American convention for promoting the abolition of slavery and improving the condition of the African race at Philadelphia, in October, 1819, to the people of the United States
xv, 540 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. [440]-519) and index.
Contents
Beginnings: 1800 to 1830 -- Connections: The 1830s -- Confrontation: The 1840s -- Victory: The 1850s.
Summary
Against a backdrop of the country's westward expansion, which brought together Easterners who had engaged in slavery primarily in the abstract alongside slaveholding Southerners and their slaves, arose a clash of values that evolved into a fierce fight for nothing less than the country's soul. Beginning six decades before the Civil War, freedom-seeking blacks and pious whites worked together to save tens of thousands of lives, often at the risk of great physical danger to themselves. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only subverted federal law but also went against prevailing mores.Flawlessly researched and uncommonly engaging, Bound for Canaan, shows why it was the Underground Railroad and not the Civil Rights movement that gave birth to this country's first racially-integrated, religiously-inspired movement for social change. [from the publisher]
''Child Heroes of the Underground Railroad illuminates the vital contributions of specific, underappreciated child activists within the extremely local circumstances of their daily work. It also provides meaningful context to the actions of these young activists within the much broader social practice of resisting slavery, and offers fresh insight into the complicated question of who was responsible for ending slavery. Through a thorough examination of these subjects, author Jonathan Shectman proves his central thesis: in many specific cases, children were the essential lifeblood of the Underground Railroad's operational workforce." ( amazon.com )
Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-208) and index.
Contents
The dictates of humanity -- Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave -- Ran away from the subscriber -- Tell them I love them all -- Let not the sun go down on your anger, my boy -- Up like bucks: the Rankin boys -- States of matter divide the states -- Deeds of bold daring -- Many years under the yoke -- The conductor was, himself, presently enslaved.
Part I. Radical, young, and quaker: child pioneers of the underground -- Part II. Up like bucks: the line through Ripley -- Part III. Taking their freedom: young free blacks and fugitive children.
Unique, locally printed version; varies slightly in pagination and layout from the online version.
Includes bibliographical references.
Summary
"This gripping biography from historians John Osborne and Christine Bombaro captures the story of an unlikely political hero who helped destroy American slavery. John A.J. Creswell was a son of the slaveholding South, a native of Maryland who attended Dickinson College in Pennsylvania in the 1840s. Creswell then became a leading Maryland Democrat and conservative businessman before the war. He did not speak out against the peculiar institution until deep into the secession conflict and then only under the pressure of wartime necessity. Yet he became one of the most pivotal abolitionists in the country. In 1864, Creswell helped secure passage of an antislavery constitution in Maryland, the first (and only) popular vote for abolition in any U.S. state. He also led off the final congressional debates for the Thirteenth Amendment in January 1865, with an eloquent address that showcased the changing times. Nor did Creswell stop with this newfound embrace of freedom. After the war, the Marylander also became an unlikely advocate for equality of opportunity. While serving as a Postmaster General during the Grant Administration, Creswell helped to integrate and modernize the federal post office system. Ultimately, John A.J. Creswell proved to be one of the more important American politicians of the nineteenth century, because he embraced the future in ways that many of his contemporaries simply never could."
African American resources in the Lancaster County Historical Society.
Summary
"The book explores the growth of abolitionism among Quakers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey from 1688 to 1780, providing a case study of how groups change their moral attitudes. Dr. Soderlund details the long battle fought by reformers like gentle John Woolman and eccentric Benjamin Lay. The eighteenth-century Quaker humanitarians succeeded only after they diluted their goals to attract wider support, establishing a gradualistic, paternalistic, and segregationist model for the later antislavery movement." [from Goodreads.com]
The Merrill Jensen lectures in constitutional studies
Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. 203-206) and index.
Summary
"The most profound crisis of conscience for white Americans at the end of the eighteenth century became their most tragic failure. Race and Revolution is a trenchant study of the revolutionary generation's early efforts to right the apparent contradiction of slavery and of their ultimate compromises that not only left the institution intact but provided it with the protection of a vastly strengthened government after 1788. Reversing the conventional view that blames slavery on the South's social and economic structures, Nash stresses the role of the northern states in the failure to abolish slavery. It was northern racism and hypocrisy as much as southern intransigence that buttressed "the peculiar institution." Nash also shows how economic and cultural factors intertwined to result not in an apparently judicious decision of the new American nation but rather its most significant lost opportunity. Race and Revolution describes the free black community's response to this failure of the revolution's promise, its vigorous and articulate pleas for justice, and the community's successes in building its own African-American institutions within the hostile environment of early nineteenth-century America. Included with the text of Race and Revolution are nineteen rare and crucial documents-letters, pamphlets, sermons, and speeches-which provide evidence for Nash's controversial and persuasive claims. From the words of Anthony Benezet and Luther Martin to those of Absalom Jones and Caesar Sarter, readers may judge the historical record for themselves. 'In reality,' argues Nash, 'the American Revolution represents the largest slave uprising in our history.' Race and Revolution is the compelling story of that failed quest for the promise of freedom." [from the publisher]
C. Peter Ripley, editor ; co-editors, Roy E. Finkenbine, Michael F. Hembree, Donald Yacovone.
ISBN
0807820725 (cloth : alk. paper)
0807844047 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Place of Publication
Chapel Hill
Publisher
University of North Carolina Press,
Date of Publication
c1993.
Physical Description
xxiv, 306 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Notes
Chapter 37 is titled: William Whipper's letters.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [279]-289) and index.
Contents
The rise of black abolitionism : the colonization controversy; the growth of black abolitionism; the rise of immediatism; moral reform; prejudice; two abolitionisms -- African Americans and the antislavery movement : blacks as advocates; slave narratives; black women abolitionists; antislavery and the black community; problems in the movement -- Black independence : a new direction; the African American press; in the common defense; antislavery politics; black antislavery tactics; by all just and necessary means -- Black abolitionists and the national crisis : the slave power; the fugitive slave law; black emigration; black nationality; blacks and John Brown -- Civil war : debating the war; the emancipation proclamation; blacks and Lincoln; the black military experience; the movement goes south; reconstruction.
