Hostname: page-component-7479d7b7d-fwgfc Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-10T12:19:32.587Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Notes on American Negro Reformers in Victorian Britain

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  17 February 2011

Get access

Extract

During the middle years of the nineteenth century a significant number of American Negro reformers visited Britain. Their visits have not passed unnoticed. As J. H. Franklin has remarked, “More than a score of black abolitionists went to England, Scotland, France and Germany… Almost everywhere they were received with enthusiasm and were instrumental in linking up the humanitarian movement with various reform movements on both sides of the Atlantic.” Benjamin Quarles, furthermore, has commented on some of their work in Britain.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
Copyright © British Association for American Studies 1961

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

1.Franklin, John Hope, From Slavery to Freedom (New York 1952) p. 249.Google Scholar
2.Quarles, Benjamin, “Ministers Without Portfolio,” Journal of Negro History, XXXIX, 1954.Google Scholar
3.Negro students were apparently a common feature in large British towns: “In an hour's walk through the Strand, Regent or Piccadilly Streets in London, one may meet half a dozen coloured young men who are inmates of the various colleges in the metropolis. These are all signs of progress in the cause of the sons of Africa.” Brown, W. W., Three Years in Europe (London, 1852) p. 233.Google Scholar
4.This group contained many who seized the opportunity to play on public emotions for themselves under very false pretences. From the attitude of the Anti-Slavery Reporter to this group it is clear that the problem of the immigrant Negro was already having to be faced in Britain in the nineteenth century.Google Scholar
5.The Liberator, Jan. 14, 1832.Google Scholar
6., W.P. and Garrison, F. J., The Life and Times of William Lloyd Garrison (New York 1885), I, pp. 352ff; The Liberator Nov. 9, 16, 23, 30 and Dec. 7.Google Scholar
7.Seethe Liberator, June 11, 1836, which gives an account of the Glasgow Emancipation Society meeting at which Paul and another Negro, J. McCune Smith were present. By 1836 Paul had settled in Albany, New York: Liberator June 11, 1836.Google Scholar
8.Anti-Slavery Letters written by William Lloyd Garrison, 1844–53, Boston Public Library, MS. A. 1. 1., vol. 4, no. 7: Anti-Slavery Letters to William Lloyd Garrison, 1850, Boston Public Library, MS. A. 1. 2., vol. 19, no. 40.Google Scholar
9.“The lectures of your friend Charles L. Remond have been productive of much good but no one could listen unmoved to his appeals on behalf of the suffering and oppressed. If such as he had come long since amongst us the clouds of ignorance with which we were surrounded would have been dispelled and our sympathy would not have been so long withheld.” Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society to Maria Weston Chapman, Dec. 1, 1841, Weston Papers1841, Vol.15, pt. 1, no. 104. And again: “Tho some friends were at work for the Boston Bazaar since July, yet there was no general interest excited until the arrival of Mr. C. L. Remond whose eloquence and lectures were most efficient in arousing the active spirit among those hitherto indifferent because in a great measure; ignorant on the subject of American slavery.” Cork Ladies Anti-Slavery Society to Maria Weston Chapman, n. d., Chapman Papers Vol. 1 no. 6. (Boston Pub. Lib.).Google Scholar
10.“From causes of which you are doubtless aware I have not for the past three months been able to be heard (through the mists of the new organisation) for the poor slave; but hope now, during the remainder of my stay to act unhampered.” The Liberator, May 21, 1841.Google Scholar
11.“Let the friends in Boston who inquire understand that though you leave-me the last of the old school in England, poor persecuted and intimidated for the truth's sake, I shall be the last which heaven shall witness false to my trust.” The Liberator, July 30, 1841.Google Scholar
12.Frederick Douglass to R.D. Webb, Limerick, 18th Nov. 1845, Anti-Slavery Letters to Garrison, MS. A. 1. 2, 1845, vol. 15, no. 76.Google Scholar
13.There were, in addition, business difficulties between the two men: Anti,-Slavery Letters to Garrison, Vol. 15, nos. 62 and 79. Webb, however, broke with the Quakers when the friends in Dublin refused to allow their meeting house to Frederick Douglass and other American speakers on slavery in 1845. (Memorial on R. D. Webb by Samuel May in the Estlin Papers, Boston Public Library.).Google Scholar
14.May Papers, Boston, 1837–1845, vol. 1, no. 66, vol. II, 1844–49, no. 37; Weston Papers, Boston, Vol. 22, no. 35.Google Scholar
15.Samuel May laterremarked: “His (F. D. 's) self conceit and vanity are enormous and generally remarked. Many think he was spoiled in England.” May to Estlin, Boston, Nov. 4, 1851, May-Estlin Correspondence, Boston, 18491865, MS. B. 1. 6., vol. 14.Google Scholar
16.Shepperson, George, “The Free Church and American Slavery”, Scottish Historical Review, 19511952; George Shepperson, “Frederick Douglass and Scotland” Journal of Negro History, XXXVIII, 1953.Google Scholar
17.This attacklead to a public dispute between Douglass and one of the American de legates: Correspondence between the Rev. Samuel H. Cox and Frederick Douglass (New York, 1846).Google Scholar
18.Weston Papers, Boston, 1851–52, vol.25, nos. 45, 50, 84; vol. 26, no. 29; Anti-Slavery Letters to Garrison, MS. A. 1. 2., vol.20, no. 8; vol. 22, no. 31.Google Scholar
19.Special Report of the Bristol and Clifton Ladies Anti-Slavery Society (London, 1852). In fact, the Bristol Society seems to have been more influenced in its change of allegiance by the visit of Maria Weston Chapman and her party: see Minutes of the Bristol and Clifton Ladies Anti-Slavery Society for September 11th and 28th, 1851, Estlin Papers, Boston, 24. 120.Google Scholar
20.Ward, Samuel Ringgold, Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro, (London 1855), p. 330, 337–8.Google Scholar
21.Asher, J., Incidents in the Life of the Rev. Jeremiah Asher (London, 1850).Google Scholar
22.Ward, Samuel Ringgold, Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro (London, 1855), p. 22.Google Scholar
23.Brown, William Wells, Sketches of People and Places Abroad (Boston, 1855).Google Scholar
24.Quarles, B., “Ministers Without Portfolio,”, Journal of Negro History, XXXIX, 1954.Google Scholar
25.Stanton, H. B., Random Recollections (New York, 1887), p. 46.Google Scholar
26.A Letter addressed to the Stoweites of England and Scotland by a Briton - The Fashionable Philanthropy of the Day (London, 1853).Google Scholar
27.Ward, Autobiography, p. v.Google Scholar
28.Henson, Josiah, Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson, (London, 1890).Google Scholar
29.Ward, Autobiography, p. 39–40.Google Scholar
30.Wilson, Armistead, A Tribute for the Negro (Manchester 1848) p. 490.Google Scholar
31.Brown, Sketches, p. 139.Google Scholar
32.Ward, Autobiography, pp. 237–238. Brown was no less emphatic: “I have addressed large and influential meetings in Newcastle and the neighbouring towns, and the more I see and learn of the conditcn of the working class of England the more I am satisfied of the utter fallacy of the statements often made that they conditions approximate to that of the slaves in America. Whatever may be the disadvantages that the British peasant labours under he is free, and if he is not satisfied with his employer he can make choice of another. He has also the right to educate his children, and he is the equal of the most wealthy person before an English court of justice. “Brown, Sketches, p. 140.Google Scholar
33.Greeley, Horace, Glances at Europe, (New York, 1851) p. 85.Google Scholar
34.Brown, Three Years in Europe (London, 1852) p. 252.Google Scholar