Am I not a man and a brother?
I have been reading a mystery "The Last Passenger" by Charles Finch.
It takes place in London in 1856 when an American abolitionist is crossing the Atlantic to generate support for his cause from the Queen (Victoria) and other members of Parliament and the clergy.
We are given an interesting historical background. Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce introduced a bill to abolish slavery as early as in 1791. The Slave Trade Act finally passed in 1807. During these years "British ships had transported about half a million African slaves, to the immense profit of a few hundred men." Some even argued that it was "in fact the nation's single most profitable business."
Josiah Wedgwood, one of the country's most famous and important men, designed a medallion: a black man in chains, speaking the words: Am I not a man and a brother?
"The image had become so popular that women of the upper and the middle classes pinned it to their dresses and wore it upon necklaces and bracelets. Gentlemen kept it in their lapels"
"In quick succession, France, the Netherlands, and Spain agreed to adopt some variations of its content. The bitterest irony was the nation that adopted the act only weeks after Wilberforce; the United States of America This seemingly admirable action came with one enormous and tragic ambiguity; it did nothing whatsoever to address the nation's internal slave trade."
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I would imagine that many today would object to this image in the same way that many object to the famous Emancipation Statue of Lincoln removing the shackles of a slave.
But, it appears, that in their days, they were powerful images.
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... were actually immigrants from the European countries. I don't have any famous names to give, because a lot of them were never famous. Many never sought fame or political office. They just came here in the mid-1800's and walked the walk.
... but many of the Quakers were here early on. They relocated here to practice their faith, and most of them had a literal belief in the Bible. Some were English, others were German, and many of them settled in communities that became Pennsylvania, Ohio and Maryland. Another group in upstate New York were called Shakers, but they were mostly immigrants. They were all pacifists and anti-slavery.
