The Massachusetts General Colored Association was organized in Boston in 1826 to combat slavery and racism. The Association was an early supporter of William Lloyd Garrison. Its influence spread locally and was realized within New England when they joined the New England Anti-Slavery Society in 1833.
Several members of the Prince Hall Lodge [nb 1] met in 1826 and established the Massachusetts General Colored Association "to promote the welfare of the race by working for the destruction of slavery." [1] [2] The elected officers were
One of their most influential founders was David Walker, who probably expressed many of their ideas in his 1829 Appeal in Four Articles to the Colored Citizens of the World. Walker had moved to Boston and in 1825 was the owner of a used clothing store. In March 1827, he began writing for and selling subscriptions to Freedom's Journal, the first national newspaper in the country published by blacks. [1]
Other founding members included Walker Lewis, John Scarlett, and John T. Hilton. [1] The organization was said to have had "among its leaders the most spirited and intelligent colored citizens of Boston." [2]
The organization was concerned with the following:
It was one of the first organizations of free blacks in Boston to directly address slavery. [2]
Association members were also active in organizations to furthered their objectives, such as the African Society, the African School and the African Baptist Church. [1] As Donald M. Jacobs remarked: "Boston's best-known black abolitionists were also dominant figures in the black churches." [3]
The group also supported the Freedom's Journal , the country's first black newspaper which was published in New York City. [1]
In January 1833, Dalton as president led a successful petition for the Massachusetts General Colored Association [4] to join the New England Anti-Slavery Society founded by William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator . Together they organized Anti-Slavery conventions and speaking programs throughout New England.
Sometime after Joshua Easton was sent as a delegate to the New England society in 1833, African Americans were granted full membership in the organization. [2]
In 1844, the Massachusetts General Colored Association published Light and Truth by Robert Benjamin Lewis, the first history of the colored race written by an African American. [5] Joining the New England Anti-Slavery Society provided greater participation by Boston's African American community. [6]
"Although the all-black association was short lived, its members helped create a new era of militant antislavery agitation that shook the nation before the Civil War." [1]
William Lloyd Garrison , who signed and printed his name Wm. Lloyd Garrison, was a prominent American abolitionist, journalist, suffragist, and social reformer. He is best known for his widely-read anti-slavery newspaper The Liberator, which he founded in 1831 and published in Boston until slavery in the United States was abolished by Constitutional amendment in 1865. He was one of the founders of the American Anti-Slavery Society, and promoted immediate, as opposed to gradual, emancipation of slaves in the United States.
The American Anti-Slavery Society was an abolitionist society founded by William Lloyd Garrison and Arthur Tappan. Frederick Douglass, an escaped slave, was a key leader of this society who often spoke at its meetings. William Wells Brown was also a freed slave who often spoke at meetings. By 1838, the society had 1,350 local chapters with around 250,000 members.
Arthur Tappan was an American businessman, philanthropist and abolitionist. He was the brother of Ohio Senator Benjamin Tappan and abolitionist Lewis Tappan, and nephew of Harvard Divinity School theologian Rev. Dr. David Tappan.
Charles Lenox Remond was an American orator, activist and abolitionist based in Massachusetts. He lectured against slavery across the Northeast, and in 1840 traveled to the British Isles on a tour with William Lloyd Garrison. During the American Civil War, he recruited blacks for the United States Colored Troops, helping staff the first two units sent from Massachusetts. From a large family of African-American entrepreneurs, he was the brother of Sarah Parker Remond, also a lecturer against slavery.
The Liberator (1831–1865) was a weekly abolitionist newspaper, printed and published in Boston by William Lloyd Garrison and, through 1839, by Isaac Knapp. Religious rather than political, it appealed to the moral conscience of its readers, urging them to demand immediate freeing of the slaves ("immediatism"). It also promoted women's rights, an issue that split the American abolitionist movement. Despite its modest circulation of 3,000, it had prominent and influential readers, including Frederick Douglass and Beriah Green. It frequently printed or reprinted letters, reports, sermons, and news stories relating to American slavery, becoming a sort of community bulletin board for the new abolitionist movement that Garrison, more than anyone else, created.[citation needed]
Lewis Hayden was an African-American leader who escaped with his family from slavery in Kentucky; they moved as refugees to Boston, Massachusetts. There he became an abolitionist, lecturer, businessman, and politician. Before the American Civil War, he and his wife Harriet Hayden aided numerous fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, often sheltering them at their house.
Thomas Dalton (1794–1883) was a free African American raised in Massachusetts who was dedicated to improving the lives of people of color. He was active, at times with his wife Lucy Lew Dalton, in the founding or ongoing activities of local educational organizations, including the Massachusetts General Colored Association, New England Anti-Slavery Society, Boston Mutual Lyceum, and Infant School Association, and campaigned for school integration, which was achieved in 1855.
William Cooper Nell was an African-American abolitionist, journalist, publisher, author, and civil servant of Boston, Massachusetts, who worked for integration of schools and public facilities in the state. Writing for abolitionist newspapers The Liberator and The North Star, he helped publicize the anti-slavery cause. He published the North Star from 1847 to 18xx, moving temporarily to Rochester, New York.
The Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society, headquartered in Boston, was organized as an auxiliary of the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1835. Its roots were in the New England Anti-Slavery Society, organized by William Lloyd Garrison, editor of The Liberator, in 1831, after the defeat of a proposal for a college for blacks in New Haven.
The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (1833–1840) was an abolitionist, interracial organization in Boston, Massachusetts, in the mid-19th century. "During its brief history ... it orchestrated three national women's conventions, organized a multistate petition campaign, sued southerners who brought slaves into Boston, and sponsored elaborate, profitable fundraisers."
Sarah Harris Fayerweather was an African-American activist, abolitionist, and school integrationist. Beginning in January 1833 at the age of twenty, she attended Prudence Crandall's Canterbury Female Boarding School in Canterbury, Connecticut, the first integrated school in the United States.
Hosea Easton (1798–1837) was an American Congregationalist and Methodist minister, abolitionist activist, and author. He was one of the leaders of the convention movement in New England.
Susan Paul (1809–1841) was an African-American abolitionist from Boston, Massachusetts. A primary school teacher and member of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society, Paul also wrote the first biography of an African American published in the United States. The book, Memoir of James Jackson, was published in 1835.
John Telemachus Hilton was an African-American abolitionist who established barber, furniture dealer and employment agency businesses. He was a Prince Hall Mason and established the Prince Hall National Grand Lodge of North America and served as its first National Grand Master for ten years. He also was a founding member of the Massachusetts General Colored Association, and active member and author in the Anti-Slavery movement.
Abolitionism in the United States of America was the movement which sought to end slavery in the United States immediately, active both before and during the American Civil War. In the Americas and western Europe, abolitionism was a movement which sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and set slaves free. In the 18th century, enlightenment thinkers condemned slavery on humanistic grounds and English Quakers and some Evangelical denominations condemned slavery as un-Christian. At that time, most slaves were Africans, but thousands of Native Americans were also enslaved. In the 18th century, as many as six million Africans were transported to the Americas as slaves, at least a third of them on British ships to North America. The colony of Georgia originally prohibited slavery.
Isaac Knapp was an abolitionist printer, publisher, and bookseller in Boston, Massachusetts. He is remembered primarily for his collaboration with William Lloyd Garrison in printing and publishing The Liberator newspaper.
James George Barbadoes was an African-American, Community Leader, and Abolitionist in Boston, Massachusetts in the early 19th century. Dedicated to improving the lives of people of color at the local level, as well as the national level.
Ellis Gray Loring was an American attorney, abolitionist, and philanthropist from Boston. He co-founded the New England Anti-Slavery Society, provided legal advice to abolitionists, harbored fugitive slaves in his home, and helped finance the abolitionist newspaper, the Liberator. Loring also mentored Robert Morris, who went on to become one of the first African-American attorneys in the United States.
Joel W. Lewis was a prominent African-American businessman and abolitionist. He was among the best known and respected reformers in antebellum Boston.