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Cited by 0Colonialism, slavery, and tradeRace, History, and American SocietyBiographical and Historical Analysis

Baltimore and the Early Radicalization of William Lloyd Garrison

Alston, Bradley·2026·The Journal of African American History
DOI 10.1086/740477
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Abstract

For many Americans living in the antebellum period, William Lloyd Garrison (1805–79) was a leading voice of abolition. Garrison’s newspaper, the Liberator, reached thousands, and the commitment to ending slavery he articulated in the paper made him loved and hated by many of his contemporaries. The American Anti-Slavery Society, which Garrison led, became the training ground for numerous young reformers. Whereas scholars have written much about those facts, the scholarship on Baltimore’s significant role in helping to shape Garrison’s early ideas and activities is scant. Not only did Baltimore serve as the place where Garrison moved from a gradual emancipationist to an immediate emancipationist, but the city also provided him with his first national and international recognition.

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  1. David W. Blight , " William Lloyd Garrison at Two Hundred: His Radicalism and His Legacy for Our Time," in William Lloyd Garrison at Two Hundred: History, Legacy, and Memory, ed. James Brewer Stewart (New Haven , CT , 2008 ), 1 - 12 ;
  2. Denis Brennan , The Making of an Abolitionist: William Lloyd Garrison's Path to Publishing " The Liberator " (Jefferson, NC , 2014 ).
  3. Merton L. Dillon , Benjamin Lundy and the Struggle for Negro Freedom (Urbana , IL , 1966 ).
  4. " Review ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , October 2, 1829 . For the beliefs of many Black
  5. William Lloyd Garrison , Thoughts on African Colonization . . . (Boston , 1832 ).
  6. " Speech by Charles W. Gardner, Delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle , New York , New York, 9 May 1937 ," in Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 3 , The United States, 1830-1846, ed. C. Peter Ripley et al. (Chapel Hill, NC, 2015), 210-11. See also
  7. Walter M. Merrill , Against the Wind and Tide: A Biography of Wm. Lloyd Garrison (1963 ; repr., Cambridge , MA , 1965 ), 30; and
  8. Richard S. Newman , The Transformation of American Abolitionism : Fighting Slavery in the New Republic (Chapel Hill , NC , 2002 ), 87 - 93 . For an important examination of early organized Black resistance to colonization, see
  9. Henry Mayer , All on Fire: William Lloyd Garrison and the Abolition of Slavery (New York , 1998 ), 80.
  10. Seth Rockman , Scraping By: Wage Labor, Slavery, and Survival in Early Baltimore (Baltimore , 2009 ), 12 (asserting that Garrison "glimpsed the truth of racial equality from his interactions with Baltimore's people of color").
  11. James Oliver Horton and Lois E . Horton , Hard Road to Freedom: The Story of African America (New Brunswick , NJ , 2001 ), esp. 96-97;
  12. Henry Wilson , The Rise and Fall of the Slave Power in America , vol. 1 , 7 th ed. (Boston, 1872 ), 559, 560 (quotation). On media coverage of William L. Garrison's trial and incarceration, see
  13. David K. Sullivan , " William Lloyd Garrison in Baltimore, 1829-1830 ," Maryland Historical Magazine 68 , no. 1 (Spring 1973 ): 64 - 79 .
  14. Samuel E. Cornish began publishing The Rights of All in May 1829 , about two months after Freedom's Journal ceased publication.
  15. David Walker , Walker's Appeal in Four Articles . . . (Boston , 1830 ).
  16. " Walker's Appeal, No. 1 ," Liberator , January 8, 1831 , 6.
  17. William L. Garrison began publishing the Liberator in January 1831 . For the next thirty-four years, he utilized the paper as a vehicle to promote religious and moral arguments for immediatism. Garrison ended publication in December 1865 when federal lawmakers wrote the Thirteenth Amendment into the Constitution .
  18. James Oliver Horton and Lois E . Horton , In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860 (New York , 1997 ).
  19. Paul Goodman , Of One Blood: Abolitionism and the Origins of Racial Equality (Berkeley , CA , 1998 ).
  20. Manisha Sinha , The Slave's Cause : A History of Abolition (New Haven , CT , 2016 ), 216 .
  21. 1879 : The Story of His Life Told by His Children , vol. 1 , 1805 -1835 ( Boston , 1885).
  22. Garrison and Garrison , William Lloyd Garrison , 1 : 60 - 79 , 85, 113.
  23. Walter M. Merrill , " Prologue to Reform-Garrison's Early Career ," Essex Institute Historical Collections 92 , no. 2 ( April 1956 ): 165 .
  24. Manumission Intelligencer and later the Emancipator , Benjamin Lundy purchased and renamed the newspaper the Genius of Universal Emancipation in 1821 . At the time the paper was based in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. Lundy relocated the paper to Jonesboro, Tennessee, in 1823. Baltimore became the headquarters in 1824.
  25. Benjamin Lundy , The Life, Travels and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy . . . (Philadelphia , 1847 ), 15. See also
  26. Fred Landon , " Benjamin Lundy, Abolitionist ," Dalhousie Review 7 , no 2 ( July 1927): 190 .
  27. W. Caleb McDaniel , The Problem of Democracy in the Age of Slavery: Garrisonian Abolitionists and Transatlantic Reform (Baton Rouge , LA , 2013 ), 32 .
  28. William Lloyd Garrison , " Benjamin Lundy ," Journal of the Times (Bennington , VT) , December 12, 1828 , 3.
  29. William Garrison , " Address to the American Colonization Society, July 4, 1829," in William Cain, ed ., William Lloyd Garrison and the Fight Against Slavery ( Boston , 1995 ), 61-68 (quotation on 68).
  30. " A. Yankee " [John S. Robinson], letter to the editor, Vermont Gazette (Bennington, VT), March 31, 1829 . Robinson was governor from 1853-54.
  31. " The History of Baltimore ," City of Baltimore website , November 21, 2006 , https:// s3 .amazonaws.com/baltimorecity.gov.if-us-east-1/s3fs-public/2024-02/03_history_of_baltimore .pdf;
  32. Cheryl Janifer LaRoche , Resistance to Slavery in Maryland: Strategies for Freedom ([Philadelphia] , 2007 ), 53.
  33. Janet Duitsman Cornelius , Slave Missions and the Black Church in the Antebellum South (Columbia , SC , 1999 ), 112;
  34. Bettye Gardner , " Ante-Bellum Black Education in Baltimore ," Maryland Historical Magazine 71 , no. 3 (Fall 1976 ): 360 ; and
  35. August Meier and Elliott Rudwick , From Plantation to Ghetto: An Interpretive History of American Negroes , 3 rd ed. ( New York , 1976 ), 215.
  36. Leroy Graham , Baltimore : The Nineteenth Century Black Capital (Lanham , MD , 1962 ).
  37. Christopher Phillips , Freedom's Port: The African American Community of Baltimore, 1790-1860 (Urbana , IL , 1997 ), 146 (quotation), 156.
  38. Frederick Douglass , Life and Times of Frederick Douglass , Written by Himself . . . (Hartford , CT , 1881 ), 207;
  39. Douglass , Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. Written by Himself (Dublin , 1845 ), 109-10;
  40. " Execution of William Bowser ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , January 2, 1827 (quotations);
  41. " Woolfolk's Trial ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , March 31, 1827 .
  42. Leigh Fought , Women in the World of Frederick Douglass (New York , 2017 ), 14-18; and
  43. William S. McFeely , Frederick Douglass ( 1985 ; repr ., New York , 1995), 31.
  44. Ira Berlin , Slaves Without Masters: The Free Negro in the Antebellum South (New York , 1974 ), 204-5;
  45. David Brion Davis , The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture ( New York , 1966 ), 187; "Hear Both Sides ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , November 27, 1829;
  46. Jones Birthright Citizens 39; and untitled article Freedom's Journal July 6 1827.
  47. Alma Lutz , Crusade for Freedom: Women of the Antislavery Movement (Boston , 1968 ), 9. See also
  48. Elizabeth Chandler , " The Slave Ship ," in Benjamin Lundy, The Poetic Works of Elizabeth Margaret Chandler: With a Memoir of Her Life and Character (Philadelphia , 1835 ), 136; and
  49. Wm. L. Garrison , " To the Public ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , September 2, 1829 .
  50. " Review ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , October 2, 1829 .
  51. " A Noble Example ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , September 16, 1829 . After arriving in Boston (before moving to Baltimore), Garrison received a notice to appear for the May muster of the militia. He ignored the notice, as a myopic condition previously excluded his being a militiaman. He was fined and, not having the funds to pay the fine, had to borrow money from an associate. Relying on someone else to provide money humiliated Garrison, but the experience was instructive, as Garrison started to develop the doctrine of nonresistance.
  52. " The Genius of Universal Emancipation ," Brattleboro (VT) Messenger , September 25, 1829 .
  53. " Montpelier Sept. 22, 1829 ," Vermont Watchman and Gazette (Montpelier) , September 22, 1829 .
  54. " Reproof Complimentary ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , October 16, 1829 .
  55. " A Colored Baltimorean" [William Watkins], letter to the editors , Genius of Universal Emancipation , November 7, 1829 . See also
  56. P. Gabrielle Foreman , Jim Casey , and Sarah Lynn Patterson , eds. , The Colored Conventions Movement: Black Organizing in the Nineteenth Century ( Chapel Hill, NC , 2021 );
  57. Gerald Horne , Confronting Black Jacobins: The U.S., the Haitian Revolution, and the Origins of the Dominican Republic (New York , 2015 ), 111, 305;
  58. Richard Allen , The Life, Experience, and Gospel Labors of the Rt. Rev. Richard Allen . . . (Philadelphia , 1888 );
  59. Daniel Coker , Journal of Daniel Coker, a Descendant of Africa . . . (Baltimore, 1820);
  60. Dennis C. Dickerson , The African Methodist Episcopal Church: A History (New York , 2020 );
  61. David Hackett Fischer , African Founders: How Enslaved People Expanded American Ideals (New York , 2022 );
  62. Richard S. Newman , Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers (New York , 2008 ); and
  63. Daniel A. Payne , History of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, 2 vols., ed. C. S . Smith (Nashville , 1891 ).
  64. Garrison and Garrison , William Lloyd Garrison, 165 . In Against the Tide and Wind, Walter Merrill suggested that William Garrison, reflecting his "Newburyport poor boy " background, might have relished the opportunity to confront the more affluent Francis Todd ( 33).
  65. A Brief Sketch of the Trial of William Lloyd Garrison, For an Alleged Libel of Francis Todd, of Newburyport , Mass ( Boston , 1834 ).
  66. See , e.g., Garrison and Garrison , William Lloyd Garrison , 175 - 177 .
  67. African Minister , Humbly Dedicated to the People of Colour in the United States of America (Baltimore , 1810 ) by Daniel Coker (né Isaac Wright). Garrison unquestionably ended his Maryland jail dialogue with sexual exploitation, a theme many future abolitionists used to condemn slavery.
  68. Wm. Lloyd Garrison , " To Harriet Farnham Horton ," May 12, 1830, in The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison , vol. 1 , I Will Be Heard! 1822 -1825, ed. Walter M. Merrill (Cambridge, MA, 1971), 91-93 (quotation on 92).
  69. H. C. Wright , " Dissolution or Abolition ," Liberator , May 20, 1842 . Wright's editorial bore the date May 12, 1842.
  70. Wm. Lloyd Garrison , " Address of the Executive Committee of the American Anti-Slavery Society to the Friends of Freedom and Emancipation in the United States ," in The Constitution-a Proslavery Compact: or, Extracts from The Madison Papers, etc., Selected by Wendell Phillips , 3 rd ed. ( New York , 1856 ), 145-70 (quotation on 145).
  71. Ibid., 173. David Sullivan postulated that William Garrison probably found his ideological differences with Benjamin Lundy increasingly difficult to ignore, so ending the coeditors hip was beneficial to both Garrison and Lundy ;
  72. W. L. G. , " To the Editor of the Newburyport Herald ," June 1, 1830 , ibid., 97-103 (quotation on 101).
  73. " Genius of Universal Emancipation ," Richmond (VA) Enquirer , June 22, 1830 , citing the Doylestown, Pennsylvania Democrat.
  74. Middlebury (VT) People's Press May 26 1830 citing the New York Statesman.
  75. " William L. Garrison ," United States Gazette ( Philadelphia) , May 28, 1830 .
  76. " Manchester, Tuesday June 1, 1830 ," Horn of the Green Mountain (Manchester , VT) , June 1, 1830 .
  77. B. Lundy , " The Baltimore Minerva ," Genius of Universal Emancipation , June 1830 .
  78. Lewis Tappan , The Life of Arthur Tappan (Cambridge, MA , 1870 ), 167; and Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War Against Slavery (Cleveland , 1969), 79.
  79. " Garrison's Second Trial ," American Whig (Woodstock , VT) , December 20, 1830 .
  80. Wm. Lloyd Garrison , " Valedictory ," Liberator , December 29, 1865 .
  81. Frederick Douglass , " Speech on the Death of William Lloyd Garrison," June 2, 1879, in Frederick Douglass Papers: Speech, Article, and Book File, 1846-1894, box 23, reel 15 , Library of Congress , Washington, DC.

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Authors
Alston, B.
Corresponding author
Alston, Bradley
Venue
The Journal of African American History
Publisher
University of Chicago Press
Published
2026-03-01
Volume
111
Issue
2
Pages
197-227
ISSN
  • 1548-1867 (ISSN-L)
  • 2153-5086
DOI
10.1086/740477
OpenAlex
W7162016341
Semantic Scholar
f7351d60d9b52573300d5959809dc0cc0284455b
Cited by
0
References
3
FWCI
0.00
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
closed
Locations
The Journal of African American History (publishedVersion)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Anthropology › Colonialism, slavery, and trade
  • Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Race, History, and American Society
  • Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History › Biographical and Historical Analysis
Keywords
William Lloyd Garrison, abolitionism, radicalization, Baltimore, liberators, American Anti-Slavery Society, gradual emancipation, antebellum period

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