Adrienne Stang-Osborne History Department Newton South High School August 2001

Lesson Plans on Abolition for United States History

classes Approaching Walden Summer Institute

The goal of these lesson plans is to explore the philosophies of three abolitionists

who lived in Massachusetts – Henry David Thoreau, Frederick Douglass, and Sarah Parker Remond. In addition to examining the rhetoric of the abolition movement, this approach endeavors to explore broad philosophical questions – notions of slavery, freedom, and civil disobedience – and their applications in the 19th and 20th centuries.

These lessons assume that students are familiar with basic information about abolition, transcendentalism and the US-Mexican War. Reading and discussing material on these topics from a standard textbook prior to these lessons is essential. This approach is geared to standard 11th grade college-preparatory United States History classes, although it can be modified for students of all ability levels. For example, students with limited English proficiency could use shorter excerpts of the primary sources. The discussion questions that are provided cover basic, factual topics as well as analytical and philosophical issues. For some students, certain questions many be unnecessary, while other questions may require additional scaffolding to actively engage student interest.

I have provided short biographies of Douglass and Thoreau, as more detail about them is readily available. Remond’s biography is longer only because information about her is less accessible. I. Frederick Douglass BACKGROUND

Frederick Douglass (1817? – 1895) was born a slave in Maryland and escaped to freedom in Massachusetts in 1838. He found work in New Bedford, and eventually became a key speaker for the abolition movement. Over time, his speeches grew to be both passionate and articulate. As a result, some questioned his true origins. In part to dispel any doubts about his background, Douglass wrote and published his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, in 1845 (the same year that Thoreau moved into his cabin on Walden Pond). Douglass then spent two years in England agitating against slavery. After his return, he bought his freedom and founded an abolitionist newspaper, the North Star, which was based in Rochester, New York.

During the Civil War, Douglass urged the recruitment of African Americans into the Union Army. He was especially influential in the recruitment of the Massachusetts

54th regiment. After the war, he served in a variety of government positions, including minister to Haiti.

Douglass was undoubtedly one of the most passionate orators of the abolition movement and probably the best known African American of the 19th century. In addition to being a devout abolitionist, he was also active in the woman suffrage movement. He was present at the inaugural meeting of the women’s movement at Seneca Falls, New York, in 1848 (where he seconded Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s resolution to add suffrage to the list of women’s demands). Years later, just hours before his death in 1895, he attended a woman suffrage meeting. PROCEDURE For homework, have students read the excerpt from the first chapter of The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass (in source packet). In class, discuss the following questions:

• What troubled Douglass during his childhood? • Who was Douglass’ father? How might this have influenced his relationship

with his mother? • What does Douglass’ parentage reveal about gender relations between white

men and women in the South? Is it likely that slaves ever had white mothers? Why or why not?

• Why was Douglass unable to experience much grief when his mother died? • What Biblical argument did some slaveholders use to justify slavery? How did

Douglass refute this argument? • What shocked Douglass the most about the institution of slavery? • Which part of Douglass’ story affected you the most? Why?

Next, have students read the excerpt from Douglass’ letter to his former master (in source packet) in class.

1. Why is Douglass vague about the circumstances of his escape from slavery? 2. How does Douglass justify his escape from slavery? How does religion figure

into his explanation? 3. What types of freedom does Douglass experience after his escape? (freedom to

earn money and spend it as he pleases, to marry, to live where he chooses, to work where he chooses, to be educated and have his children educated)

4. What techniques does Douglass read use to draw the reader into his story? (Bear in mind that this letter was not private; Douglass published it in the North Star.)

5. How does Douglass aim to rise above the mentality of his former owner and of slave owners in general?

II. Sarah Parker Remond

BACKGROUND Although rarely mentioned in United States history textbooks, Sarah Parker Remond (1824-1894) was an important Massachusetts abolitionist. Sarah’s father, John Remond (?-1874), came to Salem from Curaçao in 1798 when he was about ten years of age. In 1807, he married Nancy Lenox (1788-1867), who was a respected cake maker from Newton. Nancy’s father was one of approximately 5,000 African Americans who fought in the American Revolution. John Remond quickly established himself as a barber, hairdresser, and, most importantly, caterer at Hamilton Hall in Salem. He catered elaborate meals for many prominent European Americans, including the governor of Massachusetts, and the Marquis de Lafayette.1 Nancy Lenox Remond assisted with the catering business and continued as a pastry chef. The Remonds had two sons and six daughters. As adults, many of them were active in the abolition movement as well as in a variety of business enterprises. Charles Lenox Remond (1810-1873), Sarah’s brother, was the most prominent abolitionist in the Remond family. He was the first African American lecturer for the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society. Along with fellow Americans William Lloyd Garrison, Nathaniel Rogers and Lucretia Mott, Remond was one of four official delegates to the first World Anti-Slavery Convention in London in 1840. On the trip to England, Remond was forced to travel in the steerage, “where he was subject to all manners of insults.”2 One of the white delegates, William Adams, chose to accompany him in the steerage. Upon their arrival in England, the delegates were faced with a different type of discrimination when the white women were prevented from taking their seats at the convention. Remond, Garrison, and Rogers thus elected to sit in the gallery with Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and the other women at the convention. Sarah Parker Remond was doubtless influenced by the abolitionist activities of her brother, who was fourteen years older than she. Like her brother, she experienced considerable difficulty in obtaining an education in the United States, which helps to explain why she moved to Europe after the Civil War. Remond became a lecturer for the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1856. In this capacity, she spoke at anti-slavery meetings as far west as Michigan. Her longest journey, however, took place beginning in 1858, when she traveled to England as part of an anti-slavery delegation. She attained her greatest success here, where she was praised as a talented speaker:

Her moderate success on the platform in her native country were overshadowed by her triumphs abroad in 1859 and 1860...She bore a beguiling air of refinement, a genteel pattern of manners so esteemed as an ideal of womanhood in Queen Victoria’s England. She carried herself with an air of high seriousness; her speech was dulcet-toned and quiet, and her fluent vocabulary was free of unladylike turns of phrase.3

Sarah Parker Remond remained in England during much of the Civil War and was actively involved in encouraging England not to recognize the Confederacy. She then 1 Dorothy Burnett Porter, “The Remonds of Salem, Massachusetts: A Nineteenth-Century Family Revisited,” American Antiquarian Society, pp. 268, 270. 2 Porter, p. 276. 3 Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford University Press, 1969), p. 139.

returned to the United States where she participated briefly in the Equal Rights Association, which was devoted to gaining the suffrage for African Americans and women. Her brother Charles and Frederick Douglass both served as vice-presidents of this organization. In 1866, Sarah moved to Florence, Italy, where she continued to pursue her education as she had done in England. In 1871, she received her medical license, and in 1877 she married Lazzaro Pintor, a Sardinian. Two of her sisters joined her in Italy in 1885 and were living with her in London when she died at age seventy.

Today, Sarah Parker Remond is one of six women who has been recognized at the “Honoring the Contributions of Women” memorial at the Massachusetts State House. (The others are Dorothea Dix, Lucy Stone, Mary Kenney O’Sullivan, Josephine St. Pierre Ruffin, and Florence Hope Luscomb.) Students might be interested in viewing this memorial, which is on the right after entering the front door of the statehouse. PROCEDURE For homework, have students read the excerpt from Remond’s autobiographical sketch (in source packet). Explore the following issues in class discussion.

1. How was Remond’s upbringing different from that of Douglass? What advantages did she have?

2. How is Remond’s description of the North different from that of Douglass? Why are their descriptions so different? (At the end of his Narrative, Douglass describes being denied a job as a ship caulker – the work in which he had been well-trained in Maryland – when he first arrived in New Bedford. In a footnote to the text, however, he writes that this type of discrimination no longer exists as a result of the abolition movement.4)

3. What did freedom mean for Sarah Parker Remond? Although she had never been a slave, could it be said that she was truly free?

4. Students should note the two-pronged effort of black abolitionists - to end slavery in the South and to end discrimination and prejudice everywhere. Much of the source discusses incidents of discrimination as opposed to slavery. Students may wish to consider: • Remond’s concern with school integration. (The Remonds lived in Newport from

1835-1841.) This can be connected to Roberts v. the City of Boston (1849) and the eventual desegregation of the Boston schools in 1855, not to mention Brown v. Board of Education and school integration in Boston in the 1970s. Students could also discuss the level of integration which currently exists in public schools in the Greater Boston area and in the country as a whole. Why are school more likely to be integrated in the Southeast than in the Northeast?

• The incident at the Howard Athenaeum: Remond had invited her sister, Caroline Remond Putnam, and abolitionist William Cooper Nell to attend an opera. She

4 Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglassin Henry Louis Gates, jr., ed. The Classic Slave Narratives (New York: Penguin, 1987), p. 325.

brought a civil suit for $500 in damages, which she dropped once she and all African Americans were allowed to sit anywhere in the Athenaeum.5 This victory, however, was short-lived; even after the passage of the 13th Amendment, Nell and others were still protesting segregation at the Athenaeum and other theaters in Boston.6

5. The role of gender and race. When did women, black and white, begin speaking publicly for the abolitionist cause? What obstacles did they face? What additional obstacles did black women face?

II. Henry David Thoreau and “Civil Disobedience” BACKGOUND

Today, Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) is widely known as an important trancendental philosopher, environmentalist and activist. He is best known for his time living alone in a small cabin at Walden Pond; the work which resulted from this experience is a classic of American literature. Thoreau wrote:

I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived. I do not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; not did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life.7 While it is not the focus of this lesson, it might be interesting to explore some of

Thoreau’s observations with students, as they may resonate with students’ experiences. If time for longer reading is unavailable, the following quotations may be helpful:

• The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed

desperation.8 • Little is to be expected of that day, if it can be called a day, to which we are not awakened by our

Genius, but by the mechanical nudgings of some servitor…9 • The millions are awake enough for physical labor; but only one in a million is awake enough for

effective intellectual exertion, only one in a hundred million to a poetic or divine life. To be awake is to be alive. I have never yet met a man who was quite awake. How could I have looked him in the face?10

5 Dorothy Porter Wesley, “Integration versus Separatism: William Cooper Nell’s Role in the Struggle for Equality,” Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston. Ed. Donald M. Jacobs. (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993), pp. 217-218. 6 Wesley, pp. 218 & 220. 7 Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: Penguin Press, 1983), p. 135. 8 Thoreau, p. 50. 9 Thoreau, p. 133. 10 Thoreau, p. 134.

• To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts.11

• Our life is frittered away by detail…Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life?12

• Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.13

While Thoreau never joined a formal abolitionist organization, he did speak out

against slavery and followed his conscience. The enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law especially angered him. In 1851, he harbored Henry Williams, a fugitive slave, at his home and helped him board the train for Cananda.14 Thoreau and his family harbored other fugitives as well. His anger about the arrest of fugitive Anthony Burns led Thoreau to write “Slavery in Massachusetts,” which was delivered in Framingham on July 4, 1854, along with speeches by William Lloyd Garrison, Sojourner Truth, Lucy Stone and Wendell Phillips.

Despite Thoreau’s activism, he was not a major abolitionist. His main interests lay in other areas. As one of his biographers has written:

As much as Thoreau wanted to disentangle himself from other people’s problems so he could get on with his own life, he sometimes found that the issue of black slavery spoiled his country walks. His social consciousness impinged on his consciousness, even though he believed that his duty was not to eradicate social evils but to live his life independently of the “trivial” nineteenth century. The abiding concern Thoreau expressed about slavery was centered on the value he placed upon individual freedom…15

Thus, Thoreau’s writings on slavery were not well-known in his day. However, they are widely read today and influenced the great civil rights leaders Mahatma Ghandi and Martin Luther King, jr.

In the middle of Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond, in July of 1846, he was arrested for not paying his poll tax, and he spent one night in the Concord jail. Thoreau had not paid his poll tax since 1842. Without his consent, a woman (probably one of Thoreau’s aunts) paid the tax on his behalf, and Thoreau was therefore released the morning after his arrest. “Civil Disobedience” was written as a result of this experience. PROCEDURE

11 Thoreau, p. 134. 12 Thoreau, pp. 135 & 137. 13 Thoreau, p. 372. 14 Odell Shepard, ed. The Heart of Thoreau’s Journals. (New York: Dover, 1961), p. 61. 15 Michael Meyer, “Introduction” in Henry David Thoreau, Walden (New York: Penguin Press, 1983), p. 29.

Have students read the excerpts from Thoreau’s essay “Civil Disobedience” (in source packet). As this reading is the most challenging source in the packet, it is important to consider carefully how students should approach the reading. Have students consider the following questions: 1. How does Thoreau view the role of government? (¶1 & ¶7) 2. Why did Thoreau decide not to pay his poll tax? (While slavery is clearly part of the

response, it is important to review the causes of the US-Mexican War and discuss why Thoreau viewed it as unjust.)

3. According to Thoreau, was the American Revolution justified? Why or why not? How does Thoreau compare the causes of the American Revolution with the situation in 1849? (¶8)

4. What criticism does Thoreau direct at the merchants and farmers of Massachusetts? (¶9)

5. How does Thoreau view voting? Why was voting unlikely to end slavery, according to Thoreau? (¶11)

6. Discuss the following quotation: “It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support.” (¶13) How do students feel about this idea? What is a person’s duty if he/she is aware of a wrong?

7. According to Thoreau, what should people do in the face of an injust law? (¶16 & ¶22) Why was Thoreau unwilling to follow Constitutional procedures in attempting to change laws which he found to be immoral? (¶19) “Civil Disobedience” has several memorable quotations which could be written on the board and discussed in detail; consider the following:

• “Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison.” (¶22)

• “Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence.” (¶22) • “If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and

bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood.” (¶22)

8. How does Thoreau view freedom? Why did he feel free in jail? (¶26) 9. Which taxes was Thoreau willing to pay? Why? (¶36) 10. Overall, how does Thoreau view the Constitution? Compare ¶19 & ¶41. 11. According to Thoreau, what would the ideal state look like? (¶46)

• “There will never be a really free and enlightened state until the States comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power.” (¶46)

After basic comprehension is ensured, have students write a definition of civil disobedience based on their understanding of Thoreau. Discuss these as a class. Students may wish to explore their opinions of Thoreau’s ideas.

IV. Comparing Douglass, Thoreau and Remond Our next goal is to compare the experiences and ideas of the three abolitionists. These questions can be explored in class discussion after all of the readings have been completed. 1. What do these three abolitionists have in common? 2. Why was each abolitionist motivated to speak out against slavery? 3. How did each person define “slavery” and “freedom”? Review the differences between

Douglass and Remond. Then compare them with Thoreau. The following quotations, which compare Thoreau and Douglass, may be useful.

I sometimes wonder that we can be so frivolous, I may almost say, as to attend to the gross but somewhat foreign form of servitude called Negro Slavery, there are so many keen and subtle masters that enslave both north and south. It is hard to have a southern overseer; it is worse to have a northern one; but worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself.16 (Henry David Thoreau, Walden) Talk about slavery! It is not the peculiar institution of the South. It exists wherever men are bought and sold, wherever a man allows himself to be made a mere thing or tool, and surrenders his inalienable rights of reason and conscience. Indeed, this slavery is more complete than that which enslaves the body alone. It exists in the Northern States, and I am reminded by what I find in the newspapers that is exists in Canada. I never yet met with, or heard of, a judge who was not a slave of this kind, and so the finest and most unfailing weapon of injustice. He fetches a slightly higher price than the black men only because he is a more valuable slave.17 (Thoreau’s jornals, Dec. 4th, 1860) Thoreau’s narrative addresses itself to Americans who were legally free but not spiritually free; in that sense Walden can be read as a white version of a slave narrative. In the Narrative Douglass creates an identity that explains how a single slave becomes a free man, and more significantly for the cause of abolitionism, how blacks are the human, spiritual equivalent of white. Both the Narrative and Walden are, in part, about human potential, and each employs an emblematic life to dramatize the fulfillment of that potential.18 (Michael Meyer, a Thoreau scholar) I found employment, the third day after my arrival, in stowing a sloop with a load of oil. It was new, dirty and hard work for me; but I went at it with a glad heart and a willing hand. I was now my own master. It was a happy moment, the rapture of which can be understood only by those who have been slaves. It was the first work, the reward of which was to be entirely my own. There was no Master Hugh standing ready, the moment I earned the money, to rob me of it. I worked that day with a pleasure I had never before experienced.19 (Douglass, Narrative)

16 Thoreau, p. 49. 17 Shepard, ed., p. 216. 18 Meyer, p. 26. 19 Douglass, pp. 324-325.

It is not necessary that a man should earn his living by the sweat of his brow, unless he sweats easier than I do.20 (Thoreau, Walden) I had not long been a reader of the “Liberator,” before I got a pretty correct idea of the principles, measures and spirit of the anti-slavery reform. I took right hold of the cause. I could do but little, but which I could, I did with a joyful heart, and never felt happier than when in an anti-slavery meeting. I seldom had much to say at the meetings, because what I wanted to say was said so much better by others. But, while attending an anti-slavery convention at Nantucket, on the 11th of August, 1841, I felt strongly moved to speak…It was a severe cross, and I took it up reluctantly. The truth was, I felt myself a slave, and the idea of speaking to white people weighed me down. I spoke but a few moments, when I felt a degree of freedom, and said what I desired with considerable ease. From that time until now, I have been engaged in pleading the cause of my bretheren – with what success, and with what devotion, I leave with those acquainted with my labors to decide.21 (Douglass, Narrative)

4. If slavery had not existed in the 1800s, how would each individual’s life have been different?

5. What role did race, class and gender play in shaping each abolitionist’s understanding of freedom and slavery? Thoreau’s position of privilege as a white male can be explored here. Also consider…

• Remond’s decision to leave the country after the Civil War. Would it have been possible for her to become a physician in the United States?

• Douglass’ reluctant abolitionism as described above. Could Douglass (and Remond) have chosen to live at a Walden Pond as Thoreau had? Why or why not?

V. Connections to the 20th Century Teaching the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s is an opportune time to review Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience.” This essay impacted Mahatma Ghandi while he was defending the rights of Indians living in South Africa. Martin Luther King, jr.’s philosophy in turn was influenced by Ghandi’s ideas and by Thoreau’s essay. Comparing their experiences with civil disobedience would be beneficial for students. Consider the following: 1. How was King’s experience in the Birmingham city jail different from Thoreau’s

experience in the Concord jail? (Obviously, they were quite different!) Comparing the writings that resulted from these experiences would be helpful. Consider the following issues:

• Both Thoreau and King did not leave jail by choice. Thoreau’s fine was paid for him, and King’s bail was paid by an unknown white racist when police felt that King’s presence in jail hurt the segregationist cause.

20 Thoreau quoted in Meyer, pp. 28-29. 21 Douglass, pp. 325-326.

• Thoreau’s experience after his release from jail – huckleberry picking – was obviously quite different from King’s, who returned to his life of civil disobedience and activism.

2. How did King and the civil rights movement apply Thoreau’s lessons to new circumstances?

3. Would Thoreau be able to walk in the woods undisturbed by thoughts of slavery [in the broad sense] in 1960? In 1975? In 2000? Discuss.

REFERENCES Bogin, Ruth. “Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist from Salem.” Essex Institute Historical Collection, 110

(April 1974): 120-150. Carroll, Andrew, ed. Letters of a Nation. New York: Broadway Books, 1997. [This anthology contains Frederick

Douglass’ letter to his former master as well Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” in its entirety.]

Gates, Henry Louis, Jr, ed. The Classic Slave Narratives. New York: Penguin, 1987. [This includes The Narrative of

the Life of Frederick Douglass and three other slave narratives.] Hall, Robert L. “Massachusetts Abolitionists Document the Slave Experience.” Courage and Conscience: Black and

White Abolitionists in Boston. Ed. Donald M. Jacobs. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993: 75-99.

Meltzer, Milton and Walter Harding. A Thoreau Profile. Lincoln, Massachusetts: The Thoreau Society, 1962. Meyer, Michael. “Introduction” in Henry David Thoreau. Walden. New York: Penguin Press, 1983. Porter, Dorothy Burnett. “The Remonds of Salem, Massachusetts: A Nineteenth-Century Family Revisited.”

American Antiquarian Society: 259-295. Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists. New York: Oxford University Press, 1969. Ratvitch, Diane, ed. The American Reader. New York: Harper Collins, 1991. [This anthology contains excerpts

from Thoreau’s Walden and “Civil Disobedience” with helpful introductions by Ratvitch. Frederick Douglass’ “Independence Day Speech at Rochester” and Martin Luther King’s “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” are also excerpted.]

Richardson, Marilyn. “”What If I Am a Woman?” Maria W. Stewart’s Defense of Black Women’s Political

Activism.” Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston. Ed. Donald M. Jacobs. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993: 191-206.

Shepard, Odell, ed. The Heart of Thoreau’s Journals. New York: Dover, 1961. Sterling, Dorothy, ed. We Are Your Sisters: Black Women in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Norton, 1984. Thoreau, Henry David. Civil Disobedience and Other Essays. New York: Dover, 1993. Thoreau, Henry David. Walden. New York: Penguin Press, 1983. Wesley, Dorothy Porter. “Integration versus Separatism: William Cooper Nell’s Role in the Struggle for

Equality.” Courage and Conscience: Black and White Abolitionists in Boston. Ed. Donald M. Jacobs. Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1993: 207-224.

Frederick Douglass’ Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass

(1945)

I was born in Tuckahoe, near Hillsborough, and about twelve miles from Easton, in Talbot county, Maryland. I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it. By far the larger part of the slaves know as little of their ages as horses know of theirs, and it is the wish of most masters within my knowledge to keep their slaves thus ignorant. I do not remember to have ever met a slave who could tell of his birthday. They seldom come nearer to it than planting-time, harvest-time, cherry-time, spring-time, or fall-time. A want of information concerning my own was a source of unhappiness to me even during childhood. The white children could tell their ages. I could not tell why I ought to be deprived of the same privilege. I was not allowed to make any inquiries of my master concerning it. He deemed all such inquiries on the part of a slave improper and impertinent, and evidence of a restless spirit. The nearest estimate I can give makes me now between twenty-seven and twenty- eight years of age. I come to this, from hearing my master say, some time during 1835, I was about seventeen years old.

My mother was named Harriet Bailey. She was the daughter of Isaac and Betsey Bailey, both colored, and quite dark. My mother was of a darker complexion than either my grandmother or grandfather.

My father was a white man. He was admitted to be such by all I ever heard speak of my parentage. The opinion was also whispered that my master was my father; but of the correctness of this opinion, I know nothing; the means of knowing was withheld from me. My mother and I were separated when I was but an infant--before I knew her as my mother. It is a common custom, in the part of Maryland from which I ran away, to part children from their mothers at a very early age. Frequently, before the child has reached its twelfth month, its mother is taken from it, and hired out on some farm a considerable distance off, and the child is placed under the care of an old woman, too old for field labor. For what this separation is done, I do not know, unless it be to hinder the development of the child’s affection toward its mother, and to blunt and destroy the natural affection of the mother for the child. This is the inevitable result.

I never saw my mother, to know her as such, more than four or five times in my life; and each of those times was very short in duration, and at night. She was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve miles from my home. She made her journeys to see me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot, after the performance of her day's work. She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special permission from his or her master to the contrary-a permission which they seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us. Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my master's farms, near Lee's Mill. I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial. She was gone long before I knew any thing about it. Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.

Called thus suddenly away, she left me without the slightest intimation of who my father was. The whisper that my master was my father, may or may not be true; and, true or false, it is of but little consequence to my purpose whilst the fact remains, in all its glaring odiousness, that slaveholders have ordained, and by law established, that the children of slave women shall in all cases follow the condition of their mothers; and this is done too obviously to administer to their own lusts, and make a gratification of their wicked desires profitable as well as pleasurable; for by this cunning arrangement, the slaveholder, in cases not a few, sustains to his slaves the double relation of master and father.

I know of such cases; and it is worthy of remark that such slaves invariably suffer greater hardships, and have more to contend with, than others. They are, in the first place, a constant offence to their mistress. She is ever disposed to find fault with them; they can seldom do anything to please her; she is never better pleased than when she sees them under the lash, especially when she suspects her husband of showing to his mulatto children favors which he withholds from his black slaves. The master is frequently compelled to sell this class of his slaves, out of deference to the feelings of his white wife; and, cruel as the deed may strike anyone to be, for a man to sell his own children to human flesh-mongers, it is often the dictate of humanity for him to do so; for, unless he does this, he must not only whip them himself, but must stand by and see one white son tie up his brother, of but few shades darker complexion than himself, and ply the gory lash to his naked back; and if he lisp one word of disapproval, it is set down to his parental partiality, and only makes a bad matter worse, both for himself and the slave whom he would protect and defend.

Every year brings with it multitudes of this class of slaves. It was doubtless in consequence of a knowledge of this fact, that one great statesman of the South predicted the downfall of slavery by the inevitable laws of population. Whether this prophecy is ever fulfilled or not, it is nevertheless plain that a very different-looking class of people are springing up at the South, and are now held in slavery, from those originally brought to this country from Africa; and if their increase will do no other good, it will do away the force of the argument, that God cursed Ham, and therefore American slavery is right. If the lineal descendants of Ham are alone to be scripturally enslaved, it is certain that slavery at the South must soon become unscriptural; for thousands are ushered into the world, annually, who, like myself, owe their existence to white fathers, and those fathers most frequently their own masters.

I have had two masters. My first master's name was Anthony. I do not remember his first name. He was generally called Captain Anthony--a title which, I presume, he acquired by sailing a craft on the Chesapeake Bay. He was not considered a rich slaveholder. He owned two or three farms, and about thirty slaves. His farms and slaves were under the care of an overseer. The overseer's name was Plummer. Mr. Plummer was a miserable drunkard, a profane swearer, and a savage monster. He always went armed with a cowskin and a heavy cudgel. I have known him to cut and slash the women's heads so horribly, that even master would be enraged at his cruelty, and would threaten to whip him if he did not mind himself. Master, however, was not a humane slaveholder. It required extraordinary barbarity on the part of an overseer to affect him. He was a cruel man, hardened by a long life of slaveholding. He would at times seem to take great pleasure in whipping a slave. I have often been awakened at the dawn of day by the most heart-rending shrieks of an own aunt of mine, whom he used to tie up to a joist, and whip upon her naked back till she was literally covered with blood. No words, no tears, no prayers, from his gory victim, seemed to move his iron heart from its bloody purpose. The louder she screamed, the harder he whipped; and where the blood ran fastest, there he whipped longest. He would

whip her to make her scream, and whip her to make her hush; and not until overcome by fatigue, would he cease to swing the blood-clotted cowskin. I remember the first time I ever witnessed this horrible exhibition. I was quite a child, but I well remember it. I never shall forget it whilst I remember anything. It was the first of a long series of such outrages, of which I was doomed to be a witness and a participant. It struck me with awful force. It was the blood-stained gate, the entrance to the hell of slavery, through which I was about to pass. It was a most terrible spectacle. I wish I could commit to paper the feelings with which I beheld it.

Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” (1849)

[1] I heartily accept the motto,—“That government is best which governs least”; and I

should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—“That government is best which governs not at all”; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient… The government itself, which is only the mode which the people have chosen to execute their will, is equally liable to be abused and perverted before the people can act through it. Witness the present Mexican war, the work of comparatively a few individuals using the standing government as their tool; for in the outset, the people would not have consented to this measure…

[7] How does it become a man to behave toward the American government today? I answer, that he cannot without disgrace be associated with it. I cannot for an instant recognize that political organization as my government which is the slave’s government also.

[8] All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable. But almost all say that such is not the case now. But such was the case, they think, in the Revolution of ‘75. If one were to tell me that this was a bad government because it taxed certain foreign commodities brought to its ports, it is most probable that I should not make an ado about it, for I can do without them. All machines have their friction; and possibly this does enough good to counter-balance the evil. At any rate, it is a great evil to make a stir about it. But when the friction comes to have its machine, and oppression and robbery are organized, I say, let us not have such a machine any longer. In other words, when a sixth of the population of a nation which has undertaken to be the refuge of liberty are slaves, and a whole country is unjustly overrun and conquered by a foreign army, and subjected to military law, I think that it is not too soon for honest men to rebel and revolutionize. What makes this duty the more urgent is that fact that the country so overrun is not our own, but ours is the invading army…

[9]…Practically speaking, the opponents to a reform in Massachusetts are not a hundred thousand politicians at the South, but a hundred thousand merchants and farmers here, who are more interested in commerce and agriculture than they are in humanity, and are not prepared to do justice to the slave and to Mexico, cost what it may. I quarrel not with far-off foes, but with those who, neat at home, co-operate with, and do the bidding of, those far away, and without whom the latter would be harmless… There are thousands who are in opinion opposed to slavery and to the war, who yet in effect do nothing to put an end to them…

[11] All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong, with moral questions; and betting naturally accompanies it. The character of the voters is not staked. I cast my vote, perchance, as I think right; but I am not vitally concerned that that right should prevail. I am willing to leave it to the majority. Its obligation, therefore, never exceeds that of expediency. Even voting for the right is doing nothing for it. It is only expressing to men feebly your desire that it should prevail. A wise man will not leave the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men. When the majority shall at length vote for the abolition of slavery, it will be because they are indifferent to slavery, or because there is but little slavery left to be abolished by their vote. They will then be the only

slaves. Only his vote can hasten the abolition of slavery who asserts his own freedom by his vote…

[13] It is not a man’s duty, as a matter of course, to devote himself to the eradication of any, even to most enormous, wrong; he may still properly have other concerns to engage him; but it is his duty, at least, to wash his hands of it, and, if he gives it no thought longer, not to give it practically his support. If I devote myself to other pursuits and contemplations, I must first see, at least, that I do not pursue them sitting upon another man’s shoulders. I must get off him first, that he may pursue his contemplations too. See what gross inconsistency is tolerated. I have heard some of my townsmen say, "I should like to have them order me out to help put down an insurrection of the slaves, or to march to Mexico—see if I would go"; and yet these very men have each, directly by their allegiance, and so indirectly, at least, by their money, furnished a substitute. The soldier is applauded who refuses to serve in an unjust war by those who do not refuse to sustain the unjust government which makes the war…

[16] Unjust laws exist: shall we be content to obey them, or shall we endeavor to amend them, and obey them until we have succeeded, or shall we transgress them at once? Men, generally, under such a government as this, think that they ought to wait until they have persuaded the majority to alter them. They think that, if they should resist, the remedy would be worse than the evil. But it is the fault of the government itself that the remedy is worse than the evil. It makes it worse. Why is it not more apt to anticipate and provide for reform? Why does it not cherish its wise minority? Why does it cry and resist before it is hurt? Why does it not encourage its citizens to put out its faults, and do better than it would have them? Why does it always crucify Christ and excommunicate Copernicus and Luther, and pronounce Washington and Franklin rebels?…

[19] As for adopting the ways which the State has provided for remedying the evil, I know not of such ways. They take too much time, and a man’s life will be gone. I have other affairs to attend to. I came into this world, not chiefly to make this a good place to live in, but to live in it, be it good or bad. A man has not everything to do, but something; and because he cannot do everything, it is not necessary that he should be petitioning the Governor or the Legislature any more than it is theirs to petition me; and if they should not hear my petition, what should I do then? But in this case the State has provided no way: its very Constitution is the evil. This may seem to be harsh and stubborn and unconcilliatory; but it is to treat with the utmost kindness and consideration the only spirit that can appreciate or deserves it. So is all change for the better, like birth and death, which convulse the body.

[20] I do not hesitate to say, that those who call themselves Abolitionists should at once effectually withdraw their support, both in person and property, from the government of Massachusetts, and not wait till they constitute a majority of one, before they suffer the right to prevail through them. I think that it is enough if they have God on their side, without waiting for that other one. Moreover, any man more right than his neighbors constitutes a majority of one already…

[22] Under a government which imprisons unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison. The proper place today, the only place which Massachusetts has provided for her freer and less despondent spirits, is in her prisons, to be put out and locked out of the State by her own act, as they have already put themselves out by their principles. It is there that the fugitive slave, and the Mexican prisoner on parole, and the Indian come to plead the wrongs of his race should find them; on that separate but more free and honorable ground, where the State places those who are not with her, but against her—the only house in a slave State in which a free man can

abide with honor. If any think that their influence would be lost there, and their voices no longer afflict the ear of the State, that they would not be as an enemy within its walls, they do not know by how much truth is stronger than error, nor how much more eloquently and effectively he can combat injustice who has experienced a little in his own person. Cast your whole vote, not a strip of paper merely, but your whole influence. A minority is powerless while it conforms to the majority; it is not even a minority then; but it is irresistible when it clogs by its whole weight. If the alternative is to keep all just men in prison, or give up war and slavery, the State will not hesitate which to choose. If a thousand men were not to pay their tax bills this year, that would not be a violent and bloody measure, as it would be to pay them, and enable the State to commit violence and shed innocent blood. This is, in fact, the definition of a peaceable revolution, if any such is possible. If the tax-gatherer, or any other public officer, asks me, as one has done, "But what shall I do?" my answer is, "If you really wish to do anything, resign your office." When the subject has refused allegiance, and the officer has resigned from office, then the revolution is accomplished. But even suppose blood should flow. Is there not a sort of blood shed when the conscience is wounded? Through this wound a man’s real manhood and immortality flow out, and he bleeds to an everlasting death. I see this blood flowing now…

[26] I have paid no poll tax for six years. I was put into a jail once on this account, for one night; and, as I stood considering the walls of solid stone, two or three feet thick, the door of wood and iron, a foot thick, and the iron grating which strained the light, I could not help being struck with the foolishness of that institution which treated my as if I were mere flesh and blood and bones, to be locked up. I wondered that it should have concluded at length that this was the best use it could put me to, and had never thought to avail itself of my services in some way. I saw that, if there was a wall of stone between me and my townsmen, there was a still more difficult one to climb or break through before they could get to be as free as I was. I did not for a moment feel confined, and the walls seemed a great waste of stone and mortar. I felt as if I alone of all my townsmen had paid my tax. They plainly did not know how to treat me, but behaved like persons who are underbred. In every threat and in every compliment there was a blunder; for they thought that my chief desire was to stand the other side of that stone wall. I could not but smile to see how industriously they locked the door on my meditations, which followed them out again without let or hindrance, and they were really all that was dangerous. As they could not reach me, they had resolved to punish my body; just as boys, if they cannot come at some person against whom they have a spite, will abuse his dog. I saw that the State was half-witted, that it was timid as a lone woman with her silver spoons, and that it did not know its friends from its foes, and I lost all my remaining respect for it, and pitied it… [34]… When I was let out the next morning, I proceeded to finish my errand, and, having put on my mended shoe, joined a huckleberry party, who were impatient to put themselves under my conduct; and in half an hour—for the horse was soon tackled—was in the midst of a huckleberry field, on one of our highest hills, two miles off, and then the State was nowhere to be seen… [36] I have never declined paying the highway tax, because I am as desirous of being a good neighbor as I am of being a bad subject; and as for supporting schools, I am doing my part to educate my fellow countrymen now. It is for no particular item in the tax bill that I refuse to pay it. I simply wish to refuse allegiance to the State, to withdraw and stand aloof from it effectually. I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man a musket to shoot one with—the dollar is innocent—but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance. In fact, I quietly declare war with the State, after my fashion, though I will still make use and get what advantages of her I can, as is usual in such cases…

[41] I believe that the State will soon be able to take all my work of this sort out of my hands, and then I shall be no better patriot than my fellow-countrymen. Seen from a lower point of view, the Constitution, with all its faults, is very good; the law and the courts are very respectable; even this State and this American government are, in many respects, very admirable, and rare things, to be thankful for, such as a great many have described them; seen from a higher still, and the highest, who shall say what they are, or that they are worth looking at or thinking of at all? [42] However, the government does not concern me much, and I shall bestow the fewest possible thoughts on it. It is not many moments that I live under a government, even in this world. If a man is thought-free, fancy-free, imagination-free, that which is not never for a long time appearing to be to him, unwise rulers or reformers cannot fatally interrupt him. [46] The authority of government, even such as I am willing to submit to—for I will cheerfully obey those who know and can do better than I, and in many things even those who neither know nor can do so well—is still an impure one: to be strictly just, it must have the sanction and consent of the governed. It can have no pure right over my person and property but what I concede to it. The progress from an absolute to a limited monarchy, from a limited monarchy to a democracy, is a progress toward a true respect for the individual. Even the Chinese philosopher was wise enough to regard the individual as the basis of the empire. Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government? Is it not possible to take a step further towards recognizing and organizing the rights of man? There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly. I please myself with imagining a State at last which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State, which I have also imagined, but not yet anywhere seen.

Sarah Parker Remond’s “A Colored Lady Lecturer” (1861) The following are excerpts from “A Colored Lady Lecturer,” which appeared in the English Woman’s Journal in June, 1861. My strongest desire through life has been to be educated. We had from time to time been taught to read and write a little, but had received no regular instruction. I found the most exquisite pleasure in reading, and as we had no library, I read every book which came in my way, and, like Oliver Twist, I longed for more. Again and again my mother would endeavor to have us placed in some private school, but being colored we were refused. We soon knew the real reason, and the most bitter and indignant feelings were cherished by me against those who deprived me of the opportunity of gaining knowledge. My eldest brother had been admitted to one of the public schools, and at a much later period the three youngest children, including myself, were admitted to one of the public primary schools. All went on well for a time and the children generally treated us kindly, although we were very frequently made to feel that prejudice had taken root in their hearts. We remained in this school a very short time, passed the examination, and entered the high school for girls. In the primary school we had been taught by a lady; the principal of the high school was a gentleman. Both teachers always treated us with kindness. We had been in this school a very short time, when we were informed that the school committee contemplated founding a school exclusively for colored children. The public schools of Salem are located in the different districts, and the established rule was, that children can only be admitted to the school in the district of the their residence, and we were in the school of the district where we resided. The schools were then divided into separate ones for the boys and girls. These schools were also arranged according to age and capacity. Now, they intended to fund a school for young and old, advanced pupils and those less advanced: boys and girls were all to occupy but one room. The many disadvantages can be seen at a glance. It did not matter to this committee, who merely reflected the public sentiment of the community, in what district a colored child might live; it must walk in the heat of summer, and the cold of winter, to this one school. But more than all this, it was publicly branding us with degradation. The child of every foreigner could enter any public school, while children of native-born parents were to be thus insulted and robbed of their personal rights. My father waited upon the school committee and most earnestly protested against their proposed plan. We still continued to attend the school, but felt much anxiety. One morning, about an hour before the usual time for dismissing the pupils, the teacher informed us that we could no longer be permitted to attend the school, that he had received orders from the committee to give us this information and added, “I wish to accompany you home, as I wish to converse with your parents upon the matter.” Some of the pupils seemed indignant, and two expressed much sympathy. I had no words for any one; only wept bitter tears, then, in a few minutes, I thought of the great injustice practised upon me, and longed for some power to help me to crush those who thus robbed me of my personal rights. Years have elapsed since this occurred, but the memory of it is as fresh as ever in my mind, and, like the scarlet letter of Hester, is engraved on my heart. We had been expelled from the school on the sole ground of our complexion. The teacher walked home with us, held a long conversation with our parents, said he was pained by the course taken by the school committee, but added it was owing to the prejudice against color which existed in the community. He also said we were among his best pupils, for good lesson, punctuality, &c., add to this the fact that my father was a tax payer for years before I was born, and it will need no extra clear vision to perceive that American prejudice against free-born men and women is as deep-rooted as it is hateful and cruel.

In such a community it is always easy to call forth this feeling as the occasion may require. It is always to be felt in a greater or less degree. Our parents decided we should not enter an inferior exclusive public school, and in a short time our whole family removed to Newport, Rhode Island. Here we met the same difficulty. The school would not receive colored pupils. Large fortunes were formerly made by the foreign slave trade in this town, and, if report was true, the chains worn by some of the wretched victims of that inhuman traffic could still be seen in the cellars of some of the houses of the elder citizens. Be this as it may, the spirit of prejudice was exceedingly bitter in Newport. A private school was established by a few of the more influential of the colored citizens, and for a time I was a pupil. Thus ended my schools days, and the limited teaching I had; and its desultory character was not its only disadvantage. Separate churches and schools for colored persons are an immense disadvantage to the descendants of the African race, and a great drawback to their elevation. They are based completely on prejudice against color, the legitimate offspring of American slavery, and it is to be regretted that many well-wishers to the colored race assist in sustaining them. I never knew a pro-slavery man or woman who did not do all they could to encourage and keep up separate schools and churches, enforcing at the same time the idea that God intended such distinction to be made. There is a refinement of cruelty in the treatment of this class of persons, rather difficult to describe to those who have never seen the working of prejudice against color. The more intelligence and refinement they possess, the more liable they are to insult. The chivalry of America seems to take immense satisfaction in insulting those who will feel it the most keenly. It is, in fact, considered presuming for any colored man or women to demand their just rights. In New York, Philadelphia, and other cities, they are excluded from public hotels, and are not allowed to ride in an omnibus. In Philadelphia the managers of one of the finest halls have an established rule that on no public occasion shall any colored person be admitted. Men, women, and children have been obliged to remain on the decks of steam-boats all night travelling from Newport and Providence to New York, the coldest nights in winter; and an intimate personal friend of mine took cold on one of these boats, and was the victim of consumption in consequence. Again and again persons have been ordered from places of amusement, and in some instance forcibly taken out. I was myself forcibly removed from the Howard Athenaeum, in the city of Boston, and my arm injured and after this, on the public bills could be seen announced that colored persons could only be admitted to a particular part of the house. The press of Boston, as a rule, encouraged this proscription, and one of the leading papers put forth an elaborate article, in every way worthy of the spirit of hatred, against a race guilty of no crime, but having a complexion which identifies them with a proscribed race.

. . . My statements thus far have been made in reference to the colored population of the Free

States. In the Southern Slave States quite a different order of things prevails, and the laws in reference to the colored race, whether bond or free, are cruel in the extreme. And although in some of the Free States the treatment (in some instances) of the colored people has been much improved by the efforts of the abolitionists, still the laws which emanate from the compromises of the constitution, as the Fugitive Slave Law and the Dred Scott decision, are most keenly felt by all the colored race - the Fugitive Slave Law which returns into bondage every slave who seeks an asylum in a free State from the slave hunters and their bloodhounds, who in many instances have kidnapped free persons of color; the Dred Scott decision which declares that “black men and women have no rights which white men are bound to respect,” completely annihilating the citizenship of every colored American; also the inhuman slave laws of the Slave States, which place every slave at the complete mercy of the master, - laws which prevent any black person from giving testimony in a court of justice against a white person, no matter what outrage may

have been committed upon the victim, and who consequently can make no appeal to the laws of the land…