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This chapter traces the origins of the Quakers' boycott of slave labor. It begins with a discussion of two processes that were critical to the development of Quaker abstention in the eighteenth century. The first process was religious and arose from the efforts of individual Quakers to end slaveholding among members of the Society of Friends. The second process was the cultural and commercial transformation of the Atlantic world as a result of the consumer revolution. The chapter then considers the beginning of Quaker antislavery arguments, which reflected the contemporaneous growth in the transatlantic trade in consumer goods. It also examines the Quakers' refusal to consume tea because it was customarily sweetened with slave-grown sugar and concludes by turning to John Woolman, a Quaker who became the foremost proponent of a new form of antislavery, anticonsumer testimony targeting slave-labor goods.

This chapter focuses on the first popular campaign against slave-labor goods: the boycott of West Indian slave-grown sugar in the 1790s. John Woolman and other colonial Quakers carried the idea of abstention to Britain where it eventually garnered interest in the late 1780s, when abolitionists began to suggest that a boycott of slave labor might force Parliament to take action against the slave trade. One of the more striking features of eighteenth-century British abstention was its popularity: nearly one-half million consumers, both Quakers and non-Quakers, abstained from slave-grown sugar. This chapter first examines Quaker antislavery in Britain in the 1780s and how the slave-trade debate became intertwined with larger questions about feminine consumption and colonial expansion, and particularly in the debate over blood-stained sugar served at ladies' tea tables. It also considers how abstention transformed the landscape of ladies' tea tables into a liminal zone where conversations about gender, commerce, and abolitionism blended into one another.

This chapter shows how Michigan abolitionist Elizabeth Chandler shrewdly used her ladies' column in the Genius of Universal Emancipation to publish a letter from Ohio's Green Plain Free Produce Society. Hoping to highlight the compelling rationale for rejecting slave-made goods in favor of “pure” free-labor products, she added an important western voice to the Pennsylvania-based free produce movement. The mixed-sex Green Plain group, nearly a year old, was responding to an offer from a Philadelphia free produce group to supply free-labor cotton. Pleased to receive this proposal “to procure the conveniences of life free from the stain of our brothers' blood,” the central Ohio abolitionists placed a large order. They also took the opportunity to share with their eastern colleagues their high aspirations for the movement.

This book examines the networks, identities, and processes of the boycott of slave labor from its Quaker origins in the seventeenth century through its decline in the late nineteenth century. Free produce was the first consumer movement to transcend the boundaries of nation, gender, and race in an effort by reformers to change the conditions of production. Embracing a global vision, supporters of the free-produce movement mobilized the boycott in hopes of transforming the transatlantic marketplace by rendering slavery unprofitable. The book shows how the men and women who boycotted slave-labor goods forced abolitionists to confront the connection between consumers and slaves. It explores how Quakers, women, and black abolitionists asserted the moral commitment of abstention as they sought to end slavery even if they rejected Garrisonian abolitionism. It also discusses the extent to which the boycott was indeed a Quaker movement, along with its implications for our understanding of Quakers' relationship to the broader antislavery movement.

This chapter examines the role of Elizabeth Heyrick, a British Quaker convert, in reinvigorating interest in the boycott of slave labor in Britain during the 1820s. The revival of boycott activity in Britain highlights the importance of political context in garnering support for consumer activism. Heyrick's efforts helped spark another popular boycott of slave-labor goods in the country. Taking a cue from the earlier movement, activists such as Heyrick linked the boycott to a broad agenda of social reform, including the abolition of slavery and the implementation of reforms for the working class. This chapter discusses two events that influenced British antislavery in general and Heyrick's activism in particular: the working-class radicalism of the early nineteenth century and massive slave rebellions in the British colonies of Barbados (1816) and Demerara (1823). It also considers the abstention movement and antislavery activism by Heyrick and other women, along with the intersection of abstention and gender in the British antislavery movement.

This chapter examines the rise of a transatlantic free-produce movement. Parliament's abolition of the apprenticeship system and the full emancipation of the British Empire's slaves in August 1838 encouraged British and American supporters of the boycott of slave labor. Political success led British abolitionists to establish three national organizations in 1839: the British India Society (BIS), the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS), and the African Civilization Society (ACS). These national developments held the promise of an international movement against the products of slave labor. This chapter discusses the initiatives of the American Free Produce Association and the BIS to find a steady supply of free-labor goods with prices that were competitive with slave-labor goods. It also considers the World Anti-Slavery Convention and the emergence of new associations that sustained the free-produce movement in the United States in the 1840s.

This chapter examines the role of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler, a young Quaker poet, in breathing new life into the abstention movement in America during the early 1830s. Unlike Elizabeth Heyrick, Chandler understood abstention from slave-labor goods as a matter of morality. Rather than a collective action that combined political economy and moral appeals, Chandler urged women to purify themselves, their homes, and their nation of the stain of slavery. For Chandler, abstention and free produce was a testimony, a commitment to reject the “gain of oppression,” rather than an economic strategy. This chapter explores the ways that Chandler, in her antislavery writings, linked free produce and abstention to domesticity. It also discusses Chandler's efforts in organizing free-produce and antislavery associations to encourage women to take collective action. Finally, it considers how Chandler and other abolitionists used the consumer culture of childhood to teach children the importance of abstention and abolitionism.

This conclusion provides a summary of the book's main points by drawing on There Is Death in the Pot!, a pamphlet produced by Henry and Anna Richardson. There Is Death in the Pot! captures both the past and the present of the boycott of slave labor. It explores the contamination of consumer goods by slave labor and the role of consumers in transforming the marketplace. In mapping the availability of free-labor goods, the authors emphasize consumers' ability to act as moral agents in the market. It also highlights the limits of the boycott as evidenced by the continued presence of slave-labor goods. The Quakers, women, and others who supported abstention and free produce never came close to displacing slave-labor goods from the Atlantic marketplace. These supporters and their opponents could not remain fully neutral as they debated the meaning and the role of moral commerce in the fight for the abolition of slavery.

This chapter depicts the preparation of the slave ship Ermelinda, the trade goods it carried, and crew recruitment. The ship carried fourteen crewmen and a few passengers. The trade goods included tobacco, sugar, rum, rice, cassava flour and manufactured goods, including European fabrics mostly made in England. The ship also carried a coach and horses for a known slave dealer in Luanda, Arsénio de Carpio. Some crewmembers and passengers had also brought goods on board to buy slaves. The distribution of the merchandise onboard is discussed. Besides Rufino, another African named Duarte Martins and crew members owned 2.4 percent of these goods.

In 1847-1848, the Posts participated in numerous efforts to advance social justice and religious liberty. When Douglass launched the North Star in Rochester, the Posts were drawn further into interracial circles. Douglass’s co-editor, William Nell lived with the Posts; and he and Amy became fast friends. Douglass’ coverage of European revolutions and critiques of he Mexican-American War tied local radicals to international struggles. The Posts’ daughter Mary and her husband William Hallowell and Amy’s sister Sarah joined in activist ventures. They also helped with housework and childcare as Amy participated in dozens of WNYASS antislavery fairs and annual Emancipation Day celebrations; joined Douglass, Lucretia Mott and Elizabeth Cady Stanton at the Seneca Falls Woman’s Rights Convention; embraced spiritualism and the newly-established Yearly Meeting of Congregational Friends; assisted fugitive slaves; and led efforts to organize the Rochester Woman’s Rights Convention and a local Working Women’s Protective Union. The Posts lived their politics at home, boycotting slave-produced goods and inviting their household workers to join in their activities. Although Douglass and Nell joined Post in advocating woman’s rights, Amy was unable to induce local African American women to participate in these activities.