Byberry, Pa., Jan 21st 1851.

Dear Douglass:—My family and self were shocked and pained on seeing in the "North Star," a letter advocating that attendant of slavery, Colonization, over the signature of one of the most zealous and Jesuitical advocates of the abominiable "old bag's" pretensions to benevolence, Benjamin CoatesCoates, Benjamin

Benjamin Coates (c. 1808-87) mostly likely formed his opinions on slavery and abolition under the influence of his devout Pennsylvania Quaker parents. A successful wool merchant and a publisher, Coates was active in many antislavery organizations in Philadelphia, such as the Pennsylvania Abolition Society. Despite his abolitionist connections, Coates argued that colonization was the best way to end slavery. From the 1840s until his death, Coates actively sought financial support from wealthy donors for colonization efforts in western Africa and started a correspondence with Joseph Jenkins Roberts, a successful immigrant to Liberia. In 1858 Coates published Cotton Cultivation in Africa: Suggestions on the Importance of the Cultivation of Cotton in Africa, in Reference to the Abolition of Slavery in the United States, through the Organization of an African Civilization Society, which advocated an increase in international cotton production in order to diminish the world’s dependence on cotton from the American South. Coates believed that with a decrease in profits, Southern slave owners would be compelled to free most, and perhaps all, of their slaves. Coates’s endorsement of colonization hurt his standing in the abolitionist movement, yet Douglass defended Coates, stating that he was a “humane and benevolent man” and “no more a negro hater than we.” , ser. 3, 1:538n; Ripley, 4:322. , of Philadelphia. The bald impudence of Mr. Coates surpasses anything I ever saw. Not content with persecuting our race in the columns of the organs of the infamous Society, and as he well may, in almost every pro-slavery press in the country, which at this juncture are all teeming with the diabolism of Colonization, he seeks the dissemination of his infernal scheme through anti-slavery papers, by the most contemptible hypocrisy, gilding his pill of death, in the golden rays of christian benevolence and philanthropy. The paltry attempt of a five dollar bill, or fulsome laudation of the "name and fame" of "Frederick Douglass" will find the same grave of infamy to which virtuous indignation consigns the affected disinterestedness and blindness, in mixing up the vile sheet the "Colonization Herald," and freedom's advocate, the "Pennsylvania Freeman." Thank God! however distracted and disbanded we may be upon the various subjects that engage the attention of our people, upon this one, Colonization, there is a oneness of feeling and sentiment, a singleness and [...] of purpose, which has [...] of this greater [...]; whether it appeared in the [...] of [...] own naked depravity, or endeavored to [...] in the [...].

Yours truly,

Robert PurvisPurvis, Robert

Robert Purvis (1810-98) was a prominent leader of antebellum Philadelphia's black community and one of the most influential African Americans in the Garrisonian wing of the abolitionist movement. He was the son of Harriet Juda, a free black woman, and William Purvis, a white cotton broker of Charleston, South Carolina. In 1819 Robert moved north with his family to be educated. Upon his father's death in the mid-1820s, Purvis inherited a substantial fortune, which he used to support a wide array of benevolent causes, including temperance, women's rights, penal reform, and integrated education. He helped launch the Liberator in 1831, became a charter member of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, and served as both president and vice president of the Pennsylvania Anti- Slavery Society. From the 1830s onward, he actively assisted fugitives to escape slavery. Still, Underground Rail Road, 711; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 24-25, 55-56; Joseph A. Borome, "Robert Purvis and His Early Challenge to American Racism," NHB, 30:8-10 (May 1967); Pauline C. Johnson, "Robert Purvis," NHB, 5:65-66 (December 1941); NCAB, 1:413.