The Spirit of Anti-Slavery in Western New York.

Since I entered the borders of the Empire State, up to this period, judging from what I have seen, the cause of freedom has been moving forward with signal success. The willingness to hear, and the interest manifested on the part of the common people, has been far greater than I expected. I commenced at Buffalo, where I found both the white and colored population awake to the cause of humanity. The latter numerously attended all of my meetings, and gave willing aid to the cause. The noble-hearted George Weir, Jr., D. Harris, and many others are doing much for the moral and religious elevation of our people.

I held meetings at Lockport, Geneva, Waterloo, Seneca Falls, Syracuse and Utica.ーAt all the above places I found more or less of our people; the greater part of whom I found somewhat interested in the anti-slavery cause; and those who are not with us, are most generally exerting an influence against us. They support pro-slavery presses and newspapers, to the exclusion of those which are advocating the cause of suffering humanity. Others resort to the gambling house and rum-shops, and thereby bring down reproach and disgrace upon our oppressed race. The number of colored people living in Lockport is about 200. Geneva and Syracuse has about the same. Utica and Little Fallsーabout 50 in each place. Geneva is the most aristocratic, pro-slavery hole I have visited.ーI had the pleasure of visiting H. H. Garnet's splendid school, and address a crowded anti-slavery meeting in his church.

When I arrived at Syracuse, I found the long-tried and faithful friend of the slave, the Rev. Samuel J. May, who received me, though a stranger, as a friend and brother; and by his aid and co-operation in a series of meetings, we made the church ring with the appeals of our enslaved countrymen.

Yours for the oppressed through the land,

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). .

Little Falls, Jan. 29, 1849.