Abolitionism was a political movement that sought to end the practice of slavery and the slave trade. ‘The Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully Held in Bondage’ was the first American abolition society. It was established in Philadelphia in 1775, primarily by Quakers, who believed that one man owning another was a sin. Its operation was suspended during the British occupation of Philadelphia and the Revolutionary War. It began again in 1784, with Benjamin Franklin as first president. At the Constitutional Convention of 1787, an agreement was reached that allowed the Federal government to abolish the international slave trade by 1808. The principal organized bodies of this reform were the Society of Friends, the Pennsylvania Antislavery Society, and…
Tag: African American Women
African American Women
Solomon Northup
Solomon Northup was a free Black who was kidnapped and sold into slavery. I will allow him to tell parts of the story from his memoir that was published in 1853. Though the language – his or the editor’s – is stilted, it was the writing style of the times. Please excuse my cobbling together quotes that aren’t necessarily in succession, because I don’t want to interrupt the flow of the story. Solomon was born in 1808 in Minerva, New York. His father had been a slave, but had been freed upon the death of his master. As a boy, Solomon worked on his father’s farm, and spent his free time reading and learning to play the violin. In 1829,…
Lily Ann Granderson
Union troops occupied Natchez, Mississippi in the summer of 1863. Soon thereafter, missionaries from the northern states came to establish schools for the slaves. They were surprised to learn that one such school already existed and had been educating slaves for years. The teacher was Lily Ann Granderson, and she was a slave as well. Knowledge of her background is far from complete. Lily Ann was born a slave in Virginia in 1816. Her grandmother was a free woman of Native American heritage. After her death, Lily’s mother was enslaved at the age of three. At some point, Lily was moved to Kentucky. She worked as a house slave, and her master’s children taught her to read and write. After…