David Ruggles
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DAVID RUGGLES “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project David Ruggles HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES 1810 March 15, Thursday: David Ruggles was born in a free black family of Lyme, Connecticut, David Ruggles, Senior and Nancy Ruggles. The New York State House of Representatives concurred with the Senate’s resolution calling for Governeur Morris, Stephen Van Rensselaer, DeWitte Clinton, Simeon De Witt, William North, Thomas Eddy, and Peter B. Porter to be appointed commissioners to explore routes for a canal across the state, and to recommend improvements to Onondaga Lake. ERIE CANAL Friend Stephen Wanton Gould wrote in his journal: 5th day 15th of 3 M 1810// I had a poor dull meeting, but the fault was my own. Oh when shall I experience more of the fullness. ————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— RELIGIOUS SOCIETY OF FRIENDS NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT David Ruggles “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES 1833 June: A few months after the March outbreak of madness in Canterbury, Connecticut over the teaching of “young ladies and misses of color,” some of whom were from out of state, at Prudence Crandall’s school, the Connecticut legislature enacted a sneaky new law requiring that any school teaching out-of-state pupils had to have the approval of the town in which it was located. On the basis of this law, Headmistress Crandall was taken under arrest. Tactically, she and the abolitionists refused to post bail so that the authorities would be forced to book her. After she was held overnight, bail was posted and her school continued. In the 4th National Negro Convention in Philadelphia, Robert Purvis served as the vice president and corresponding secretary from Pennsylvania. Purvis supported such racially neutral reforms as the temperance crusade, women’s rights, and the improvement of prison conditions. He believed that reform groups should be racially integrated. He opposed a legislative proposal that would have prevented out-of-state free blacks from settling in Pennsylvania. He became one of the founders of the Philadelphia Library Company of Colored HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES Persons. This Convention for the Improvement of the Free People of Colour would find itself able to “cheerfully recommend” Crandall’s school, when David Ruggles would propose that they specifically endorse the school, his motion would fail of approval (MINUTES AND PROCEEDINGS OF THE THIRD ANNUAL CONVENTION FOR THE IMPROVEMENT OF THE FREE PEOPLE OF COLOUR IN THESE UNITED STATES, HELD BY ADJOURNMENTS IN THE CITY OF PHILADELPHIA, FROM THE 3RD TO THE 13TH OF JUNE INCLUSIVE, 1833. New York: by order of the Convention). CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT David Ruggles “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES 1834 David Ruggles’s THE “EXTINGUISHER” EXTINGUISHED OR DAVID M. REESE, M.D., “USED UP” was published in New-York. “EXTINGUISHER” A white medical doctor had charged that the American Anti-Slavery Society was encouraging interracial marriage. This black author pointed out common-sensically in response, that the main perpetrators of the amalgamation of the races in America happened to be the white slaveholders whom this society was struggling to subdue! HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES 1835 George Bourne’s, Puritan’s, and David Ruggles’s THE ABROGATION OF THE SEVENTH COMMANDMENT, urging white wives to confront husbands who sexually used their female slaves. During this year Harriet Jacobs’s white lover, Samuel Tredwell Sawyer, purchased her brother and her children. However, her owner, Dr. James Norcom, made numerous threats to sell the light-skinned boy and girl that she and Sawyer had produced. Harriet went into hiding in the crawl space above the ceiling of her grandmother’s home. I saw a mother lead seven children to the auction book. She knew that some of them would be taken from her; but they took all. The children were sold to a slave-trader, and the mother was bought by a man in her own town. Before night her children were all far away. She begged the trader to tell her where he intended to take them; this he refused to do. How could he, when he knew he would sell them, one by one, wherever he could command the highest price? I met the mother in the street, and her wild, haggard face lives today in my mind. She wrung her hands in anguish, and exclaimed, “Gone! All gone! Why don’t God kill me?” Slavery is terrible for men; but it is far more terrible for women. SLAVERY THE FUTURE CAN BE EASILY PREDICTED IN RETROSPECT “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project David Ruggles HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES November 20, Friday: The New-York Vigilance Committee was organized. David Ruggles would be its secretary. Charles Darwin continued his explorations on Tahiti: In the morning we started early, and reached Matavai at noon. On the road we met a large party of noble athletic men, going for wild bananas. I found that the ship, on account of the difficulty in watering, had moved to the harbour of Papawa, to which place I immediately walked. This is a very pretty spot. The cove is surrounded by reefs, and the water as smooth as in a lake. The cultivated ground, with its beautiful productions, interspersed with cottages, comes close down to the water’s edge. From the varying accounts which I had read before reaching these islands, I was very anxious to form, from my own observation, a judgment of their moral state, — although such judgment would necessarily be very imperfect. First impressions at all times very much depend on one’s previously acquired ideas. My notions were drawn from Ellis’s “Polynesian Researches” — an admirable and most interesting work, but naturally looking at everything under a favourable point of view, from Beechey’s Voyage; and from that of Kotzebue, which is strongly adverse to the whole missionary system. He who compares these three accounts will, I think, form a tolerably accurate conception of the present state of Tahiti. One of my impressions which I took from the two last authorities, was decidedly incorrect; viz., that the Tahitians had become a gloomy race, and lived in fear of the missionaries. Of the latter feeling I saw no trace, unless, indeed, fear and respect be confounded under one name. Instead of discontent being a common feeling, it would be difficult in Europe to pick out of a crowd half so many merry and happy faces. The prohibition of the flute and dancing is inveighed against as wrong and foolish; — the more than presbyterian manner of keeping the sabbath is looked at in a similar light. On these points I will not pretend to offer any opinion to men who have resided as many years as I was days on the island. On the whole, it appears to me that the morality and religion of the inhabitants are highly creditable. There are many who attack, even more acrimoniously than Kotzebue, both the missionaries, their system, and the effects produced by it. Such reasoners never compare the present state with that of the island only twenty years ago; nor even with that of Europe at this day; but they compare it with the high standard of Gospel perfection. They expect the missionaries to effect that which the Apostles themselves failed to do. Inasmuch as the condition of the people falls short of this high standard, blame is attached to the missionary, instead of credit for that which he has effected. They forget, or will not remember, that human sacrifices, and the power of an idolatrous priesthood — a system of profligacy unparalleled in any other part of the world — infanticide a consequence of that system — bloody wars, where HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES the conquerors spared neither women nor children — that all these have been abolished; and that dishonesty, intemperance, and licentiousness have been greatly reduced by the introduction of Christianity. In a voyager to forget these things is base ingratitude; for should he chance to be at the point of shipwreck on some unknown coast, he will most devoutly pray that the lesson of the missionary may have extended thus far. In point of morality, the virtue of the women, it has been often said, is most open to exception. But before they are blamed too severely, it will be well distinctly to call to mind the scenes described by Captain Cook and Mr. Banks, in which the grandmothers and mothers of the present race played a part. Those who are most severe, should consider how much of the morality of the women in Europe is owing to the system early impressed by mothers on their daughters, and how much in each individual case to the precepts of religion. But it is useless to argue against such reasoners; — I believe that, disappointed in not finding the field of licentiousness quite so open as formerly, they will not give credit to a morality which they do not wish to practise, or to a religion which they undervalue, if not despise. HDT WHAT? INDEX DAVID RUGGLES DAVID RUGGLES 1838 Frederick Douglass and Anna Marie Murray fell in love and became engaged. Douglass took up the violin. David Ruggles, who had acquired a heroic reputation for his help to escaping slaves (he would help some 600 persons in total, including in the course of this year Frederick Douglass), was kicked down a stairway by some white people who did not appreciate his plagiarism.1 Did this have something to do with the activities of the New-York Vigilance Committee of which Ruggles had become the Secretary? 1.