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Search results for: abolitionists
New Britain Plays Part in the Underground Railroad
…Britain. As the two sides of the slavery issue continued sparring, The First Church in New Britain passed anti-slavery resolutions, abolitionists and non-abolitionists clashed at local anti-slavery meetings, and non-abolitionists…
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Liberian Independence Day
…Abolitionists] wished to persuade or compel (!!!) the slaveholders to give up their slaves immediately; and the other class [the Colonization advocates] were for having slavery abolished gradually’. While some…
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Reverend James Pennington: A Voice for Freedom
…the years, he would consider among his friends William Lloyd Garrison, Simeon Jocelyn, and Lewis Tappan, leading abolitionists of the day. A decade after acquiring his freedom, Pennington became an…
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The Complicated Realities of Connecticut and the Civil War
…North, and this was certainly true for Connecticut, entered the war to emancipate slaves. The majority of Connecticut’s residents were not abolitionists. Again, the state’s Civil War monuments are instructive….
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Middletown’s Beman Triangle: A Testament to Black Freedom and Resilience
…Zion Church developed. Reverend Jehiel Beman, one of New England’s leading Black abolitionists, became the Cross Street A.M.E. Zion Church’s first regular pastor in 1830. Reverend Beman came from Colchester,…
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Speaking under the Open Sky: Frederick Douglass in Connecticut
…well-known abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison. During an 1845 trip to England aboard a Cunard steamship, the ship’s captain asked Douglass to speak on the promenade deck. No sooner…
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James Lindsey Smith Takes the Underground Railroad to Connecticut
…the Underground Railroad in Connecticut by Horatio Strother, 1962 The group of abolitionists that Smith encountered in Philadelphia included free black people and Quakers. They rejoiced over Smith’s escape and…
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Capital Punishment in Connecticut: Changing Views
…“life in prison” for “death” in convictions for first-degree murder was rejected without debate. Despite this defeat, the state’s death-penalty abolitionists continued to make a strong case for their cause…
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The Fight Over Slavery Reaches Torrington
…In addition to the efforts of the Mills family, Torrington provided the backdrop for numerous other stories that reflect the efforts of early abolitionists. In 1798, Torrington slave-owner Abijah Holbrook,…
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Reading, Writing, and the Great Outdoors: Frederick Gunn’s School Transforms Victorian-era Education
…Hayes, an unabashed supporter of slavery, personified that role. He justified human bondage on biblical grounds and delivered sermons condemning the abolitionists. Under the cleric’s influence, Gunn’s teaching became anathema,…
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Jonathan Edwards
…but died the following year from complications brought on by a smallpox inoculation. His widely circulated works influenced subsequent generations of reformers, including abolitionists of the 18th and 19th centuries….
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North Stonington’s Randall House, Nothing Ordinary about It
…indicate that the Randalls were abolitionists, slowly freeing family slaves during the early 19th century and offering escaped slaves journeying along the Underground Railroad sanctuary in the house. After ownership…
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From the State Historian: Connecticut’s Slow Steps Toward Emancipation
…well into the 19th century. A return of the number of inhabitants in the State of Connecticut, 1782 – Library of Congress, American Memory Supported by vocal abolitionists such as…
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Map – Connecticut Landmarks of the Constitution
…them to Sierra Leone. A landmark victory for abolitionists, the decision upheld the right to rebel against unlawful enslavement, and was challenged in the pre-Civil-War era. 52. New Haven: House…
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The Amistad
…the case in January of 1841. American abolitionists rallied to the defense of the Mende, raising money to hire future Connecticut governor Roger Sherman Baldwin and former US president John…
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John Brown: A Portrait of Violent Abolitionism
…decade before the Civil War. Considered by pro-slavery Southerners as “a damned black-hearted villain,” abolitionists met Brown’s radical exploits with a combination of admiration and revulsion. John Brown was born…
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A Different Look at the Amistad Trial: The Teenager Who Helped Save the Mende Captives
…abolitionists determined to free the 53 Africans, known as the Amistad prisoners, who were on trial for their lives. The captives did not speak English and no one in Connecticut…
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Expansion and Reform 1801-1861
…and slavery in the South facilitated divisive debates about the rights of all men to be free. These debates affected Connecticut slaveholders and abolitionists alike, manifesting themselves in such stories…
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An Orderly & Decent Government: Significant Events & Developments, 1819-1865
…voting, and expelled Irish units from the state militia. A War to Set Men Free Advocated first by a small group of ministers and other abolitionists, the anti-slavery cause took…
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Where It All Happened: Connecticut’s Old State House
…captured them. This ruling gave hope to abolitionists in the United States that further successes might be achieved through legal actions. In 1870, Isabella Beecher Hooker, founder of the Connecticut…
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Hebron’s Josephine Sophia (White) Griffing and a Vision for Post-Emancipation America
…not end with emancipation. Even before the Civil War, a number of Northern female abolitionists formed aid societies to educate and provide personal support to formerly enslaved people. These organizations…
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The Smith Sisters, Their Cows, and Women’s Rights in Glastonbury
By Molly May Abolitionists and suffragists Abigail (Abby) and Julia Smith of Glastonbury were best known for their fight against the town tax collector, George C. Andrews, in the 1870s….
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