GERRIT SMITH TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Peterboro, [N.Y.] 8 Dec[ember] 1847.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS—

MY DEAR SIR:—

I welcome you to the State of New York. In this, your new home, may you and yours, and your labors of love for your oppressed race, be all greatly blessed of God.

Above is my draft for five dollars, to pay for two years' subscription to your forthcoming paper.

Conformably to my purpose of giving to 3000 colored inhabitants of this State the principal share of my lands, which are fit for farming, I made out 2000 deeds last year: I am now busy, with my clerks, in making out the remaining 1000.¹In 1847 Gerrit Smith donated 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to be granted in parcels to 3,000 African American citizens of New York. Spread between Franklin and Essex Counties, the parcels consisted of marginal farmland, but offered an opportunity for independence that many eagerly embraced. Smith’s generosity was lauded at black conventions across the region. NS, 3 December 1847, 7 January, 18, 25 February 1848, 12 January 1849. Inasmuch as you and Mr. NellNell, William Cooper

William Cooper Nell (1816–74), a black Garrisonian abolitionist, was one of the original editors of the North Star. A graduate of Boston’s segregated Smith School, Nell studied law but never practiced because he refused, on Wendell Phillips’s advice, to take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution. During the early 1840s he worked for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and the Liberator. From 1847 to 1851 he assisted Douglass on the North Star and served as acting editor when Douglass was absent on speaking tours. Nell remained a Garrisonian loyalist and severed his ties with the North Star when Douglass shifted his allegiance to the Liberty party. At meetings of the Colored National Convention and its council in the 1850s, Nell, an opponent of racially exclusive organizations, attacked Douglass’s plans for a black manual-labor college on the grounds that it would hinder, not help, the movement for racial equality. After Nell advised Boston blacks not to subscribe to Douglass’s newspaper, Douglass branded his former associate a “hanger on” and “contemptible tool” of Garrison. In addition to his abolitionist activities, Nell wrote important histories of African Americans. His Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812 (1851) and The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855) detailed the contributions of black people to the nation’s founding. In 1858 Nell staged the first Crispus Attucks celebration. During Lincoln’s administration he was appointed a clerk in the Boston post office. NS, 16 February 1849; FDP, 12, 19 August, 9 December 1853, 28 February, 31 March 1854, 12 January 1856; San Francisco Elevator, 27 June 1874; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 111–12; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 86, 245, 254; Robert P. Smith, “William Cooper Nell: Crusading Black Abolitionist,” JNH, 55:182–99 (July 1970); ACAB, 4:489; NCAB, 14:306; DAB, 13:413. ²William Cooper Nell (1816–74), a black Garrisonian abolitionist, was one of the original editors of the North Star. A graduate of Boston’s segregated Smith School, Nell studied law but never practiced because he refused, on Wendell Phillips’s advice, to take an oath to support the U.S. Constitution. During the early 1840s he worked for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society and the Liberator. From 1847 to 1851 he assisted Douglass on the North Star and served as acting editor when Douglass was absent on speaking tours. Nell remained a Garrisonian loyalist and severed his ties with the North Star when Douglass shifted his allegiance to the Liberty party. At meetings of the Colored National Convention and its council in the 1850s, Nell, an opponent of racially exclusive organizations, attacked Douglass’s plans for a black manual-labor college on the grounds that it would hinder, not help, the movement for racial equality. After Nell advised Boston blacks not to subscribe to Douglass’s newspaper, Douglass branded his former associate a “hanger on” and “contemptible tool” of Garrison. In addition to his abolitionist activities, Nell wrote important histories of African Americans. His Services of Colored Americans in the Wars of 1776 and 1812 (1851) and The Colored Patriots of the American Revolution (1855) detailed the contributions of black people to the nation’s founding. In 1858 Nell staged the first Crispus Attucks celebration. During Lincoln’s administration he was appointed a clerk in the Boston post office. NS, 16 February 1849; FDP, 12, 19 August, 9 December 1853, 28 February, 31 March 1854, 12 January 1856; San Francisco Elevator, 27 June 1874; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 111–12; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 86, 245, 254; Robert P. Smith, “William Cooper Nell: Crusading Black Abolitionist,” JNH, 55:182–99 (July 1970); ACAB, 4:489; NCAB, 14:306; DAB, 13:413. have become inhabitants of this State, I feel at liberty to convey a parcel of land to each of you.³Among the Rochester recipients of Smith lands was William C. Nell, who served as secretary for the association of grantees from that city. NS, 15 December 1848.

Herewith are the deeds. I wish that the land was in a less rigorous clime; but it is smooth and arable, and not wanting in fertility. Forty acres—that is, a quarter of the same lot of which I have conveyed a quarter each to yourself and Mr. Nell,—I have given to Mr. C. L. RemondRemond, Charles Lenox

Charles Lenox Remond (1810-73), the first black lecturer hired by any antislavery society, was born in Salem, Massachusetts, to the daughter of a black hero of the American Revolution and a former slave from Curaçao. In his youth, he learned about the horrors of slavery from his father and experienced the segregation and discrimination practiced by Northern whites. In the late 1820s and early 1830s, Remond read David Walker’s Appeal and became acquainted with William Lloyd Garrison, which led him to dedicate his life to abolitionism. Remond became active in reform movements at an early age. A member of the Colored Association of Massachusetts when it merged with the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1833, he became an officer in the latter organization. He became an agent for the Liberator and joined the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society shortly thereafter. In 1838 he began lecturing for the American Anti-Slavery Society. Both his color and his ability made him a very popular speaker in both the United States and Great Britain, where he attended the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention as a delegate in 1840 in London. Remond was the sole black lecturer for antislavery societies until Frederick Douglass began speaking in 1842. For a time, Remond and Douglass worked the lecture circuit together. Douglass admired Remond, the more experienced speaker, and named a son for him. Remond traveled and lectured in the British Isles for some sixteen months. Upon his return, Remond was employed as a lecture agent by the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Through the 1840s, however, Remond remained a steadfast Garrisonian while Douglass began to favor political action to end slavery, and their friendship suffered. Their close association was troubled as a rift between Douglass and Garrison threatened, and in 1852 Remond announced his intention to cancel his subscription to Frederick Douglass' Paper in protest against Douglass's adoption of non-Garrisonian views of the U.S. Constitution. Their goals, however, remained the same, and like Douglass, Remond recruited black soldiers for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Infantry Regiment during the Civil War. After the war, just before his death, Remond urged abolitionists to continue their fight by combatting the racial prejudice that persisted in both the North and South after the end of slavery. Illness curtailed his reform activities after the war. Les Wallace, "Charles Lenox Remond: The Lost Prince of Abolitionism," NHB, 40:696-701 (May-June 1977); William E. Ward, "Charles Lenox Remond: Black Abolitionist, 1838-1873" (Ph.D. diss., Clark University, 1977); FDP, 20 May 1852; New York Daily Times, 26 December 1873; NNE, 8 January 1874; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 46; NCAB, 2:303; DAB, 15:499-500. .⁴Charles Lenox Remond. The remaining quarter will probably be conveyed to Mr. W. W. BrownBrown, William Wells

William Wells Brown (c. 1814-84) was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky, but escaped to freedom in Ohio in 1834, taking the name Wells Brown from a Quaker man who aided his escape. After settling in Cleveland, he worked on a Lake Erie steamboat, from which he helped many fugitive slaves escape to Canada. In the 1840s he moved his family to New York, where he began lecturing for the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1843-49). Brown was active in universal reform movements advocating temperance, women's rights, and prison reform. Brown studied medicine informally, but chose to remain active in reforms instead of committing to professional medical practice. In 1847, Brown published his first book, Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, and moved to Boston. From 1849 to 1854 he traveled and lectured in Europe, meeting many prominent figures and publishing two more books: Three Years in Europe; Or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met (1852) and Clotel; Or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States (1853), the first novel known to be written by an African American. After friends in England purchased his freedom in 1854, he returned to the United States to continue his work in the abolitionist, temperance, woman suffrage, and prison reform movements. He also wrote four books about African American history, including The Black Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and His Achievements, which appeared in 1863 and ran through ten editions in three years. During the Civil War, Brown joined Douglass in recruiting blacks for the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts Infantry Regiment. Lib., 12 January 1855; London Lancet, 6 December 1884; R. J. M. Blackett, Beating against the Barriers: The Lives of Six Nineteenth-Century Afro-Americans (Ithaca, N.Y., 1986), 45, 48, 95-96, 101-02; Pease and Pease, They Who Would Be Free, 35, 42, 50-51; DAB, 3:161; DANB, 71-73. ,⁵William Wells Brown (c. 1814–84) was born a slave in Lexington, Kentucky, but escaped to freedom in Ohio in 1834. After settling in Cleveland, he worked on a Lake Erie steamboat, from which he helped many fugitive slaves escape to Canada. In the 1840s he and his family moved to New York state, where he began lecturing for the Western New York Anti-Slavery Society and the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (1843–49). In 1847 Brown published his first book, Narrative of William W. Brown, A Fugitive Slave, Written by Himself, and moved to Boston. From 1849 to 1854, he traveled as a lecturer in Europe, meeting many prominent figures and continuing his career as an author with Three Years in Europe; or, Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met (1852) and Clotel; Or, The President’s Daughter: A Narrative of Slave Life in the United States (1853), the first novel known to be written by an African American. After friends in England purchased his freedom in 1854, he returned to the United States to continue his work in the abolitionist, temperance, woman suffrage, and prison reform movements. He also wrote four books about African American history. During the Civil War, Brown joined Douglass in recruiting blacks for the Massachusetts Fifty-fourth Infantry Regiment. Lib., 12 January 1855; London Lancet, 6 December 1884; DAB, 3:161; DANB, 71–73. who has also become an inhabitant of this State. One of the contiguous lots I have divided amongst four fugitive slaves, viz: Henry BibbBibb, Henry

Henry Bibb (1815-54), born a slave in Shelby County, Kentucky, escaped in 1837, only to be recaptured in his unsuccessful attempt to rescue his wife and child. By 1842 he had escaped once again and settled in Detroit, Michigan, his residence until 1850. Immediately plunging into political and antislavery work, Bibb was hired as a lecturer by the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society and spoke on behalf of Liberty party candidates. Although Bibb planned to visit England in 1848, he was advised against making such a tour because the bigamous implications of his marriage to a free woman, Mary E. Miles, might limit his antislavery appeal. He toured the East in 1849, at one point acting as an agent for the North Star, and published his Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb (1849). After the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, Bibb settled in Windsor, Canada West, where he published the Voice of the Fugitive (1851-53). In January 1852 the Refugee Home Society was founded to assist American blacks to migrate to Canada and chose Bibb as a trustee. Bibb was also active in the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada, serving as one of its vice presidents in 1852. NS, 24 March 1848; Henry Bibb, Narrative of the life and Adventures of Henry Bibb: An American Slave (New York, 1850); Floyd J. Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787-1863 (London, 1975), 106-07, 110-15, 149; Winks, Blacks in Canada, 204-08, 254-55, 396-97; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 61-62, 185, 218-19; Pease and Pease, Black Utopia, 109-22; idem. They Who Would Be Free, 65, 252-53; Fred Landon, "Henry Bibb: A Colonizer," JNH, 5:437-47 (October 1920). ,⁶Henry Bibb (1815–54) first escaped from slavery in Shelby County, Kentacky, in 1837. In attempting to rescue his wife, Melinda, and their daughter, Mary Frances, he was recaptured, but escaped again in 1842. Settling in Detroit, he became active in antislavery politics, attending the black state convention in 1843, lecturing for the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society in 1845, touring New England in 1846, and attending the Boston reception to welcome Douglass upon his return from England in 1847. In 1849 he became an agent for the North Star and published his own Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb. After the federal government passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, Bibb became interested in Canadian colonization and founded a journal, the Voice of the Fugitive (1851–53). He became the recording secretary of the Benevolent Association, which purchased land in Canada West, and an officer and trustee of the Refugee Home Society, the organization formed when the Benevolent Association merged with a similar Detroit organization. Bibb was also active in the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada. NS, 24 March 1848, 12, 19 January, 16 February, 18 May, 15, 22 June 1849; Lib., 1 June 1849; FDP, 11 August 1854; Henry Bibb, Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, in Puttin’ On Ole Massa, ed. Gilbert Osofsky (New York, 1969), 64, 74–82, 154–64; David M. Katzman, Before the Ghetto: Black Detroit in the Nineteenth Century (Urbana, Ill., 1973), 14–16, 39, 41–42; Miller, Search for a Black Nationality, 106–07, 110–15, 149; Pease and Pease, Black Utopia, 109–22; idem, They Who Would Be Free, 65, 252–53; Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 61–62, 185, 218–19; Winks, Blacks in Canada, 204–08, 254–55, 396–97; Fred Landon, “Henry Bibb, A Colonizer,” JNH, 5:437–47 (October 1920). and the three brothers, LewisClarke, Lewis G.

Lewis G. Clarke (1815–97) was born the son of an enslaved woman and a white man in Madison County, Kentucky. He escaped slavery and dedicated his life to the abolitionist cause. According to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Clarke was the basis for the novel’s character George Harris. Abolitionist J. C. Lovejoy wrote and published the dictated story of Clarke’s life as a slave in 1846. The narrative detailed Clarke’s early life in slavery, his escape across the Ohio River to freedom in 1841, and his life in Ontario, Canada, and Oberlin, Ohio. About 1843, Lewis Clarke and his brother Milton became lecturers on the antislavery circuit. The Clarkes were also active in the Underground Railroad, aiding many fugitives from Kentucky, where Lewis returned following the Civil War. Vacheenas and Volk, “Born in Bondage,” 36:101–06; DANB, 116–17 ,⁷Lewis G. Clarke (1815–97) was born the son of an enslaved woman and a white man in Madison County, Kentucky. He escaped slavery and dedicated his life to the abolitionist cause. According to Harriet Beecher Stowe’s The Key to Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Clarke was the basis for the novel’s character George Harris. Abolitionist J. C. Lovejoy wrote and published the dictated story of Clarke’s life as a slave in 1846. The narrative detailed Clarke’s early life in slavery, his escape across the Ohio River to freedom in 1841, and his life in Ontario, Canada, and Oberlin, Ohio. About 1843, Lewis Clarke and his brother Milton became lecturers on the antislavery circuit. The Clarkes were also active in the Underground Railroad, aiding many fugitives from Kentucky, where Lewis returned following the Civil War. Vacheenas and Volk, “Born in Bondage,” 36:101–06; DANB, 116–17. MiltonClarke, Milton

Milton Clarke (c. 1817–1901), a musician and antislavery activist, was born in Lexington, Kentucky, to Daniel Clarke, a Scotsman, and an enslaved woman, Letty Clarke, the property of Samuel Campbell. Following Campbell’s death, his daughter, Judith, and her brutal husband, Joseph Logan, a tanner, inherited six-year old Clarke, his mother, and two of his ten siblings. Clarke’s life improved when Logan’s father, Deacon Archibald Logan, purchased his son’s estate. Clarke became a manservant, entrusted with various domestic responsibilities. Deacon Logan also allowed Clarke, an accomplished drummer and bugler, to hire out his own time on steamboats traveling the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers. Later, in Louisville, Clarke and three slave acquaintances ran away to Ohio. He settled in Oberlin, where he gained fame for assisting fugitives and thwarting pursuing owners. In 1842 or 1843, Deacon Logan learned of Clarke’s whereabouts and sent an agent to retrieve him. Fierce community opposition to his removal and various legal impediments prevented the agent from returning Clarke to Logan. Once released from his captors, Clarke moved farther north, lectured extensively with his brother Lewis in the antislavery circuit, and narrated his dramatic autobiography in 1845. Details of his later life remain sketchy. Lewis Clarke and Milton Clarke, Narratives of the Sufferings of Lewis and Milton Clarke (Boston, 1846); Ripley, Black Abolitionist Papers, 3:27–28, 30, 396n; Jean Vacheenas and Betty Volk, “Born in Bondage: History of a Slave Family,” NHB, 36:101–06 (May 1973). ,⁸Milton Clarke. and Cyrus ClarkClarke, Cyrus

The younger brother of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Cyrus Clarke remained in Lexington, Kentucky, while his brothers escaped north. In 1842 with the help of Lewis, Cyrus himself escaped to Canada. Shortly thereafter he joined his free wife in Hamilton, New York, where he persuaded town officials to allow him to vote. Vacheenas and Volk, “Born in Bondage,” 104. .⁹The younger brother of Lewis and Milton Clarke, Cyrus Clarke remained in Lexington, Kentucky, while his brothers escaped north. In 1842 with the help of Lewis, Cyrus himself escaped to Canada. Shortly thereafter he joined his free wife in Hamilton, New York, where he persuaded town officials to allow him to vote. Vacheenas and Volk, “Born in Bondage,” 104.

With great regard, Your friend and brother,

GERRIT SMITHSmith, Gerrit

Gerrit Smith (1797– 1874), a New York businessman and land speculator, became best known for his philanthropic work for such reform causes as temperance and abolition. Between 1828 and 1835, he donated large sums of money to the American Colonization Society, but abandoned that movement in 1835 when his sympathies shifted to the immediate abolitionists. In the 1840s, he gave approximately 140,000 acres of land in upstate New York to three thousand black settlers, thus qualifying them to vote. Smith was a founder and frequent candidate of the Liberty party, running for governor of New York on that ticket in 1840 and winning a seat in Congress in 1852. When the Free Soil merger with moderate antislavery Democrats and Whigs lured away many Liberty party supporters, Smith helped bankroll that organization until 1860. Smith befriended Douglass when the latter moved to Rochester, and Smith frequently helped finance Frederick Douglass’ Paper. Like Douglass, Smith supported John Brown, but psychological stress caused by the failure at Harpers Ferry brought on the first of a series of bipolar episodes that greatly reduced his subsequent reform activities. Ralph Volney Harlow, Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer (1939; New York, 1972); Gerald Sorin, The New York Abolitionists: A Case Study of Political Radicalism (Westport, Conn., 1971), 269– 87; Lewis Perry, Radical Abolitionism: Anarchy and the Government of God in Antislavery Thought (Ithaca, N.Y., 1973), 170– 80; John R. McKivigan and Madeleine Leveille, “The ‘Black Dream’ of Gerrit Smith, New York Abolitionist,” Syracuse University Library Associates Courier, 20:61– 76 (Fall 1985); NCAB , 2:322– 23; DAB, 17:270– 71. .

PLSr: NS, 7 January 1848. Reprinted in Newcastle-upon-Tyne Christian, 4:382 (1 March 1848).