North Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom

Abstract

Star Country: Upstate New York and the Crusade for African American Freedom. By Milton C. Sernett. (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 2002. Pp. xxi, 369. Illustrations, map, table. Cloth, $49.95; paper, $19.95.)The Transformation of American Abolitionism: Fighting Slavery in the Early Republic. By Richard S. Newman. (Chapel Hill: University of Carolina Press, 2002. Pp. xii, 256. Illustrations, maps. Hardcover, $45.00; paper, $18.95.)The course of abolitionism in the United States deserves perennial interest because slavery profoundly influenced virtually all aspects of the nation's development. Milton C. Sernett and Richard S. Newman answer this imperative with reexaminations of rather well-known figures and institutions that point toward a wider and more radical embrace of abolitionist ideals among northerners than previously thought. Both authors emphasize the activism and importance of blacks in abolition's evolution and expansion. In the end, however, both understate the racial prejudice that posed a formidable obstacle for all abolitionists.Sernett synthesizes an array of primary and secondary sources on antislavery activism in upstate New York from the early nineteenth century through the aftermath of the Civil War. In particular, he focuses on the counties directly south of Lake Ontario in the state's western tier, which he dubs North Star Country, consciously borrowing from the title of Frederick Douglass's abolitionist newspaper published in Rochester. Emphasizing a locale enables Sernett to include some interesting characters with only passing connection to Star Country and piece together a series of vignettes into a lively narrative. On the other hand, this approach does not promote interpretation or theorizing, and the result is more like a loosely organized scrapbook than a tightly argued monograph.North Star Country includes chapters on religious revivals, churches, political parties, responses to federal actions, the Underground Railroad, John Brown's volatile career, and the Civil War. Some topics connect quite naturally, but others-notably Brown and the Civil War-require contrivance or procrustean treatment. Several prominent men-Gerrit Smith, Frederick Douglass, Beriah Green, Jermain Wesley Loguen, and Samuel J. May-appear consistently, and it might have been a better strategy to structure the book around these individuals. Such handling, though, would have elevated the stature of leaders in the story and lowered that of followers, and it is Sernett's intention to acknowledge and praise the unheralded common people for their conversion to abolitionism and commitment to the cause. While one can argue about organizational decisions, the book must be applauded for its many excellent archival pictures from local repositories and modern images of monuments taken by the author. Students searching for research topics may be inspired by these pictures as well as by any number of the intriguing incidents and figures brought to light in this books.In Sernett's account, Star Country abolitionism was an outgrowth of the evangelical enthusiasm that swept across the region during the Second Great Awakening and earned it the memorable moniker, Burnedover District. Charles Grandison Finney's doctrine of human agency and perfectability opened eyes and hearts to the evils of slavery and motivated efforts to assist the poor souls in bondage. Converts to abolitionism did not sweep the field, but the true believers overcame resistance to their efforts by forming their own come outer churches and political parties. Passage of the federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 broke down many of the barriers separating abolitionists and their detractors by its explicit threat to freedoms that whites cherished. A spontaneous collaboration in Syracuse in October 1851 by people of all shades of color and belief to rescue a fugitive named Jerry from the slave catchers marked the end of widespread divisiveness. …