"Without purchasers, there would be no trade; and consequently every purchaser as he encourages the trade, becomes partaker in the guilt of it." -Anthony Benezet .
This was only one of the logical statements of Anthony Benezet, a Quaker who opposed slavery. He did not only speak against slavery, he funded, wrote and published anti-slavery reading material. Like Henry D. Thoreau, Benezet was a teacher. By day he was a successful school teacher at Friends English School in Philadelphia. At night he taught slave children from his home. Later, he expanded his teaching by setting up the first all-girl public school in America. He later fell ill, but continued to teach with help from Society of Friends, a religious group derived from the Quakers. He started another school exclusively for slave children in Philadelphia. He continued to teach at both schools nearly until his death. http://www.brycchancarey.com/abolition/benezet.htm
Like Elizabeth C. Stanton, and Frederick Douglas, Sojourner Truth spoke on anti-slavery and women’s rights. She was a slave throughout childhood, passed around by three owners. Finally she ran away from the third owners. She was brought by a kinder owner, and then freed by the New York Gradual Abolition as an adult. She settled in North Hampton, where she joined an association founded by abolitionists, the North Hampton Association of Education and Industry. William Lloyd Garrison, Frederick Douglass, and David Ruggles were also members of this group. They shared the same views she had; anti-slavery, and women’s right supporters. She was a religious woman, and they were a religious-tolerant group. Unfortunately, due to lack of funds, the group disbanded. She later became involved with another group. They were the spiritualism religious movement of that time. The Progressive Friends, also inspired by the Quakers. This group believed in abolition, women's rights, non-violence, and they were not just religious tolerant, but they believed in communicating with spirits.
From 1870-1877, Truth campaigned for the freed slaves to receive land from the government. This was unsuccessful, but it did inspire many freed slaves to migrate west on their own. Truth spent a year helping the refugees by publicly speaking in their behalf. This led up to her final mission before her death.
Sojourner Truth died in 1883. She was honored in many ways dating from 1935 until 2008 for her speeches, literature and other works. http://www.lkwdpl.org/wihohio/trut-soj.htm
Once the Southern slaves learned about the Northern Slaves getting freed, naturally they wanted freedom too. So many slaves fled North. This led to the Fugitive Slave Laws of 1793, which forced the law makers of the North to recapture those slaves and return them. Article 4, section 2 of the Constitution stated that slaves who escaped to free states had to be surrendered to their owners upon demand. This posed many problems because slave hunters and law enforcers did not know how to act on it. It was a “grey area on the Constitution”. Black people were constantly assumed fugitive, so their safety was at risk.
The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was to provide a less savage way to enforce the escaped slaves to return to the owner. The slave owner would seize the fugitive slave, and go before a federal or local judge, prove ownership, and then receive a certificate authorizing the slave to be retaken. There was a penalty of $500 for obstructing an owner's efforts to retake a slave, or for rescuing, harboring, or concealing a fugitive slave. This didn’t go over well with the Northerners. They saw it as an excuse for the Southerners to kidnap the freed Northern Black people. Many hated that this law because it seems there was no statute of limitation, and people were being taken from their already established lives and families. In turn Northerners took it upon themselves to create “personal liberty laws” to protect the black people. Southerners saw these laws as efforts to get around the Constitution.
Southerners wanted to uphold the fugitive slave law, while Northerners wanted it adjusted. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 supposedly offered a compromise. The act was an effort to hold the country together. Slave owners could still capture the alleged fugitive, or obtain a warrant for a federal marshal to arrest the alleged fugitive before taking the person before a hearing. The accused wouldn’t be able to testify on their own behalf. Even the penalties increased. Northerners did not agree with this revision. They resisted, eventually causing the Civil War, which repealed the Fugitive Slave Laws entirely. http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/fugitive_slave_laws.aspx
Many northerners were anti-slavery, so riots and protests against the southerners coming to “claim their property”. In the case of Anthony Burns, he was a fugitive slave who was brought and freed by the North.
Anthony Burns was born a slave in Virginia. He fled north to Boston when the North freed their slaves. He was captured and arrested on Court Street in Boston. This became a high profiled case that generated national publicity, protests and demonstrations, and the US Marshals at the courthouse was attacked. Federal troops were used to transport Burns to a ship for return to Virginia after the trial. He was eventually purchased by Boston sympathizers, and freed. He became even more of a success story when he maintained an education at Oberlin College. He moved to Upper Canada, and became a preacher. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Burns
Valerie
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