Book Recommendation: Force and Freedom: Black Abolitionists and the Politics of Violence

[xoxodede]

From its origins in the 1750s, the white-led American abolitionist movement adhered to principles of "moral suasion" and nonviolent resistance as both religious tenet and political strategy. But by the 1850s, the population of enslaved Americans had increased exponentially, and such legislative efforts as the Fugitive Slave Act and the Supreme Court's 1857 ruling in the Dred Scott case effectively voided any rights black Americans held as enslaved or free people. As conditions deteriorated for African Americans, black abolitionist leaders embraced violence as the only means of shocking Northerners out of their apathy and instigating an antislavery war.

In Force and Freedom, Kellie Carter Jackson provides the first historical analysis exclusively focused on the tactical use of violence among antebellum black activists. Through rousing public speeches, the bourgeoning black press, and the formation of militia groups, black abolitionist leaders mobilized their communities, compelled national action, and drew international attention. Drawing on the precedent and pathos of the American and Haitian Revolutions, African American abolitionists used violence as a political language and a means of provoking social change. Through tactical violence, argues Carter Jackson, black abolitionist leaders accomplished what white nonviolent abolitionists could not: creating the conditions that necessitated the Civil War. Force and Freedom takes readers beyond the honorable politics of moral suasion and the romanticism of the Underground Railroad and into an exploration of the agonizing decisions, strategies, and actions of the black abolitionists who, though lacking an official political voice, were nevertheless responsible for instigating monumental social and political change.

Chosen as a finalist for the Museum of African American History's Stone Book Award.

 

[xoxodede]

During the antebellum period, many black abolitionists believed violence was required to overthrow slavery.

Here are just some of the Black Abolitionist discussed in the book.

Joshua Easton

Black abolitionist Joshua Easton presciently declared that “abolitionists may attack slaveholding, but there is a danger still that the spirit of slavery will survive, in the form of prejudice, after the system is overturned.” Easton claimed that “our warfare ought not to be against slavery alone, but against the spirit which makes color a mark of degradation.” Unlike white abolitionists or most Northerners, black abolitionists were committed to the two-fold mission of emancipation and equality. Freedom meant little if you couldn’t obtain citizenship, the vote or access public facilities and services.

John Anderson Extradition case of John Anderson - Wikipedia

Human bondage is warfare, and dismantling this system required war against it. That war took the form of threats, beatings, mob attacks and even murder. In 1861, former slave John Anderson gave a speech before an abolitionist audience in Canada. He spoke about being pursued by a slave catcher as he escaped bondage. Anderson had warned the slave catcher that if he continued to follow him, Anderson would kill him. The man would not relent and so Anderson made good on his word.

Anderson regretted his actions, but he felt he had no alternative. Despite being cheered on by the crowd, Anderson wondered out loud if he could still be considered a Christian. These were the agonizing decisions and strategies confronting those charged with the grueling task of creating political and social reform without an official (or recognized) political voice.

William and Eliza Parker
William Parker (abolitionist) - Wikipedia

In 1851, runaways William and Eliza Parker formed the black self-protection society to aid escaping slaves from the infamous Fugitive Slave Law.

When four fugitive slaves sought refuge in the Parkers’ home, they gave them shelter. And when the master from whom the slaves had fled, Edward Gorsuch, arrived with a team of men at Parker’s home to retrieve his property, they were met with violent resistance. There was gunfire and in the end, Gorsuch lay dead. When asked about the use of violence Parker claimed, “The Laws for personal protection are not made for us, and we are not bound to obey them…we have no country.” Parker believed that enslaved or free black people should not be forced to obey laws that did not grant them the rights to have a say in the shape of such laws.

James McCune Smith
James McCune Smith (1813-1865) •
New-York Historical Society | James McCune Smith (1813-1865)

Black abolitionist and physician James McCune Smith remarked, “Our white brethren cannot understand us unless we speak to them in their own language; they recognize only the philosophy of force.” The philosophy of force guided their principles all the way to the Civil War. In fact, black resistance, and in particular violent resistance, was central to emancipation. Force was used to rescue fugitive slaves, threaten slaveholders, compel Northerners to act on behalf of the enslaved and protect vulnerable communities from assault. For a black community without the ballot, violence was the double-edged sword of democracy.

Martin Delany (The LEGENDARY)
Martin Delany - Wikipedia
Martin Robison Delany (1812-1885) •

Returning to Pittsburgh, he expanded his medical practice to include women's and children's diseases, and became deeply involved in the Underground Railroad and abolitionist movement. Addressing an 1850 rally, Delany said, "My house is my castle. If any man approaches that house in search of a slave... if he crosses the threshold of my door, and I do not lay him a lifeless corpse at my feet, I hope the grave may refuse my body a resting place, and righteous Heaven my spirit a home."

In February 1865, Martin R. Delany was commissioned as major of infantry and ordered to recruit an "Armee d'Afrique" in South Carolina. But the end of the war cut short the project. Delany, however, continued to work in the South, serving for three years in the Freedmen's Bureau. In this capacity, he delivered a speech to a meeting of freedmen and women at St. Helena Island, South Carolina, in July 1865. No report of the speech appeared in the contemporary press, but an account is in the files of the Freedmen's Bureau in the National Archives. Evidently the bureau heads feared Delany's militancy and sent a lieutenant in the Union army to report back what he had told the freedmen and women in his address. As the comments of the lieutenant reveal, Delany's advice to the ex-slaves to stand up for full freedom and resist reenslavement by arms if necessary, frightened the whites who were present and, indeed, the officer himself. Delany's speech is published below as it was reported in the letter of Lieutenant Edward M. Stoeber. The entire letter is included to give a picture of the setting and the reactions to the speech.

Martin Delany's Advice to Ex-Slaves
​