The Hidden History of Black Militant Abolitionism in Antebellum Boston

Abstract

In 1830, some 1,875 free blacks called Boston, Massachusetts, home. In addition to being cooks, shoemakers, bootblacks, musicians, sailors, ministers, labourers, barbers, waiters, and fugitives from slavery, many, if not most, were also committed to the abolition of slavery in the United States. Black Bostonians received a welcome boost from the emergence of immediatism in 1831. As its name suggests, this radical antislavery doctrine called for the immediate and uncompensated abolition of slavery. This thesis charts the evolution of abolitionism in Boston from the 1830s through the 1850s, a period marked by intense immediatist activity in the antebellum city and efforts by abolitionists to rescue fugitive slaves. It argues that Bostonian abolitionists grew accustomed to violent means in the fight against slavery and slavehunting in the free states. More importantly, it highlights the neglected role of black militant abolitionists in this process of radicalisation. The thesis contributes to two discrete debates within abolitionist historiography: the nature and efficacy of black abolitionism, and the accommodation to violent means among Northern abolitionists in the lead-up to the American Civil War. While a variety of works have enriched our understanding of the inter-racial origins of immediatism, none have explored the influence of black abolitionism on immediatism after the 1830s. This thesis is an attempt to fill that gap. I use Boston’s fugitive slave rescues as an historical lens through which to observe how the physical militancy that lay at black abolitionism’s core insinuated itself into immediatism. Black abolitionism emerges from my study as an important factor in the immediatists’ accommodation to violent means as the American Civil War drew near.