paper was a bold and faithful advocate, and finding in your paper the same manly devotion to all the great political doctrines it formerly advocated, I cannot do justice to the cause of Freedom, or to myself, my family and small circle of friends, except I become a permanent subscriber for Frederick Douglass’ Paper.

We, the people, need a true weekly informer in these time[s] of “treasonable trials,”³The trials of the participants in the Christiana riot took place during October 1851. Still, Underground Railroad, 360–71. while the free States of this guilty nation are groaning under the “compromise” slave-catching measures of this Webster and Fillmore conspiracy,⁴The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. against the old doctrine of inalienable rights contained in the old declaration of 1776.⁵The Declaration of Independence.

Yours is just such a paper. I wish it was read by every family in this republic, instead of the ten thousand pro-slavery, political and religious Journals which are spreading their poisonous influence over the face of society. It is all you pledged it to be at the time you introduced it to the Liberty Party Paper readers. Your motto, “All rights for all,”⁶“ALL RIGHTS FOR ALL” was the motto that appeared in Frederick Douglass’ Paper. FDP, 26 June 1851. is thus far put forth and manfully maintained, and therefore I for one bid your noble sheet welcome to my “family fireside” with heart-felt pleasure and great profit.

I wish also to make an inquiry through your colums, for the benefit of any in the section of the State, who may be desirous to send, in regard to boxes of clothing and provisions for the suffering fugitives in Canada West.⁷Fugitive slaves from the United States began to settle in Canada West in the early 1800s. There, they formed their own communities, including Amherstburg and Wilberforce. Though not restricted legally, the fugitives were less than welcomed by most white Canadians. In the 1840s the situation of the Canadian black communities grew worse as many fugitives fled to Canada West, greatly increasing their numbers and the negative reaction of whites. Later, black settlements that had been patterned on the Wilberforce settlement, such as Dawn, struggled financially to survive. Black settlers in Dawn and other communities faced inflated land prices, mismanagement, and economic distress. Silverman, Unwelcome Guests, 21–22, 53–64; Pease and Pease, Black Utopia, 63–70.

It seems to us in this section a wrong route altogether, to send such boxes to the American Missionary Society's⁸Formed in 1846 in Albany, New York, the American Missionary Association was an organization of Christian abolitionists who chose not to associate with established missionary agencies of the major denominations. Early leaders of the group included treasurer Lewis Tappan and secretaries Simeon S. Jocelyn and George Whipple. The organization promoted education and missionary activities for blacks in the United States and abroad. By 1855 the American Missionary Association had more than 100 missions in North America and posts in Egypt, Thailand, Haiti, Jamaica, and West Africa. In addition to establishing missions, the American Missionary Association made major contributions to the antislavery movement in the churches and formed an important medium for Christian abolitionists to lobby American churches for antislavery action. McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 114–15; Clifton H. Johnson, “The American Missionary Association, 1846–1861” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1958). Treasurer at New York, to be sent by him to Canada West.⁹The American Missionary Association supported several missions to fugitive slaves and other blacks in what is today’s Canadian province of Ontario. The religious abolitionist organization believed that spiritual guidance and education would dispel prejudice against those blacks. Critics such as Mary Ann Shadd charged that such charitable activities discouraged the development of self-reliance among Canadian blacks. McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 116; Silverman, Unwelcome Guests, 60, 72.—Can’t they be forwarded to yourself or some other responsible individual at Rochester?

If so, or if any other safe and more direct route, I wish you would just inform your readers as soon as is convenient, and thus assist in bringing relief to the poor fugitives from our country's tyranny.

Yours in sympathy,

JOEL A. HUBBARD

PLSr: FDP, 6 November 1851.