting for the end of slavery. As women and as blacks, they attempted to fulfill a dual responsibility to both their gender and their race.

Black women's participation in abolitionism and the emerging women's rights movement illustrates the continuity that existed in black women's activism.

Racism and sexism, however, often presented obstacles to the fulfillment of their responsibilities as blacks and as women. Vet black women's continued participation in these movements indicates clearly that the barriers of race and gender did not render black women completely powerless or silent. Rather, the strength of their commitment to ending the subjugation of blacks led them to overcome racial and sexual barriers and to establish a distinct black female pattern of activism which subsequent generations of black women activists would follow. BIBLIOGRAPHY

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The Nearo in the Abolitionist Movement. New York: International Publishers Incorporated, 1941.

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______. "Who Were the Abolitionists?" Journal of Negro History. 49(April 1964): 99-115.

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