Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D.C., 1828-1865

Antislavery, Abolition, and the Atlantic World

by Stanley C. Harrold

While many scholars have examined the slavery disputes in the halls of Congress, Subversives is the first history of practical abolitionism in the streets, homes, and places of business of the nation's capital. Historian Stanley Harrold looks beyond resolutions, platforms, and debates to describe how desperate African Americans--both free and slave--and sympathetic whites engaged in a dangerous day-to-day campaign to drive the "peculiar institution" out of Washington, D.C., and the Chesapeake region.

That slavery was both vulnerable and vicious in Washington is at the heart of Harrold's study. Northern and foreign visitors were outraged by its existence in the seat of American government. For the South, Washington was a vital stronghold at the section's border. As economic changes caused slavery's decline in the Chesapeake and masters dismembered slave families by selling them South, local African Americans sought and received the support of a small number of whites eager to strike a blow against slavery in a strategic and very symbolic setting. Together they formed a subversive community that flourished in and about the city from the late 1820s through the mid-1860s. Risking beatings, mob violence, imprisonment, and death, these men and women distributed abolitionist literature, purchased the freedom of slaves, sued to prevent families from being separated, and aided escape efforts.

Harrold overcomes the secrecy inherent to Washington's antislavery community to document its formation and activities with remarkable detail and -perception. He shows how slaveholders and their sympathizers fought to reinforce their hold on a system under attack and how the dissidents raised a -radical challenge to the existing social order simply by -engaging in interracial cooperation. While some -subversives held power as politicians and journalists, most were obscure individuals. Black and white women played an important role.

An illuminating study of a heretofore overlooked struggle, Subversives reveals a new dimension in resistance to slavery, nineteenth-century race relations, and the antebellum conflict over America's capital city.

Genres: History

280 pages, Paperback

First published December 1, 2002

Reviews

[Evan Þ. · Rating 4 out of 5]

This's a history of the interracial community in antebellum Washington City in the abolitionist movement: how early abolitionists drawn to Washington City by politics related to the Black community already there. Sometimes it was patronizing, but very often it was with genuine friendship - more often early on, when they were almost the only local social connections available to abolitionists.

One big part of this was that abolitionists often got drawn into (or enthusiastically jumped into) efforts to free - by purchase or escape - local slaves. It was interesting to see how that played in concert with more political or journalistic abolition work.

This was a fragile connection - it strained as more White abolitionists came to Washington City in the 1850's, and fell apart (as did much of Washington's preexisting Black community) with the mass of Black refugees amid the Civil War. But while it was there, it was interesting to read about.

[SDAntoNia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent and extensive work documenting cooperation in DC. Particularly:

Free Negroes in the District of Columbia, 1790-1846 [WorldCat.org]

quoting Cook's need "to be very particular to do nothing knowingly, that would in the least tend to disturb the public weal..." P. 41 of Harrold, Subversives, 2003

and
"best known" Israel Bethel (split from white Ebenezer, 4th st.) minister. Mentioned with Mt. Zion Negro Church, 1814 in Georgetown (earliest Black church in DC) contrasted with cut ties to mother denomination. Praised with Wesleyan Metropolitan AME Zion church aka African Wesleyan Society on D St, (S.E?) split under Abraham Cole. Began welcoming white abolitionists to their churches -P. 41, No Segregated Seating!!

and

American slavery, 1619-1877 (Libro, 1993) [WorldCat.org] worldcat.org
Harrold (in "Subversives" LSU, 2003) uses Kolchin to claim that most Whites saw Black ppl as needing slavery to control..

found this in the bibliography of "Snow-storm in August : Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the forgotten race riot of 1835", p. 4 Congressional spitting/coarse lang. <-slave-owners; Slave despair & falling #s=slavery vulnerable in DC. Defense of slaves in DC <->legitimate institutution. P.6: 1850 GA secede if DC slavery abol. MD manumissions <-$ ->darker skinned free ppl, seen as more threat than mulatos. P. 16 Judge Cranch, 1821 ruled William Coston grandfathered out of new $20 free Black good behaviour bond. Black-White Cooperation: Quakers Tyson (est. school) & Lundy (pub. Genius of Univ. Emancip.). Mary Billings, George Drinker & Joshua Leavitt (1834 slave pen tour), Charles Torrey & Elisha Tyson (1840s), John Needle & William Chaplin (1850), M. Miner & (Gtown) Maria Becraft. Snow, Cook, Bradley. 1836 Gag Rule. J.Q.Adams, Gates, Giddings, Leavitt & Weld, Child & Torrey. P. 37: Geog. vs. Relational Community
ShiraDestinie
Peace,
MEOW Date: 6 August 12,014 H.E.

Community
MEOW Date 6.8.12,014H.e.