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ABOLITIONISTS AND THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
"They say that the Negroes are very well
contented in ... slavery.... Suppose it were the fact the black man was
contented...to see his wife sold on the auction-block or his daughter
violated.... I say that is the heaviest condemnation of the
institution, that slavery should blot out a man's manhood so as to make
him contented to accept this degradation, and such an institution ought
to be swept from the face of the earth."
- J. Sella Martin, ex-slave
Southerners continue to use the Bible to
justify slavery.
Click to enlarge
In the South developed a culture
based on
Christianity but not necessarily Christian. It was often manifested as
a fascistic derivative of judeo-christianity, rife with hypocrisy and
corruption. Southerners, like the Spanish and Portuguese to their
south, but in stark contrast to the Yankee Northerners, desired
to re-create the feudal system of Europe in America.
The abolitionist movement was one
of high moral
purpose and courage; its uncompromising temper made the slavery
question the prime concern of national politics and hastened the demise
of slavery in the United States. One of the mainsprings was the growing
influence of evangelical religion, with its religious fervor, its moral
urgency to end sinful practices, and its vision of human perfection (THE
SECOND GREAT AWAKENING).
The preaching of Lyman Beecher
and
Nathaniel Taylor in New England and the religious
revivals that began in western New York State in 1824 under Charles G. Finney and swept much
of the North, created a powerful impulse toward social
reform--emancipation of the slaves as well as temperance, foreign
missions, and women's rights. The abolitionists were first widely
denounced and abused. Mobs attacked them in the North; Southerners
burned antislavery pamphlets and in some areas excluded them from the
mails; and Congress imposed the Gag Rule to avoid considering their
petitions. These actions, and the murder of abolitionist editor Elijah
P. Lovejoy in 1837, led many to fear for their constitutional rights.
Abolitionists shrewdly exploited these fears and antislavery sentiment
spread rapidly in the North. By 1838, more than 1,350 antislavery
societies existed with almost 250,000 members, including many women.
The passage of more stringent fugitive slave laws in 1850 increased
abolitionist activity on the Underground Railroad. Uncle Tom's Cabin,
by Harriet Beecher Stowe, became an effective piece of
abolitionist
propaganda, and the Kansas question further aroused both North and
South. The culminating act of extreme abolitionism occurred in the raid
of John Brown on Harpers Ferry. After the opening of the Civil War
insistent abolitionist demands for immediate freeing of the slaves,
supported by radical Republicans in Congress, pushed President Lincoln
in his decision to issue the Emancipation Proclamation.
- from The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia
copyright 1994,2000 Columbia University Press
“Emeline has told all
about
our being Mediums” - Hannah Therese Filer
“This neighborhood is
in a
hub-bub about the spirits. Do you have any
spiritual manifestations
where you are? There is nothing else
thought of or talked of here. Hannah
Therese and myself are Writing Mediums. There
are a great many others around here that write, but
you would not
know any better who they are if I should name them.
Some of them talk and some will lay their hand on a table,
chair,
or anything else and walk around the room and whatever they have their
hand on
will follow them. There is no Medium in
this neighborhood that can move anything but there is one not a great
ways from
here. Some folks say that it is the
work of the Devil, some say that the Mediums [fake] it, but I know that
is not
so or at least, I know that I do not [fake] it. When
I first began to write my fingernails were wore off and my
fingers were wore through the skin in a great many places so that they
left
blood on the slate. I think anybody is
foolish to think I would do that of my own accord.”
- Emeline Filer
The
Filer family relocated to Illinois from "The Burnt Over District" of
Upstate New York, epicenter of the Second Great Awakening.
Western expansion forced a
decision on whether
new states would be free or slave. The Kansas-Nebraska Act, Stephen
Douglas's concession to the South, contained a provision that left the
question of slavery to be determined by territorial settlers
themselves, resulting in widespread violence in "Bleeding Kansas".
Passions were aroused so much that sectional division reached a point
that precluded reconciliation, and a new political party was born
called the Republican Party.
...(the)
Republicans
decision to maintain the Union was inherent in their ideology. For the
integrity of the Union, important as an end in itself, was also a
prerequisite to the national greatness Republicans felt the United
States was destined to achieve. With his faith in progress, material
growth, and the spread of both democratic institutions and American
influence throughout the world, William Seward brought the Republican
ideology to a kind of culmination. Although few Republicans held as
coherent and far-reaching a worldview as he, most accepted Lincoln's
more modest view that the American nation had a special place in the
world, and a responsibility to prove that democratic institutions were
self-sustaining. Much of the messianic zeal, which characterized
political anti-slavery, derived from this faith in the superiority of
the political, social, and economic institutions of the North, and a
desire to spread these to their ultimate limits.
- from Free Soil Free Labor Free Men by Eric
Foner
The Underground
Railroad
expanded rapidly in the 1840's. Then Congress passed the Compromise of
1850 in order to placate the South, referred to as THE SLAVE POWER.
This law revised the Fugitive Slave Bill. The law stated that slave
owners had "the right to organize a posse at any point in the United
States to aid in recapturing runaway slaves. Courts and police
everywhere in the United States were obligated to assist them"
(Blockson,11). The law also required private citizens to assist in the
recapture of runaways and those who were caught helping slaves were
subject to heavy fines and jail time.
The Underground
Railroad was
primarily a grassroots effort. While traveling the Underground
Railroad, runaway slaves received food, shelter, and money at
"stations" which were operated by anyone who offered assistance. The
"conductors" relied heavily on secret codes and railroad jargon to
alert their "passengers" when travel was safe. Some operators notified
runaways of their "station" with signals such as a candle lit in a
window or by a lantern in the front yard. "Stations" on the "railroad"
were strategically placed a night’s wagon ride away from each other.
Runaways were hidden in concealed rooms, attics, or cellars until it
was safe to travel again. "Conductors" risked their own property and
safety to aid the runaways.
Phillis Wheatley
Precursor of American Abolitionism
Born in Senegal, Africa in 1753,
Phillis Wheatley
was sold into slavery at the age of seven to John and Susannah Wheatley
of Boston. Although originally brought into the Wheatley household as a
servant and attendant to Wheatley's wife, Phillis was soon accepted as
a member of the family, and was raised with the Wheatley's other two
children.
Phillis soon displayed her
remarkable talents by learning to
read and write English. At the age of twelve she was reading the Greek
and Latin classics, and passages from the Bible. At thirteen she wrote
her first poem.
Her literary gifts, intelligence,
and piety were a striking
example to her English and American audience of the triumph of human
capacities over the circumstances of birth.
Phillis became a Boston sensation
after she wrote a poem on
the death of the evangelical preacher George
Whitefield in 1770. Three years later thirty-nine of her poems
were published in London as "Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and
Moral." It was the first book to be published by a black American.
Most of Phillis
Wheatley's poems reflect her religious and
classical New England upbringing. Writing in heroic couplets, many of
her poems consist of elegies while others stress the theme of Christian
salvation.
On
The Death of George Whitefield

"Hail, happy saint, on
thine immortal throne,
Possessed of glory, life, and bliss unknown;
We hear no more the music of thy tongue,
Thy wonted auditories cease to throng.
Thy sermons in unequaled accents flowed,
And ev’ry bosom with devotion glowed;
Thou didst in strains of eloquence refined
Inflame the heart, and captivate the mind.
He
prayed that
grace in ev’ry heart might dwell,
He longed to see America excel;
He charged its youth that ev’ry grace divine
Should with full luster in their conduct shine;
That Saviour, which his soul did first receive,
The greatest gift that ev’n a God can give,
He freely offered to the num’rous throng,
That on his lips with list’ning pleasure hung."
On Being Brought from Africa to America
“Twas
mercy brought me from my pagan land,
Taught my beknighted soul to understand
That there’s a God, that there’s a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.”
To the students of Harvard she wrote…..
“Improve
your privileges while they stay,
Ye pupils, and each hour redeem, that bears
Or good or bad report of you to heav'n.
Let sin, that baneful evil to the soul,
By you be shunned, nor once remit your guard;
Suppress the deadly serpent in its egg.
Ye blooming plants of human race divine,
An Ethiop tells you 'tis your greatest foe;
Its transient sweetness turns to endless pain,
And immense perdition sinks the soul.”
In the 1830s, abolitionists reprinted her poetry and the
powerful ideas contained in her deeply moving verse stood against the
institution of slavery.

The Second Great Awakening Swept Through
African-American Communities
Swing Low
Clara Ward Singers
FREDERICK DOUGLASS
"Knowledge Makes a Man Unfit to Be a Slave"

He (the Master) would at times
seem to take great
pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of
day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an aunt of mine, whom he used
to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was
literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his
gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The
louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran
fastest, there he whipped longest. He would whip her to make her
scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by
fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin (whip). I
remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I
was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it
whilst I remember any thing. It was the first of a long series of such
outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It
struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance
to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a
most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings
with which I beheld it.
Aunt Hester had not only
disobeyed his orders in going out,
but had been found in company with Lloyd's Ned; which circumstance, I
found, from what he said while whipping her, was the chief offence. Had
he been a man of pure morals himself, he might have been thought
interested in protecting the innocence of my aunt; but those who knew
him will not suspect him of any such virtue. Before he commenced
whipping Aunt Hester, he took her into the kitchen, and stripped her
from neck to waist, leaving her neck, shoulders, and back, entirely
naked. He then told her to cross her hands, calling her at the same
time a ‘damned bitch.’ After crossing her hands, he tied them with a
strong rope, and led her to a stool under a large hook in the joist,
put in for the purpose. He made her get upon the stool, and tied her
hands to the hook. She now stood fair for his infernal purpose. Her
arms were stretched up at their full length, so that she stood upon the
ends of her toes. He then said to her, "Now, you damned bitch, I'll
learn you how to disobey my orders!" and after rolling up his sleeves,
be commenced to lay on the heavy cowskin, and soon the warm, red blood
(amid heart-rending shrieks from her, and horrid oaths from him) came
dripping to the floor. I was so terrified and horror-stricken at the
sight, that I hid myself in a closet, and dared not venture out till
long after the bloody transaction was over. I expected it would be my
turn next. It was all new to me. I had never seen any thing like it
before. I had always lived with my grandmother on the outskirts of the
plantation, where she was put to raise the children of the younger
women. I had therefore been, until now, out of the way of the bloody
scenes that often occurred on the plantation
*****
In August, 1832, my master
attended a Methodist camp-meeting
held in the Bay-side, Talbot County, and there experienced religion. I
indulged a faint hope that his conversion would lead him to emancipate
his slaves, and that, if he did not do this, it would, at any rate,
make him more kind and humane. I was disappointed in both these
respects. It neither made him to be humane to his slaves, nor to
emancipate them. If it had any effect on his character, it made him
more cruel and hateful in all his ways; for I believe him to have been
a much worse man after his conversion than before. Prior to his
conversion, he relied upon his own depravity to shield and sustain him
in his savage barbarity; but after his conversion, he found religious
sanction and support for his slaveholding cruelty. He made the greatest
pretensions to piety. His house was the house of prayer. He prayed
morning, noon, and night. He very soon distinguished himself among his
brethren, and was soon made a class-leader and exhorter. His activity
in revivals was great, and he proved himself an instrument in the hands
of the church in converting many souls. His house was the preachers'
home. They used to take great pleasure in coming there to put up; for
while he starved us, he stuffed them. We have had three or four
preachers there at a time. The names of those who used to come most
frequently while I lived there were Mr. Storks, Mr. Ewery, Mr. Humphry,
and Mr. Hickey. I have also seen Mr. George Cookman at our house. We
slaves loved Mr. Cookman. We believed him to be a good man. We thought
him instrumental in getting Mr. Samuel Harrison, a very rich
slaveholder, to emancipate his slaves; and by some means got the
impression that he was laboring to effect the emancipation of all the
slaves. When he was at our house, we were sure to be called in to
prayers….
While I lived with my master in
St. Michael's, there was a
white young man, a Mr. Wilson, who proposed to keep a Sabbath school
for the instruction of such slaves as might be disposed to learn to
read the New Testament. We met but three times, when Mr. West and Mr.
Fairbanks, both class-leaders, with many others, came upon us with
sticks and other missiles, drove us off, and forbade us to meet again.
Thus ended our little Sabbath school in the pious town of St.
Michael's.
I have said my master found
religious sanction for his
cruelty. As an example, I will state one of many facts going to prove
the charge. I have seen him tie up a lame young woman, and whip her
with a heavy cowskin upon her naked shoulders, causing the warm red
blood to drip; and, in justification of the bloody deed, he would quote
this passage of Scripture--"He that knoweth his master's will, and
doeth it not, shall be beaten with many stripes."
Master would keep this lacerated
young, woman tied up in this
horrid situation four or five hours at a time. I have known him to tie
her up early in the morning, and whip her before breakfast; leave her,
go to his store, return at dinner, and whip her again, cutting her in
the places already made raw with his cruel lash. The secret of master's
cruelty to "Henny" is found in the fact of her being almost helpless.
When quite a child, she fell into the fire, and burned herself
horribly. Her hands were so burnt, that she never got the use of them.
She could do very little but bear heavy burdens. She was to master a
bill of expense; and as he was a mean man, she was a constant offence
to him. He seemed desirous of getting the poor girl out of existence.
He gave her away once to his sister; but, being a poor gift, she was
not disposed to keep her. Finally, my benevolent master, to use his own
words, "set her adrift to take care of herself." Here was a
recently-converted man, holding on upon the mother, and at the same
time turning out her helpless child, to starve and die! Master Thomas
was one of the many pious slaveholders who hold slaves for the very
charitable purpose of taking care of them.
*****
I assert
most unhesitatingly, that the
religion of the South is a mere covering for the most horrid crimes, -
a justifier of the most appalling barbarity, - a sanctifier of the most
hateful frauds,--and a dark shelter under, which the darkest, foulest,
grossest, and most infernal deeds of slaveholders find the strongest
protection. Were I to be again reduced to the chains of
slavery, next to that enslavement, I should regard being the slave of a
religious master the greatest calamity that could befall me. For of all
slaveholders with whom I have ever met, religious slaveholders are the
worst. I have ever found them the meanest and basest, the most cruel
and cowardly, of all others. It was my unhappy lot not only to belong
to a religious slaveholder, but to live in a community of such
religionists. Very near Mr. Freeland lived the Rev. Daniel Weeden, and
in the same neighborhood lived the Rev. Rigby Hopkins. These were
members and ministers in the Reformed Methodist Church. Mr. Weeden
owned, among others, a woman slave, whose name I have forgotten. This
woman's back, for weeks, was kept literally raw, made so by the lash of
this merciless, religious wretch. He used to hire hands. His maxim was,
Behave well or behave ill, it is the duty of a master occasionally to
whip a slave, to remind him of his master's authority. Such was his
theory, and such his practice.
Mr. Hopkins was even worse than
Mr. Weeden. His chief boast
was his ability to manage slaves. The peculiar, feature of his
government was that of whipping slaves in advance of deserving it. He
always managed to have one or more of his slaves to whip every Monday
morning. He did this to alarm their fears, and strike terror into those
who escaped. His plan was to whip for the smallest offences, to prevent
the commission of large ones. Mr. Hopkins could always find some excuse
for whipping a slave. It would astonish one, unaccustomed to a
slaveholding life, to see with what wonderful ease a slaveholder can
find things, of which to make occasion to whip a slave.
A mere look, word, or motion,--a
mistake, accident, or want
of power,--are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any
time. Does a slave look dissatisfied? It is said, he has the devil in
him, and it must be whipped out. Does he speak loudly when spoken to by
his master? Then he is getting high-minded, and should be taken down a
button-hole lower. Does he forget to pull off his hat at the approach
of a white person? Then he is wanting in reverence, and should be
whipped for it. Does he ever venture to vindicate his conduct, when
censured for it? Then he is guilty of impudence,--one of the greatest
crimes of which a slave can be guilty. Does he ever venture to suggest
a different mode of doing things from that pointed out by his master?
He is indeed presumptuous, and getting above himself; and nothing less
than a flogging will do for him. Does he, while ploughing, break a
plough,--or, while hoeing, break a hoe? It is owing to his
carelessness, and for it a slave must always be whipped. Mr. Hopkins
could always find something of this sort to justify the use of the
lash, and he seldom failed to embrace such opportunities. There was not
a man in the whole county, with whom the slaves who had the getting
their own home, would not prefer to live, rather than with this Rev.
Mr. Hopkins. And yet there was not a man any where round, who, made
higher professions of religion, or was more active in revivals, --more
attentive to the class, love-feast, prayer and preaching meetings, or
more devotional in his family,--that prayed earlier, later, louder, and
longer,--than this same reverend slave-driver, Rigby Hopkins.
Mr. Severe was rightly named: he
was a cruel man. I have seen
him whip a woman, causing the blood to run half an hour at the time;
and this, too, in the midst of her crying children, pleading for their
mother's release. He seemed to take pleasure in manifesting his
fiendish barbarity. Added to his cruelty, he was a profane swearer. It
was enough to chill the blood and stiffen the hair of an ordinary man
to hear him talk. Scarce a sentence escaped him but that was commenced
or concluded by some horrid oath. The field was the place to witness
his cruelty and profanity. His presence made it both the field of blood
and of blasphemy. From the rising till the going down of the sun, he
was cursing, raving, cutting, and slashing among the slaves of the
field, in the most frightful manner
*****
I… devoted my Sundays to teaching
these my loved fellow-slaves
how to read. Neither of them knew his letters when I went there. Some
of the slaves of the neighboring farms found what was going on, and
also availed themselves of this little opportunity to learn to read. It
was understood, among all who came, that there must be as little
display about it as possible. It was necessary to keep our religious
masters at St. Michael's unacquainted with the fact, that, instead of
spending the Sabbath in wrestling, boxing, and drinking whisky, we were
trying to learn how to read the will of God; for they had much rather
see us engaged in those degrading sports, than to see us behaving like
intellectual, moral, and accountable beings. My blood boils as I think
of the bloody manner in which Messrs. Wright Fairbanks and Garrison
West, both class-leaders, in connection with many others, rushed in
upon us with sticks and stones, and broke up our virtuous little
Sabbath school, at St. Michael's--all calling themselves Christians!
humble followers of the Lord Jesus Christ!
*****
There were four slaves of us in
the kitchen--my sister Eliza,
my aunt Priscilla, Henny, and myself; and we were allowed less than a
half of a bushel of corn-meal per week, and very little else, either in
the shape of meat or vegetables. It was not enough for us to subsist
upon. We were therefore reduced to the wretched necessity of living at
the expense of our neighbors. This we did by begging and stealing,
whichever came handy in the time of need, the one being considered as
legitimate as the other. A great many times have we poor creatures been
nearly perishing with hunger, when food in abundance lay mouldering in
the safe and smoke-house, and our pious mistress was aware of the fact;
and yet that mistress and her husband would kneel every morning, and
pray that God would bless them in basket and store!
*****
The wife of Mr. Giles Hick,
living but a short distance from
where I used to live, murdered my wife's cousin, a young girl between
fifteen and sixteen years of age, mangling her person in the most
horrible manner, breaking her nose and breastbone with a stick, so that
the poor girl expired in a few hours afterward. She was immediately
buried, but had not been in her untimely grave but a few hours before
she was taken up and examined by the coroner, who decided that she had
come to her death by severe beating. The offence for which this girl
was thus murdered was this: She had been set that night to mind Mrs.
Hick's baby, and during the night she fell asleep, and the baby cried.
She, having lost her rest for several nights previous, did not hear the
crying. They were both in the room with Mrs. Hicks. Mrs. Hicks, finding
the girl slow to move, jumped from her bed, seized an oak stick of wood
by the fireplace, and with it broke the girl's nose and breastbone, and
thus ended her life. I will not say that this most horrid murder
produced no sensation in the community. It did produce sensation, but
not enough to bring the murderess to punishment. There was a warrant
issued for her arrest, but it was never served. Thus she escaped not
only punishment, but even the pain of being arraigned before a court
for her horrid crime
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