Aryeh Neier
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691135151
- eISBN:
- 9781400841875
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691135151.001.0001
- Subject:
- Sociology, Migration Studies (including Refugee Studies)
During the past several decades, the international human rights movement has had a crucial hand in the struggle against totalitarian regimes, cruelties in wars, and crimes against humanity. Today, it ...
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During the past several decades, the international human rights movement has had a crucial hand in the struggle against totalitarian regimes, cruelties in wars, and crimes against humanity. Today, it grapples with the war against terror and subsequent abuses of government power. This book offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of this global force, from its beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to its essential place in world affairs today. The book combines analysis with personal experience, and gives a unique insider's perspective on the movement's goals, the disputes about its mission, and its rise to international importance. Discussing the movement's origins, the book looks at the dissenters who fought for religious freedoms in seventeenth-century England and the abolitionists who opposed slavery before the Civil War era. It pays special attention to the period from the 1970s onward, and describes the growth of the human rights movement after the Helsinki Accords, the roles played by American presidential administrations, and the astonishing Arab revolutions of 2011. The book argues that the contemporary human rights movement was, to a large extent, an outgrowth of the Cold War, and it demonstrates how it became the driving influence in international law, institutions, and rights. Throughout, the book highlights key figures, controversies, and organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and considers the challenges to come.Less
During the past several decades, the international human rights movement has had a crucial hand in the struggle against totalitarian regimes, cruelties in wars, and crimes against humanity. Today, it grapples with the war against terror and subsequent abuses of government power. This book offers a comprehensive and authoritative account of this global force, from its beginnings in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries to its essential place in world affairs today. The book combines analysis with personal experience, and gives a unique insider's perspective on the movement's goals, the disputes about its mission, and its rise to international importance. Discussing the movement's origins, the book looks at the dissenters who fought for religious freedoms in seventeenth-century England and the abolitionists who opposed slavery before the Civil War era. It pays special attention to the period from the 1970s onward, and describes the growth of the human rights movement after the Helsinki Accords, the roles played by American presidential administrations, and the astonishing Arab revolutions of 2011. The book argues that the contemporary human rights movement was, to a large extent, an outgrowth of the Cold War, and it demonstrates how it became the driving influence in international law, institutions, and rights. Throughout, the book highlights key figures, controversies, and organizations, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, and considers the challenges to come.
Richard W. Wills
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195308990
- eISBN:
- 9780199867578
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195308990.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
The main concern of this book is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Martin Luther King’s appeal for civil rights by providing an explication of how he understood imago Dei in contrast to ...
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The main concern of this book is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Martin Luther King’s appeal for civil rights by providing an explication of how he understood imago Dei in contrast to theological thinkers dating from as early as the 5th century. From his position as mediating theologian, Martin Luther King drew at least three major conclusions from his explication of imago Dei that ultimately formed the basis of his appeal and the core of this book’s reconsideration of his theology. His first theological conclusion is strikingly similar to that of his early black church and abolitionist predecessors; it argues that all individuals, as children of God, are equally valued in as much as they are birthed with an inherent dignity that ultimately represents the requisite for the bestowal of just and fair treatment. His second and third conclusions regarding the bearing of imago Dei on humanity’s capacity to actualize sociopolitical equity and beloved community advance Martin Luther King into new and in somewhat uncharted theological terrain. While unapologetically filtered through the lens of his Christian faith, the doctrine of imago Dei provided Martin Luther King with an anthropology that was capable of addressing community beyond provincial notions of justice for its own pursuit, so as to offer the broadest possibility for human interest and mutual cooperation.Less
The main concern of this book is to offer a comprehensive analysis of Martin Luther King’s appeal for civil rights by providing an explication of how he understood imago Dei in contrast to theological thinkers dating from as early as the 5th century. From his position as mediating theologian, Martin Luther King drew at least three major conclusions from his explication of imago Dei that ultimately formed the basis of his appeal and the core of this book’s reconsideration of his theology. His first theological conclusion is strikingly similar to that of his early black church and abolitionist predecessors; it argues that all individuals, as children of God, are equally valued in as much as they are birthed with an inherent dignity that ultimately represents the requisite for the bestowal of just and fair treatment. His second and third conclusions regarding the bearing of imago Dei on humanity’s capacity to actualize sociopolitical equity and beloved community advance Martin Luther King into new and in somewhat uncharted theological terrain. While unapologetically filtered through the lens of his Christian faith, the doctrine of imago Dei provided Martin Luther King with an anthropology that was capable of addressing community beyond provincial notions of justice for its own pursuit, so as to offer the broadest possibility for human interest and mutual cooperation.
Richard Wayne Wills Sr
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195308990
- eISBN:
- 9780199867578
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195308990.003.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, Religion and Society
This chapter recognizes that King’s understanding of image of God existed on the edge of a historical 18th- and 19th-century dialogue regarding the quest for human and civil rights. As such, this ...
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This chapter recognizes that King’s understanding of image of God existed on the edge of a historical 18th- and 19th-century dialogue regarding the quest for human and civil rights. As such, this chapter substantiates and considers the extent to which King’s use of image of God language paralleled that of his abolitionist and black church predecessors. It then contrasts this earlier usage of image of God language with that of King’s appropriation and call to justice during the 1950s and 1960s, and considers the ways in which this kind of theological framework became foundational in the development of his ethical appeal for civil rights as well.Less
This chapter recognizes that King’s understanding of image of God existed on the edge of a historical 18th- and 19th-century dialogue regarding the quest for human and civil rights. As such, this chapter substantiates and considers the extent to which King’s use of image of God language paralleled that of his abolitionist and black church predecessors. It then contrasts this earlier usage of image of God language with that of King’s appropriation and call to justice during the 1950s and 1960s, and considers the ways in which this kind of theological framework became foundational in the development of his ethical appeal for civil rights as well.
Timothy Whelan
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199585489
- eISBN:
- 9780191728969
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585489.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter explores the work of Martha Gurney (1733–1816), a staunch Baptist and the leading woman bookseller and publisher in London in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, during the first ...
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This chapter explores the work of Martha Gurney (1733–1816), a staunch Baptist and the leading woman bookseller and publisher in London in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, during the first decade of the abolitionist movement in England. The chapter examines the fourteen abolitionist pamphlets Gurney published or sold between 1787 and 1794 and their place within the abolitionist movement, with special attention to An Address to the People of Great Britain, on the Propriety of Abstaining from West-India Produce (1791) by William Fox. The Address, the most widely distributed pamphlet of the eighteenth century, created widespread support for a nationwide boycott of sugar from the West Indies. Though Gurney and her pamphleteers were unable to persuade parliament to end the slave trade at that time, they laid the groundwork for the later work of Elizabeth Heyrick and the boycott movement of the 1820s.Less
This chapter explores the work of Martha Gurney (1733–1816), a staunch Baptist and the leading woman bookseller and publisher in London in the last quarter of the eighteenth century, during the first decade of the abolitionist movement in England. The chapter examines the fourteen abolitionist pamphlets Gurney published or sold between 1787 and 1794 and their place within the abolitionist movement, with special attention to An Address to the People of Great Britain, on the Propriety of Abstaining from West-India Produce (1791) by William Fox. The Address, the most widely distributed pamphlet of the eighteenth century, created widespread support for a nationwide boycott of sugar from the West Indies. Though Gurney and her pamphleteers were unable to persuade parliament to end the slave trade at that time, they laid the groundwork for the later work of Elizabeth Heyrick and the boycott movement of the 1820s.
Mark A. Noll
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195151114
- eISBN:
- 9780199834532
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195151119.003.0019
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
Central to the slavery debate was the issue of how to use the Scripture. Three major positions emerged on the Bible and slavery. Theological conservatives usually defended a literal reading of the ...
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Central to the slavery debate was the issue of how to use the Scripture. Three major positions emerged on the Bible and slavery. Theological conservatives usually defended a literal reading of the Scripture, which was held to provide a divine sanction for slavery. Radicals who wanted to abolish slavery sometimes agreed that the Bible sanctioned slavery, but that acknowledgment led them to disparage the Bible. In the middle were a distraught contingent of Bible readers who were troubled by their conclusion that the Bible sanctioned slavery, and who failed unsuccessfully in trying to combine faithfulness to Scripture and opposition to slavery. All factions, but especially the middle group, were constrained in their understanding of the Bible by the confluence (distinct to America) between traditional Christianity and commonsense republican principles.Less
Central to the slavery debate was the issue of how to use the Scripture. Three major positions emerged on the Bible and slavery. Theological conservatives usually defended a literal reading of the Scripture, which was held to provide a divine sanction for slavery. Radicals who wanted to abolish slavery sometimes agreed that the Bible sanctioned slavery, but that acknowledgment led them to disparage the Bible. In the middle were a distraught contingent of Bible readers who were troubled by their conclusion that the Bible sanctioned slavery, and who failed unsuccessfully in trying to combine faithfulness to Scripture and opposition to slavery. All factions, but especially the middle group, were constrained in their understanding of the Bible by the confluence (distinct to America) between traditional Christianity and commonsense republican principles.
Margot Minardi
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195379372
- eISBN:
- 9780199869152
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379372.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book examines how practices of commemoration and arguments about history informed early American debates over slavery and citizenship. The setting is a time and place in which people were ...
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This book examines how practices of commemoration and arguments about history informed early American debates over slavery and citizenship. The setting is a time and place in which people were hyperconscious of their role as historical actors and narrators: Massachusetts in the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Drawing on a rich and varied source base, the narrative traces how historical memory was implicated in three different forms of emancipation: the construction of a “free” national identity; the abolitionist movement against chattel slavery; and the fight for full citizenship for people of color. Harnessing these political causes to Bay Staters' understanding of their local history — especially the legacies of the American Revolution — was crucial to the success of each of them. In moving from the particular context of early national Massachusetts toward a broader consideration of the politics of memory in American history, this book shows that historical narratives are not merely reflections of their political and social context but also interventions into the power struggles of their moment.Less
This book examines how practices of commemoration and arguments about history informed early American debates over slavery and citizenship. The setting is a time and place in which people were hyperconscious of their role as historical actors and narrators: Massachusetts in the period between the American Revolution and the Civil War. Drawing on a rich and varied source base, the narrative traces how historical memory was implicated in three different forms of emancipation: the construction of a “free” national identity; the abolitionist movement against chattel slavery; and the fight for full citizenship for people of color. Harnessing these political causes to Bay Staters' understanding of their local history — especially the legacies of the American Revolution — was crucial to the success of each of them. In moving from the particular context of early national Massachusetts toward a broader consideration of the politics of memory in American history, this book shows that historical narratives are not merely reflections of their political and social context but also interventions into the power struggles of their moment.
Stephen R. Haynes
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- November 2003
- ISBN:
- 9780195142792
- eISBN:
- 9780199834280
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/0195142799.003.0010
- Subject:
- Religion, Biblical Studies
This chapter explores readings of Genesis 9 that run counter to the orthodox interpretive paradigm. These counterreadings are identified in the commentary of rabbis and church fathers, the tracts of ...
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This chapter explores readings of Genesis 9 that run counter to the orthodox interpretive paradigm. These counterreadings are identified in the commentary of rabbis and church fathers, the tracts of abolitionists, and the work of historical critics of the Bible and authors of fiction and poetry. These Bible readers have challenged Noah's curse by clarifying the historical context of Genesis 9, by denying its putative racial dimensions, by employing logic and the rules of biblical exegesis, and by undermining textual assumptions through creative rereading.Less
This chapter explores readings of Genesis 9 that run counter to the orthodox interpretive paradigm. These counterreadings are identified in the commentary of rabbis and church fathers, the tracts of abolitionists, and the work of historical critics of the Bible and authors of fiction and poetry. These Bible readers have challenged Noah's curse by clarifying the historical context of Genesis 9, by denying its putative racial dimensions, by employing logic and the rules of biblical exegesis, and by undermining textual assumptions through creative rereading.
Corey M. Brooks
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- September 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780226307282
- eISBN:
- 9780226307312
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- University of Chicago Press
- DOI:
- 10.7208/chicago/9780226307312.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Political History
This book tells the story of how abolitionist activists built the most transformative third-party movement in American history and set in motion changes that eventuated in the rise of the Republican ...
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This book tells the story of how abolitionist activists built the most transformative third-party movement in American history and set in motion changes that eventuated in the rise of the Republican Party, and ultimately, the Civil War and the abolition of American slavery. Because of the longstanding bifurcation between studies of the antislavery movement and studies of the sectional conflict, political abolitionists’ vital role in both has been too frequently overlooked. This book corrects this disconnect and shows how political abolitionists, working first through the Liberty Party and then the Free Soil Party, reshaped national politics. Savvy third-party leaders pioneered and disseminated the politically critical but often-misunderstood Slave Power concept, which this book reframes as an argument about party politics. Identifying the Second Party System of Whigs and Democrats as the mainstay of the Slave Power’s supremacy, political abolitionists insisted that only a party independent of slaveholder influence could overthrow the Slave Power’s control of the federal government. Through a series of shrewd electoral, lobbying, and legislative tactics, the Liberty and Free Soil Parties wielded power far beyond their numbers and helped reorient national political debate around slavery. Focusing especially on the U.S. Congress, political abolitionists popularized their Slave Power argument and helped generate controversy over slavery’s westward expansion to destroy the Second Party System and erect the Republican Party as the first major party independent of the Slave Power.Less
This book tells the story of how abolitionist activists built the most transformative third-party movement in American history and set in motion changes that eventuated in the rise of the Republican Party, and ultimately, the Civil War and the abolition of American slavery. Because of the longstanding bifurcation between studies of the antislavery movement and studies of the sectional conflict, political abolitionists’ vital role in both has been too frequently overlooked. This book corrects this disconnect and shows how political abolitionists, working first through the Liberty Party and then the Free Soil Party, reshaped national politics. Savvy third-party leaders pioneered and disseminated the politically critical but often-misunderstood Slave Power concept, which this book reframes as an argument about party politics. Identifying the Second Party System of Whigs and Democrats as the mainstay of the Slave Power’s supremacy, political abolitionists insisted that only a party independent of slaveholder influence could overthrow the Slave Power’s control of the federal government. Through a series of shrewd electoral, lobbying, and legislative tactics, the Liberty and Free Soil Parties wielded power far beyond their numbers and helped reorient national political debate around slavery. Focusing especially on the U.S. Congress, political abolitionists popularized their Slave Power argument and helped generate controversy over slavery’s westward expansion to destroy the Second Party System and erect the Republican Party as the first major party independent of the Slave Power.
Bruce Nelson
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780691153124
- eISBN:
- 9781400842230
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Princeton University Press
- DOI:
- 10.23943/princeton/9780691153124.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, European Modern History
This chapter examines Irish nationalism in the context of the debate over slavery and abolition. It focuses on the figure of Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell was by reputation Ireland's liberator; he ...
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This chapter examines Irish nationalism in the context of the debate over slavery and abolition. It focuses on the figure of Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell was by reputation Ireland's liberator; he certainly was the most authoritative and charismatic voice of the emerging Irish Catholic nation of the early and mid-nineteenth century. He was also an outspoken opponent of slavery—in fact, one of the most powerful antislavery voices in all of Europe. Seeing the White Republic, and Irish Americans, through O'Connell's eyes requires us to explore the complex circumstances that confronted Irish immigrants in the United States and to understand why they would not—and to some degree could not—embrace his antislavery views. What is perhaps most remarkable about O'Connell, though, is not his success or failure in this regard but his attempt to construct an Irish identity that required opposition to slavery and other forms of oppression as one of its essential components.Less
This chapter examines Irish nationalism in the context of the debate over slavery and abolition. It focuses on the figure of Daniel O'Connell. O'Connell was by reputation Ireland's liberator; he certainly was the most authoritative and charismatic voice of the emerging Irish Catholic nation of the early and mid-nineteenth century. He was also an outspoken opponent of slavery—in fact, one of the most powerful antislavery voices in all of Europe. Seeing the White Republic, and Irish Americans, through O'Connell's eyes requires us to explore the complex circumstances that confronted Irish immigrants in the United States and to understand why they would not—and to some degree could not—embrace his antislavery views. What is perhaps most remarkable about O'Connell, though, is not his success or failure in this regard but his attempt to construct an Irish identity that required opposition to slavery and other forms of oppression as one of its essential components.
Margot Minardi
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- January 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195379372
- eISBN:
- 9780199869152
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195379372.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter shows how the idea that slavery was fundamentally at odds with local heritage shaped abolitionist efforts to gain public support in the 1830s and 40s. In Boston, as the construction of ...
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This chapter shows how the idea that slavery was fundamentally at odds with local heritage shaped abolitionist efforts to gain public support in the 1830s and 40s. In Boston, as the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument coincided with the development of an antislavery movement, abolitionists (led by William Lloyd Garrison) and monument‐builders (including Daniel Webster) vied for control over the American Revolution's legacy. Abolitionists' success in using Revolutionary rhetoric to get fugitive slave George Latimer freed from jail in 1842 was followed by another round of antislavery agitation in 1843, when abolitionists charged President John Tyler with bringing a slave to the Bunker Hill Monument's dedication. In examining the ensuing controversy about the commemoration of the Revolution, this chapter contends that abolitionists and their opponents were contesting not only the future course of the country but also the relationship between the present and the past.Less
This chapter shows how the idea that slavery was fundamentally at odds with local heritage shaped abolitionist efforts to gain public support in the 1830s and 40s. In Boston, as the construction of the Bunker Hill Monument coincided with the development of an antislavery movement, abolitionists (led by William Lloyd Garrison) and monument‐builders (including Daniel Webster) vied for control over the American Revolution's legacy. Abolitionists' success in using Revolutionary rhetoric to get fugitive slave George Latimer freed from jail in 1842 was followed by another round of antislavery agitation in 1843, when abolitionists charged President John Tyler with bringing a slave to the Bunker Hill Monument's dedication. In examining the ensuing controversy about the commemoration of the Revolution, this chapter contends that abolitionists and their opponents were contesting not only the future course of the country but also the relationship between the present and the past.
Jeffrey Needell
- Published in print:
- 2020
- Published Online:
- May 2020
- ISBN:
- 9781503609020
- eISBN:
- 9781503611030
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Stanford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.11126/stanford/9781503609020.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, Latin American History
This work is focused on the abolitionist movement in Rio de Janeiro. It offers a careful reconstruction of the movement’s context and evolution in Rio, and the related formal parliamentary history. ...
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This work is focused on the abolitionist movement in Rio de Janeiro. It offers a careful reconstruction of the movement’s context and evolution in Rio, and the related formal parliamentary history. An understanding of the nature of the political parties of the Brazilian monarchy, the role of the crown, and the significance of ideology and individual statesmen has been brought to bear in order to comprehend how the regime actually interacted with abolitionism and how both the movement and the regime shaped each other as a consequence. One cannot understand the movement’s history as something apart from the elite political world that it challenged and changed. A central element in this study is an examination of the role of racial identity and racial solidarity in the abolitionist movement’s history. Previous analyses of the movement have always argued that the movement was an urban, middle-class, white movement (with a few significant Afro-Brazilian leaders), one that only gathered Afro-Brazilian mass support over time. A more careful analysis of the evidence transforms our understanding, disclosing Afro-Brazilian middle-class membership and the Afro-Brazilian masses present and mobilized in the movement from its beginning to its end.
This study interweaves the imperial capital’s Afro-Brazilian components, its parliament and monarchy, and the nature and evolution of a reformist movement. It explains how the seemingly impossible was made possible: how an urban political movement ended slavery and did so within the confines of a monarchy dominated and maintained by eliteLess
This work is focused on the abolitionist movement in Rio de Janeiro. It offers a careful reconstruction of the movement’s context and evolution in Rio, and the related formal parliamentary history. An understanding of the nature of the political parties of the Brazilian monarchy, the role of the crown, and the significance of ideology and individual statesmen has been brought to bear in order to comprehend how the regime actually interacted with abolitionism and how both the movement and the regime shaped each other as a consequence. One cannot understand the movement’s history as something apart from the elite political world that it challenged and changed. A central element in this study is an examination of the role of racial identity and racial solidarity in the abolitionist movement’s history. Previous analyses of the movement have always argued that the movement was an urban, middle-class, white movement (with a few significant Afro-Brazilian leaders), one that only gathered Afro-Brazilian mass support over time. A more careful analysis of the evidence transforms our understanding, disclosing Afro-Brazilian middle-class membership and the Afro-Brazilian masses present and mobilized in the movement from its beginning to its end.
This study interweaves the imperial capital’s Afro-Brazilian components, its parliament and monarchy, and the nature and evolution of a reformist movement. It explains how the seemingly impossible was made possible: how an urban political movement ended slavery and did so within the confines of a monarchy dominated and maintained by elite
Bonnie Laughlin-Schultz
- Published in print:
- 2013
- Published Online:
- August 2016
- ISBN:
- 9780801451614
- eISBN:
- 9780801469442
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Cornell University Press
- DOI:
- 10.7591/cornell/9780801451614.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
John Brown was fiercely committed to the militant abolitionist cause, a crusade that culminated in Brown's raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and his subsequent execution. Less well ...
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John Brown was fiercely committed to the militant abolitionist cause, a crusade that culminated in Brown's raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and his subsequent execution. Less well known is his devotion to his family, and they to him. Two of Brown's sons were killed at Harpers Ferry, but the commitment of his wife and daughters often goes unacknowledged. This book reveals for the first time the depth of the Brown women's involvement in his cause and their crucial roles in preserving and transforming his legacy. Brown's second wife Mary Ann Day Brown and his daughters Ruth Brown Thompson, Annie Brown Adams, Sarah Brown, and Ellen Brown Fablinger were in many ways the most ordinary of women. However, they also lived extraordinary lives, crossing paths with such figures as Frederick Douglass and Lydia Maria Child and embracing an abolitionist moral code that sanctioned antislavery violence in place of the more typical female world of petitioning and pamphleteering. In the aftermath of John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, the women of his family experienced a particular kind of celebrity among abolitionists and the American public. In their roles as “relics” of Brown's raid, they tested the limits of American memory of the Civil War, especially the war's most radical aim: securing racial equality. Because of their longevity and their position as symbols of the most radical form of abolitionist agitation, the story of the Brown women illuminates the changing nature of how Americans remembered Brown's raid, radical antislavery, and the causes and consequences of the Civil War.Less
John Brown was fiercely committed to the militant abolitionist cause, a crusade that culminated in Brown's raid on the Federal armory at Harpers Ferry in 1859 and his subsequent execution. Less well known is his devotion to his family, and they to him. Two of Brown's sons were killed at Harpers Ferry, but the commitment of his wife and daughters often goes unacknowledged. This book reveals for the first time the depth of the Brown women's involvement in his cause and their crucial roles in preserving and transforming his legacy. Brown's second wife Mary Ann Day Brown and his daughters Ruth Brown Thompson, Annie Brown Adams, Sarah Brown, and Ellen Brown Fablinger were in many ways the most ordinary of women. However, they also lived extraordinary lives, crossing paths with such figures as Frederick Douglass and Lydia Maria Child and embracing an abolitionist moral code that sanctioned antislavery violence in place of the more typical female world of petitioning and pamphleteering. In the aftermath of John Brown's raid at Harpers Ferry, the women of his family experienced a particular kind of celebrity among abolitionists and the American public. In their roles as “relics” of Brown's raid, they tested the limits of American memory of the Civil War, especially the war's most radical aim: securing racial equality. Because of their longevity and their position as symbols of the most radical form of abolitionist agitation, the story of the Brown women illuminates the changing nature of how Americans remembered Brown's raid, radical antislavery, and the causes and consequences of the Civil War.
Claudio Saunt
- Published in print:
- 2005
- Published Online:
- September 2007
- ISBN:
- 9780195176315
- eISBN:
- 9780199788972
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195176315.003.0005
- Subject:
- History, Social History
In the Antebellum era, slaveholders dominated the Creek government. Under their guidance, the Creek Nation passed laws punishing abolitionists, defending slavery, and discriminating against black ...
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In the Antebellum era, slaveholders dominated the Creek government. Under their guidance, the Creek Nation passed laws punishing abolitionists, defending slavery, and discriminating against black Indians.Less
In the Antebellum era, slaveholders dominated the Creek government. Under their guidance, the Creek Nation passed laws punishing abolitionists, defending slavery, and discriminating against black Indians.
Werner Sollors
- Published in print:
- 1997
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195052824
- eISBN:
- 9780199855155
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195052824.003.0008
- Subject:
- Literature, African-American Literature
Lydia Maria Child's “Joanna,” featured in 1834 in the Boston anti-slavery collection The Oasis, was an early proof of abolitionist storytelling, and it has been regarded as the female-written origin ...
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Lydia Maria Child's “Joanna,” featured in 1834 in the Boston anti-slavery collection The Oasis, was an early proof of abolitionist storytelling, and it has been regarded as the female-written origin of miscegenation literature in the United States. The story may have discussed the issues that were to remain in the foreground of aesthetic representation for a long time, yet it was hardly an original story, and its references had little to do with women's antislavery literature of the United States, as it was lifted from the account of a British mercenary's expedition to the colony that the Dutch had received in return for letting New Amsterdam become New York. For the objectives of thematic investigation, this relation asks the question of “versions” and “subversions” of precursor texts.Less
Lydia Maria Child's “Joanna,” featured in 1834 in the Boston anti-slavery collection The Oasis, was an early proof of abolitionist storytelling, and it has been regarded as the female-written origin of miscegenation literature in the United States. The story may have discussed the issues that were to remain in the foreground of aesthetic representation for a long time, yet it was hardly an original story, and its references had little to do with women's antislavery literature of the United States, as it was lifted from the account of a British mercenary's expedition to the colony that the Dutch had received in return for letting New Amsterdam become New York. For the objectives of thematic investigation, this relation asks the question of “versions” and “subversions” of precursor texts.
Lacy K. Ford, Jr.
- Published in print:
- 2009
- Published Online:
- September 2009
- ISBN:
- 9780195118094
- eISBN:
- 9780199870936
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195118094.003.0016
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This chapter examines the spread of alarm and anxiety across the lower South in the aftermath of the publication of Walker's pamphlet and news of Turner's revolt. In the face of such alarming news, ...
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This chapter examines the spread of alarm and anxiety across the lower South in the aftermath of the publication of Walker's pamphlet and news of Turner's revolt. In the face of such alarming news, the ongoing contest between paternalists and their critics initially intensified. The paternalists maintained that only their approach could render slavery safe for the lower South, but the movement's opponents launched a fierce offensive, seeking to undermine the paternalist argument in light of open slave violence and aggressive abolitionist threats to slavery from outside the region. Initially, critics of paternalism succeeded in shifting the lower South's focus to the need for tighter control of slaves and free blacks. As a result, they won approval for measures banning the education of slaves and limiting the ability of paternalists to continue their mission to the region's slave population.Less
This chapter examines the spread of alarm and anxiety across the lower South in the aftermath of the publication of Walker's pamphlet and news of Turner's revolt. In the face of such alarming news, the ongoing contest between paternalists and their critics initially intensified. The paternalists maintained that only their approach could render slavery safe for the lower South, but the movement's opponents launched a fierce offensive, seeking to undermine the paternalist argument in light of open slave violence and aggressive abolitionist threats to slavery from outside the region. Initially, critics of paternalism succeeded in shifting the lower South's focus to the need for tighter control of slaves and free blacks. As a result, they won approval for measures banning the education of slaves and limiting the ability of paternalists to continue their mission to the region's slave population.
Elizabeth J. Clapp and Julie Roy Jeffrey (eds)
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- September 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780199585489
- eISBN:
- 9780191728969
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199585489.001.0001
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
As historians have gradually come to recognize, the involvement of women was central to the anti-slavery cause in both Britain and the United States. Like their male counterparts, women abolitionists ...
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As historians have gradually come to recognize, the involvement of women was central to the anti-slavery cause in both Britain and the United States. Like their male counterparts, women abolitionists did not all speak with one voice. Among the major differences between women were their religious affiliations, an aspect of their commitment that has not been studied in detail. Yet it is clear that the desire to live out and practice their religious beliefs inspired many of the women who participated in anti-slavery activities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This book examines the part that the traditions, practices, and beliefs of English Protestant dissent and the American Puritan and evangelical traditions played in women's anti-slavery activism. Focusing particularly on Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Unitarian women, the chapters in this volume move between accounts of individual women's participation in the movement as printers and writers, to negotiations and the occasional conflict between different denominational groups and their anti-slavery impulses. Together the chapters in this volume explore how the tradition of English Protestant dissent shaped the American abolitionist movement, and the various ways in which women belonging to the different denominations on both sides of the Atlantic drew on their religious beliefs to influence the direction of their anti-slavery movements. The collection provides a nuanced understanding of why these women felt compelled to fight for the end of slavery in their respective countries.Less
As historians have gradually come to recognize, the involvement of women was central to the anti-slavery cause in both Britain and the United States. Like their male counterparts, women abolitionists did not all speak with one voice. Among the major differences between women were their religious affiliations, an aspect of their commitment that has not been studied in detail. Yet it is clear that the desire to live out and practice their religious beliefs inspired many of the women who participated in anti-slavery activities in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries. This book examines the part that the traditions, practices, and beliefs of English Protestant dissent and the American Puritan and evangelical traditions played in women's anti-slavery activism. Focusing particularly on Baptist, Congregational, Presbyterian, and Unitarian women, the chapters in this volume move between accounts of individual women's participation in the movement as printers and writers, to negotiations and the occasional conflict between different denominational groups and their anti-slavery impulses. Together the chapters in this volume explore how the tradition of English Protestant dissent shaped the American abolitionist movement, and the various ways in which women belonging to the different denominations on both sides of the Atlantic drew on their religious beliefs to influence the direction of their anti-slavery movements. The collection provides a nuanced understanding of why these women felt compelled to fight for the end of slavery in their respective countries.
Joan D. Hedrick
- Published in print:
- 1995
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195096392
- eISBN:
- 9780199854288
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195096392.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
This book travels the multi-layered world of 19th-century morals and mores in this absorbing story of a gifted and complex writer whose place in the canon is still contended. Harriet Beecher Stowe, ...
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This book travels the multi-layered world of 19th-century morals and mores in this absorbing story of a gifted and complex writer whose place in the canon is still contended. Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of a preacher, married to a poor Biblical scholar, and mother of nine, had the early good fortune of an education at a school founded by her feminist older sister. To help support her family, Stowe began to write. In 1851, born of evangelical outrage against slavery, her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin made her famous. Today, the very name conveys white paternalism and black passivity, but this book points out that this unfairly ignores the “freedom narrative” of a book that had an electrifying effect on the abolitionist cause. When Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862 he joked, “So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”.Less
This book travels the multi-layered world of 19th-century morals and mores in this absorbing story of a gifted and complex writer whose place in the canon is still contended. Harriet Beecher Stowe, daughter of a preacher, married to a poor Biblical scholar, and mother of nine, had the early good fortune of an education at a school founded by her feminist older sister. To help support her family, Stowe began to write. In 1851, born of evangelical outrage against slavery, her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin made her famous. Today, the very name conveys white paternalism and black passivity, but this book points out that this unfairly ignores the “freedom narrative” of a book that had an electrifying effect on the abolitionist cause. When Abraham Lincoln met Stowe in 1862 he joked, “So you're the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war.”.
Molly Oshatz
- Published in print:
- 2011
- Published Online:
- January 2012
- ISBN:
- 9780199751686
- eISBN:
- 9780199918799
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199751686.003.0003
- Subject:
- Religion, History of Christianity
This chapter turns to the antebellum slavery debate and explains why strategies used by earlier antislavery Christians failed under the pressure of aggressive antebellum proslavery. Chapter 3 ...
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This chapter turns to the antebellum slavery debate and explains why strategies used by earlier antislavery Christians failed under the pressure of aggressive antebellum proslavery. Chapter 3 contends that making a biblical case against slavery in the antebellum context forced antislavery Protestants to acknowledge that moral progress had altered the meaning of the Bible. This chapter also details the role of Christian abolitionists and African American religious leaders, as well as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in the slavery debate.Less
This chapter turns to the antebellum slavery debate and explains why strategies used by earlier antislavery Christians failed under the pressure of aggressive antebellum proslavery. Chapter 3 contends that making a biblical case against slavery in the antebellum context forced antislavery Protestants to acknowledge that moral progress had altered the meaning of the Bible. This chapter also details the role of Christian abolitionists and African American religious leaders, as well as Harriet Beecher Stowe and Uncle Tom’s Cabin, in the slavery debate.
Don E. Fehrenbacher and Ward M. McAfee
- Published in print:
- 2002
- Published Online:
- October 2011
- ISBN:
- 9780195158052
- eISBN:
- 9780199849475
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195158052.003.0003
- Subject:
- History, American History: 19th Century
The mass escape of seventy-six slaves, the story of which is told in this chapter, gave rise to much excitement and a mood of vigilantism in the capital city. The first hasty searches proved futile. ...
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The mass escape of seventy-six slaves, the story of which is told in this chapter, gave rise to much excitement and a mood of vigilantism in the capital city. The first hasty searches proved futile. However, a Negro drayman revealed that all the fugitives had been carried away by the ship the Pearl. Soon, more than thirty armed men were embarked on a steamboat in eager pursuit. Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres were safely committed to the custody of the federal marshal, and bail was set at the excessive figure of $1,000 for each slave carried away. The cruise of the Pearl, although apparently arranged at the instance of a free black on behalf of his family, had all the earmarks of an abolitionist plot. The outburst of public anger in Washington was therefore directed not only against the “slave stealers” themselves but also against abolitionists in general and the local antislavery newspaper in particular.Less
The mass escape of seventy-six slaves, the story of which is told in this chapter, gave rise to much excitement and a mood of vigilantism in the capital city. The first hasty searches proved futile. However, a Negro drayman revealed that all the fugitives had been carried away by the ship the Pearl. Soon, more than thirty armed men were embarked on a steamboat in eager pursuit. Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres were safely committed to the custody of the federal marshal, and bail was set at the excessive figure of $1,000 for each slave carried away. The cruise of the Pearl, although apparently arranged at the instance of a free black on behalf of his family, had all the earmarks of an abolitionist plot. The outburst of public anger in Washington was therefore directed not only against the “slave stealers” themselves but also against abolitionists in general and the local antislavery newspaper in particular.
Grant R. Brodrecht
- Published in print:
- 2018
- Published Online:
- January 2019
- ISBN:
- 9780823279906
- eISBN:
- 9780823281497
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Fordham University Press
- DOI:
- 10.5422/fordham/9780823279906.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: Civil War
Our Country explores northern evangelical thought and sentiment in relation to the concept of Union during the Civil War era. The book complements our understanding of northern motivation during the ...
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Our Country explores northern evangelical thought and sentiment in relation to the concept of Union during the Civil War era. The book complements our understanding of northern motivation during the Civil War and contributes to a fuller understanding of the eventual “failure” of Reconstruction to provide a secure basis for African Americans’ equal inclusion in American society. In short, the book contends that mainstream northern evangelicals consistently subordinated concern for racial justice to an overarching understanding of the Union as a specifically Christian nation that existed in a covenantal relationship to God under their proprietary care. The book joins recent scholarship that gives primacy to the Union, while it challenges interpretations that understand northern evangelicals primarily in terms of abolitionist millennialism. Mainstream evangelicals did not enter Reconstruction with the primary aim of achieving racial justice. Rather, they entered Reconstruction expecting to see the emergence of a speedily restored, prosperous, and culturally homogeneous Union, a Union strengthened by God through the defeat of secession and the removal of slavery as secession’s cause. That restored Union was to be one in which evangelical religious and political assumptions would be even more culturally dominant than they had been during the antebellum years. Focused on much else besides racial justice, northern evangelicals acted as a brake on the abolitionist vision for a racially equitable and inclusive American Union throughout the entire Civil War era.Less
Our Country explores northern evangelical thought and sentiment in relation to the concept of Union during the Civil War era. The book complements our understanding of northern motivation during the Civil War and contributes to a fuller understanding of the eventual “failure” of Reconstruction to provide a secure basis for African Americans’ equal inclusion in American society. In short, the book contends that mainstream northern evangelicals consistently subordinated concern for racial justice to an overarching understanding of the Union as a specifically Christian nation that existed in a covenantal relationship to God under their proprietary care. The book joins recent scholarship that gives primacy to the Union, while it challenges interpretations that understand northern evangelicals primarily in terms of abolitionist millennialism. Mainstream evangelicals did not enter Reconstruction with the primary aim of achieving racial justice. Rather, they entered Reconstruction expecting to see the emergence of a speedily restored, prosperous, and culturally homogeneous Union, a Union strengthened by God through the defeat of secession and the removal of slavery as secession’s cause. That restored Union was to be one in which evangelical religious and political assumptions would be even more culturally dominant than they had been during the antebellum years. Focused on much else besides racial justice, northern evangelicals acted as a brake on the abolitionist vision for a racially equitable and inclusive American Union throughout the entire Civil War era.
