Black Women in Antebellum America: Active Agents in the Fight for Freedom

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Occasional Paper No. 35

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Black Women in

Antebellum America:

Active Agents in the Fight For Freedom

by
Sandra M. Grayson

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This paper addresses the topic of Black women's active involvement in anti-slavery efforts during the
pre-civil war period. It examines the ways in which Black women protested slavery through their
participation in slave revolts, as well as through their narratives, speeches, poetry, and essays. Sandra
M. Grayson is an Assistant Professor in the English Department at Bentley College in Waltham,
Massachusetts.

Foreword

Through this series of publications, the William Monroe Trotter Institute is making available
copies of selected reports and papers from research conducted at the Institute. The analyses and
conclusions contained in these articles are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the
opinions or endorsement of the Trotter Institute or the University of Massachusetts Boston.

The Trotter Institute publishes its research through the Occasional Paper Series, the Research

Report Series, the Monograph Series, and the Institute's periodical, the Trotter Review . For more

information on any of these publications or the William Monroe Trotter Institute, please contact us

at the address below.

University of Massachusetts
William Monroe Trotter Institute
Publications Department
100 Morrissey Boulevard
Boston, MA 02125-3393

Introduction

African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of
every free man of color in these United States, and excite in his bosom
a lively, deep, decided, and heartfelt interest.1

The most prominent images of Black women in antebellum America depicted in classes
across the United States are of passive victims as opposed to active agents of change. The names-
and deeds of Black women like Frances E. W. Harper, Maria Stewart, Sarah Mapps Douglass, and
Sarah Jane Giddings are not an integral part of American education. Further, most history books
overlook Black women's roles in antebellum America — oversights which can be considered
suppression through historical omission. In order to reflect a more accurate picture of American
history, public and private school curriculums need to include texts by and about Black women
(slave, free-born, and former slaves) who were active agents in shaping their own lives as well as
altering the course of history. This paper explores some of the ways in which Black women were
active agents in the fight for freedom during the slave era.

Black Women, Slavery, and Resistance

In antebellum America, resistance to slavery took on many forms for Black women. Some
Black women, for instance, participated in slave revolts. One such case involves an unnamed woman,
the only Black woman of six leaders who, in August 1829, planned to kill the traders leading them
from Maryland to the South to be sold. Two white people, the leader and a guard, were killed and
most of the slaves escaped. However, a posse captured the slaves and all six leaders were sentenced
to be hung. On November 20, 1829, the five men were hanged. Because "the woman was found to

be pregnant [she was] permitted to remain in jail for several months until after the birth of the child,
whereupon, on May 25, 1830, she was publicly hanged."2

Black women were also involved in fights with the militia. In South Carolina, for example,
a Black woman and a child (both fugitives) were killed during a confrontation between a body of
militia and a community of fugitive slaves.3 In other cases, a woman would "rebel in a manner
commensurate with the work demands imposed upon her. 'She'd get stubborn like a mule and quit,'"
or she would take her hoe, knock down the overseer, and hit him across the head.4

Another form of resistance was to poison the master. Many Black women had "knowledge

of and access to poisonous herbs, gleaned from African as well as Indian and other American lore,

which they transmitted down through the generations."5 White residents of South Carolina were so

concerned about this issue that in 1751 they amended the Negro Act of 1740 as follows:

. . . any black who should instruct another "in the knowledge of any poisonous root, plant,
herb, or other poison whatever, he or she, so offending shall upon conviction thereof suffer
death as a felon." The law also prohibited physicians, apothecaries, or druggists from
admitting slaves to places in which drugs were kept or allowing them to administer drugs to
other slaves.6

Moreover, in 1811, Kentucky "declared conspiracy or poisoning by slaves, crimes punishable by

death."7 It is unclear how many Black women poisoned their masters, but as cooks and house

servants, the women were in a privileged position to do so.

Between the 1830s and the 1840s, Black women were among the twenty to thirty thousand

slaves who escaped the South. They were also among an estimated fifty thousand fugitives living in

Canada in 1855. Harriet Tubman (18207-1913), for example, escaped from slavery then returned to

the South 19 times and led over 300 slaves (including her family) to freedom. Tubman asserted,

"There was one of two things I has a right to, liberty, or death, if I could not have one, I would have

de oder; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted"8

Digitized by the Internet Archive

in 2012 with funding from

University of Massachusetts, Boston

http://archive.org/details/blackwomeninante35sand

Black women also protested slavery through narratives, poetry, speeches, and essays. Their
narratives were among the "more than six thousand extant narratives of American Negro slaves"9 and
include Harriet Jacobs' Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl and Lucy Delaney's From the Darbiess
Cometh the Light: Or, Struggles for Freedom . Other literary works include Frances E. W. Harper's
The Slaw Mother, The Slave Auction, and The Fugitive 's Wife; and Maria W. Stewart's An Address
Delivered at the African Masonic Hall, and Cause for Encouragement.

Among the Black lecturers during the slave era were Maria Stewart (1803-1879), Sojourner

Truth (17977-1883), and Frances E. W. Harper (1825-1911). Maria Stewart, a free-born Black

woman orphaned at the age of five and "bound out in a clergyman's family" until she was fifteen years

old, was the first American-born woman, white or Black, recorded to have "mounted a lecture

platform and raised a political argument before a 'promiscuous' audience [in September 1832], that

is, one composed of both men and women. . . . Hers was a call to action, urging blacks to demand

their human rights from their white oppressors."10 In addition to being a pioneer Black abolitionist,

Stewart fought for the rights of free Blacks and was politically active both during and after the Civil

War. In response to the Colonization Society's plans to send free Blacks to Liberia, she asked:

"Why sit ye here and die? If we say we will go to a foreign land, the famine and the pestilence are

there, and there we shall die. If we sit here, we shall die."11 She felt that Blacks had to stay in

America and fight for their rights:

They [whites] would drive us to a strange land. But before I go, the bayonet shall pierce me
through. African rights and liberty is a subject that ought to fire the breast of every free man
of color in these United States, and excite in his bosom a lively, deep, decided, and heartfelt
interest. n

Sojourner Truth, an abolitionist, escaped from slavery before she was freed by the New York

State Emancipation Act of 1827. She lectured at camp meetings, revivals, and conventions in

numerous states between 1843 and 1878, promoting equal rights for both Black people and white

women. Her story is chronicled in the biography, Narrative of Sojourner Truth n During her

address at the 1851 Women's Rights Convention in Akron, Ohio (a presentation that became known

as her "Ain't I a Woman" speech), Truth explained:

The poor men seem to be all in confusion, and don't know what to do. Why children, if you
have women's rights, give it to her and you will feel better. You will have your own rights,
and they won't be so much trouble. . . . Man is in a tight place, the poor slave is on him,
woman is coming on him, he is surely between a hawk and a buzzard.14

In 1854, Frances E. W. Harper, a free-born Black woman, became a lecturer for the Anti-
Slavery Society in Maine "and was soon speaking throughout New England, Ohio, New York, and
Pennsylvania, earning a reputation as an effective platform orator and punctuating her lecturers with
her own rather inspirational verse."15 Also in 1854, the first of her ten volumes of poetry, Poems on
Miscellaneous Subjects, was issued. She published one novel, Iola Leroy (1892), and is "credited
with the first short story by an African-American, 'The Two Offers,' published in 1859."16

Although The Two Offers focuses on two white women, Laura Lagrange who dies of a broken
heart and Janette Alston who becomes a writer and abolitionist, the story subverts the cult of true
womanhood, a doctrine which idealized white women but excluded slave women. The four main
principles of true womanhood are piety, purity, domesticity, and obedience. While white men
extolled the white woman "as the 'nobler half of humanity' " and depicted her as a goddess who was
virtuous, pure, and innocent,17 they defined slave women as "instruments guaranteeing the growth
of the slave labor force."18 Further, slave women were "victims of sexual abuse and other barbarous

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mistreatment that could only be inflicted on women."19 Harriet Jacobs, a former slave, explained

that slave women were "entirely unprotected by law or custom," and the laws reduced them to "the

condition of a chattel, entirely subjected to the will of another."20

In The Two Offers, the narrator signifies on the accepted cultural truth of true womanhood

when she argues that "no perfect womanhood is developed by imperfect culture"21 She explains

further:

You may paint her [the true woman] in poetry or fiction as a frail vine, clinging to her brother
man for support and dying when deprived of it, and all this may sound well enough to please
the imaginations of school-girls, or lovelorn maidens. But woman — the true woman — if you
would render her happy, it needs more than the mere development of her affectional nature.
. . . The true aim of female education should be, a development of not one or two but all the
faculties of the human soul.22

The Two Offers can be seen as a protest against slavery (in that Janette is an abolitionist) as well as
a critique of true womanhood, a doctrine which further marginalized and oppressed slave women.
Established on December 9, 1833, the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery (PFAS) was one of
the organizations through which Black women protested slavery. Sarah Mapps Douglass (1806-
1882), a free-born Black woman, helped launch the PFAS. Not only was she "a charter member,
[she] served the group at various times as recording secretary, librarian, member of the board of
directors, member of the committee in charge of the annual fairs, and member of the education
committee."23 She was also a schoolteacher and writer. Her articles include "An Address" published
in the Liberator on July 21, 1832; "Appeal of the Philadelphia Association" published in the North
Star on September 7, 1849; and "Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Fair" published by the National Anti-
Slavery Standard on December 20, 1 849.

The Forten sisters (Margaretta, Sarah Louisa, and Harriet), free-born Black women, were also

active members of PFAS:

Early minutes of the [PFAS] report the election of Margaretta Forten, a schoolteacher, as the
first recording secretary after the organization was established in 1834; as treasurer in 1836;
and as a manager of the group in 1840. Sarah Louisa Forten was appointed to the nominating
committee on December 8, 1834, and was elected to the Board of Managers in January 1836.
. . . [They were re-elected] to these and other equally responsible positions throughout the
life of the society.24

Harriet Forten was elected as a delegate to the Free Production Convention on November 12, 1839

and was "prominent in its social and fund-raising activities, and served each year on the Annual Fair

Committee."25

A valuable source, one that is often overlooked, for records of Black women's resistance to

slavery is Douglass1 Monthly. Originally entitled North Star (1847), Douglass' Monthly was

established by Frederick Douglass and became one of the leading abolitionist newspapers of the era.

In the Inaugural Edition of the North Star, Douglass dedicated his newspaper "to the cause of our

long oppressed and plundered fellow countryman" and asserted that the newspaper

. . . shall fearlessly assert your rights, faithfully proclaim your wrongs, and earnestly demand
for you instant and even-handed justice. Giving no quarter to slavery at the South, it will hold
no truce with oppressors at the North. While it shall boldly advocate emancipation for our
enslaved brethren, it will omit no opportunity to gain for the nominally free, complete
enfranchisement.26

In the following pages, I bring together fives articles that were published in 1 859 in Douglass '
Monthly — texts that further illustrate the various ways in which Black women resisted slavery during
antebellum America. These newspaper articles create vivid images of the lives of Black women
throughout the era and provide insights into their continued struggle against their white oppressors.
For each article, I used the spelling and punctuation from the original texts.

One article that appeared in Douglass' Monthly in January 1859, entitled "A Story of the

Underground Railroad," focuses on a slave named Katy who led her family to freedom. After Katy

witnessed her master whip her husband to death, she was determined to gain her freedom as well as

that of her two daughters (aged ten and twelve at the time of her husband's murder). Twenty years

had passed before Katy was able to save enough money to escape the South. By which time, her

daughters were married to fellow slaves and each had three children:

[Katy] felt that she could easily provide for her own safety inflight, but was resolved to
leave neither child nor grandchild in bondage. She saw, too, that those incumbrances were
increasing in number, that her master was becoming embarrassed in his finances, and that
some of them must be sold to relieve him. It might be her own offspring who would thus be
taken. While they were united was therefore the time for them to fly. The flight agreed upon,
preparation was made, and a night selected. They knew that dogs might be put on their trail.
To prevent their feet depositing a scent which the dogs would recognize andfolloM>, they
filled their shoes with a preparation which effectively throws them off. . . .An hour before
midnight the whole party, one daughter alone excepted [who was too afraid to leave], took
up their dangerous march.

During their journey toward freedom, they had to hide in swamps or thickets in the daytime.
Katy "forded creeks with heavy child on her shoulder, and swam broad rivers, supporting with one
hand the same laborious burden." After travelling about four weeks, they encountered a white man
("an agent") who ran the first station on the Underground Railroad. To their pleasant surprise, they
had reached Pennsylvania. The agent gave them food, clean clothes, and a place to sleep. The
following night the agent's sons took Katy and her family to Philadelphia. Katy was hired as a cook
for a hotel, and after saving three months' wages, she quit her job and returned to Virginia to rescue
the daughter who was too afraid to leave the first time. She made her way back to the plantation, and
the slaves

related to her how exasperated her master had been on discovering that ten of his chattels
had gone off in a body; that when pursuit had been found unavailing, her poor timid
daughter had been subjected to repeated torture to compel a disclosure of the plot; that from
this cruelty she was even scarcely recovered; that in the interval the master had died, and
that his negroes were all soon to be sold at auction.

The slaves brought Katy's daughter to her, and the two were ready to leave the plantation
before midnight. Two men, "glowing with aspirations for liberty," joined Katy. Following nearly the
same route that she had taken during the first escape, Katy again reached the first station on the
Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania where the agent gave them food and clothing. The fugitives
safely reached freedom.

"Alleged Kidnapping Case," an article that appeared in Douglass' Monthly in April 1859,

depicts the story of a free Black woman named Catherine Jackson who attempted to get legal

protection from various authorities when a member of the West family was determined to sell her as

a slave:

[Catherine] was last living in the family of Senator Wright of New Jersey, as a servant. Her
mother was a slave of the West family, in Fairfax County, State of Virginia, and was by will
set free, and received her papers as such in 1835. The girl Catherine was born in 1837, in
Philadelphia, where her mother had removed. Soon after, the mother returned with her to
Virginia, making the family of the Wests her home, looking up to them for protection,
Catherine generally residing in this city. One of the West family having removed to this city,
came to the determination to arrest Catherine and sell her as a slave. She getting word of
his intentions, went into Virginia and procured a paper from the elder West, requesting
Justice Donn to protect her, and forewarning all persons from interfering with her.
Notwithstanding this, the younger West, having been forewarned of the consequences, by the
assistance of Police Officer Daw, went to the residence of Senator Wright, and, under the
promise of carrying her to the magistrate, took her into possession and carried her to the
office ofJno. C. Cook, a dealer in negroes, and from there down into Virginia, where he met
Mr. Cook and sold her, and she was immediately carried into the town of Alexandria, where
she still remains.

Warrants were issued for the arrest of West, but as yet he has eluded the officers. — Measures
ha\'e been taken to have the matter before the Grand Jury, with a view of holding the parties
for kidnapping, as well conspiracy.

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In another article that was published in Douglass ' Monthly in April 1859 entitled, "A Mother

in Prison for Attempting to Free Her Children," Juliet, a Black woman, was sent to jail for trying to

rescue her ten children from slavery. Juliet had been purchased by Rev. John G. Fee from his father

(John Fee) so that he could liberate her:

which he did from a sense of gratitude, she having been his nurse in infancy, and having
often cradled him in her arms while a child. About four years since, she removed to Ohio,
sixteen miles from her old home. Her youngest children, four in number, born after her
liberation, she took with her to Ohio, but she left ten children and grandchildren still in
bondage. These she resolved to make a desperate effort to redeem, as she was daily
expecting the youngest son of John Fee (who was visiting his father) to return to his home
in New Orleans, and take some of the slave children with him. She made the attempt, and
dared to trample under foot the slave code of our State, and, as her indictment has it,
attempted to entice away certain slave property of John Fee. In proof of this, and as the
chief witnesses against her, appeared two men — John Anderson and Wm. Chalfant.

The airest was made on the 18th of last October, at which time a warrant was served on her,
wherein she was charged with enticing or attempting to entice away ten slaves, the property
of John Fee and others; and failing to furnish the requisite security ($500,) she was thrown
into jail. . . .On the day she was again brought before the Court to be tried for a violation
of the law, the penalty of which is imprisonment in the Penitentiary not less than two nor
more than five years. The Jury made short work of it. They were out but twenty minutes,
when they returned to their seats, and pronounced a verdict of Guilty, and she was sentenced
to three years imprisonment. And this expiation to the outraged law of Kentucky she must
make for endeavoring to free two of her own children from Slavery.

Listed under "Miscellaneous News Items" in Douglass' Monthly in October 1859 is the

following paragraph about Harriet Ashe who bought her son Edward's freedom:

. . . Harriet Ashe, a colored woman in the city of Washington, has succeeded in raising a
thousand dollars for the purchase of her son Edward. The benevolent persons who
contributed to the worthy object will be gratified to learn that the effort in his behalf has
been successful, and that the boy is now free.

Another article to appear in Douglass' Monthly in October 1859 (and the fifth in the series

that my paper brings together) is an account of Sarah Jane Giddings, a free-born Black woman who

was taken to Texas when she was twelve years old and was made a slave. She spent ten years in

slavery then escaped:

[Sarah left her mistress and] fled across the river to Canada. Her master, not disposed to
part with his "property" . . . in this manner, followed Sarah Jane to the Clifton House,
where she had obtained employment, and attempted to induce her to return with him. In this
effort, it is said, the proprietor of the Clifton House aided the Southerner so far as he could,
and even entrapped the girl, with a design to surrender her to her former owner. . . .

On Saturday Mr. Shears requested Sarah Jane to go to one of the cottages adjoining the
Hotel, for the purpose of cleaning it out, accompanying her himself to the door. As soon as
she entered she found to her great amazement her old master waiting to receive her. He
immediately locked the door, and, putting the key in his pocket, piled every possible art to
induce her to cross the river. Every offer, however, was rejected, the girl preferring her
freedom to slavery, with all its promised advantages. He kept her here for some time,
refusing to let her go, threatening violence if necessary. Fortunately, some colored waiters
noticed that all was not right, and, after receiving no satisfaction from Mr. Shears, to whom
they communicated their fears, they resolved on rescuing their friend themselves, [a goal at
which they were successful].

Sarah arrived safely in Toronto. Although she was destitute, she had many friends to help her.

Conclusion

The deeds of the Black women explored in this paper illustrate some of the ways in which
they were active agents of change during the slave era. Further, the texts examined are part of a
larger body of records about Black women in the slave era, information that is usually overlooked
in public and private school curriculums. Rather than images of Black women who were active
agents in history, the most common images of Black women in antebellum America represented in
classrooms across the United States are of passive victims. In order to achieve a more accurate and
complete picture of American history, texts by and about Black women like those explored in this
paper need to be an integral part of American education.

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ENDNOTES

1 . Stewart, Maria W. "An Address Delivered at the African Masonic Hall, Boston, February
27, 1833." In Marilyn Richardson (Ed.), Maria W. Stewart: America 's First Black Political
Writer. (Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press, 1987), p. 64.

2. Aptheker, Herbert. American Negro Slave Revolts. (New York: International
Publishers, 1987), p. 287.

3. Ibid., p. 277.

4. Jones, Jacqueline. Labor of Love, Labor of Sorrow. (New York: Vintage Books, 1985),

p. 21.

5. Fox-Genovese, Elizabeth. Within the Plantation Household. (Chapel Hill, NC: The
University of North Carolina, 1988), p. 306.

6. Ibid., p.306.

7. Aptheker, op. cit., p. 261.

8. Bradford, Sarah (Ed.), Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. (Secaucus, New
Jersey: The Citadel Press, 1961), p. 29.

9. Starling, Marion Wilson. The Slave Narrative: Its Place in American History.
(Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1988), pp. 1 and 39.

10. Richardson, Marilyn. "Preface." In Marilyn Richardson (Ed.), Maria W. Stewart:
America's First Black Political Writer, op. cit., p. xiii.

11. Stewart, op. cit., p. 45.

12. Ibid., p. 64.

13. Truth, Sojourner. Narrative of Sojourner Truth. (New York: Vintage Books, 1993).

14. Ibid., p. 118.

15. Mullane, Deirdre. Crossing the Danger Water. (New York: Bantam Doubleday, 1993),
p. 200.

16. Ibid., p. 201.

17. Hooks, Bell. Ain't I a Woman? (Boston, MA: South End Press, 1981), p.31.

18. Davis, Angela. Women, Race, and Class. (New York: Vintage Books, 1983), p. 6.

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19. Ibid., p. 6.

20. Jacobs, Harriet. Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1987), p. 55.

21. Harper, Frances. "The Two Offers." In Bill Mullen (Ed.), Revolutionary Tales. (New
York: Dell Publishing, 1995), p. 6.

22. Ibid., p. 6.

23. Dannett, Sylvia G. L. Profiles of Negro Womanhood: Volume 1 , 1619-1900. (New
York: Educational Heritage Inc., 1964) p. 79.

24. Ibid., p. 82.

25. Ibid., pp. 83-84.

26. Douglass, Frederick. "Editorial in the Inaugural Edition of the North Star"' In Alfred E.
Cain, (Ed.), The Winding Road to Freedom . (Chicago, EL: Educational Heritage Inc., Yonkers,
1965), p. 124.

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