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"General of the Swamps"
In 1795, the "General of the Swamps," an unidentified man who fled bondage, led a community of other men and women who had escaped slavery in Wilmington, North Carolina. A bounty was place on the General, and he was eventually captured and murdered. Picture of the Great Dismal Swamps located on the border of North Carolina and Virginia border. -
Gabriel's Conspiracy
Gabriel was a blacksmith who organized a plan to enter Richmond, Virginia, and hold Governer James Monroe hostage to negotiate freedom for Virginia's enslaved population. However, a severe storm foiled the plan, and Gabriel, along with many of his co-conspirators were executed. -
James Forten
In 1813, Forten published an anonymous pamphlet called Letters From A Man of Colour. The pamphlet denounced a bill the Pennsylvania legislature tried to pass requiring all black emigrants to Pennsylvania to register with the state. Forten thought such a bill would only serve to violate the rights of African Americans and further perpetuate inequality between blacks and whites. -
Jehudi Ashmun
In 1820, Ashmun started the publication of The African Intelligencer, a monthly journal, consisting of thirty-two pages, "designed to give a complete view of the proceedings of the [American Colonization Society]" (Gurley 64). Ashmun became governor of the colonly in Liberia between 1824-1828. -
Reverend Morris Brown
Reverend Morris Brown (1770-1849) founded the African Methodist Episcopal Church of Charleston, later named Emanuel AME Church. In 1822, Brown and his congregation became suspected sympathizers of Denmark Vesey and his conspiracy to revolt. After this incident, Brown and his family relocated to Philadelphia, and after Richard Allen's death in 1831, Brown became the second bishop of the AME church. -
Denmark Vesey
In 1799, Vesey won the lottery and purchased his freedom for $600. However, he was unable to purchase freedom for his wife and children. He later joined the African Methodist Episcopal church in Charleston, SC. Vesey "turned his back on the Christian passivity commonly taught by white ministers and free black preachers in favor of an Old Testament activism forged of wrath and justice" (Egerton xv). Vesey and 35 others were hanged after their plot of a rebellion was uncovered. -
Boston Municipal Court
Walker and two other used clothing store owners (John E. Scarlet and John Eli) stood before the Boston Municipal Court to face charges of receiving stolen goods. Walker and Scarlet were acquitted and the Commonwealth entered a nol. pros. (we shall no longer prosecute) in regard to Eli. The court documents laud the men's character and integrity. The proceedings were published in the Boston Daily Courier. -
Walker Addresses the Massachusetts General Colored Association
Walker's address to the Massachusetts General Colored Association was published in Freedom's Journal on December 19, 1828. In his speech, Walker reiterates the GCA's mission to unite the African American population throughout the United States. -
Henry Cunningham
Henry Cunningham, a preacher affiliated with the Savannah African Baptist church, received sixty copies of Walker's Appeal. Cunningham turned the pamphlets over to police in Georgia. -
Maria Stewart
Maria Stewart (1803-1879) was the first American-born woman to deliver a series of public lectures (PBS). Her lectures and pamphlets focused on issues that impacted the African American community, such as abolition, equal rights, education, and racial pride. She described Walker as "'the most noble, fearless and undaunted' and as the one who had 'distinguished himself [the most] in these modern days by acting wholly in defence of AFrican rights and liberty'' (Hinks xli-xlii). -
A Sailor Brings the Appeal to Charleston
Walker preferred to use white sailors to carry the Appeal into Southern ports because they aroused less suspicion. Edward Smith, a white sailor who was caught with the Appeal in Charleston, was fined $1,000 and sentenced to one year of hard labor in prison (Hinks 100). -
The Mayor of Boston Answers Southern Queries about Walker
After receiving letters from Governor Gilmer of Georgia and Governor Giles of Virginia expressing about the circulation of Walker's Appeal and wanting to obtain information about Walker, Boston mayor Harrison Gray Otis responded stating that Walker had violated no laws. Further, assures them that he will publish warnings to captains so they avoid transporting "incendiary writings" into southern states. -
Benjamin Lundy Reviews Walker's Appeal
Lundy was a Quaker editor o the Genius of Universal Emancipation, an antislavery publication. He critiqued Walker's Appeal for its inflammatory language, arguing that the pamphlet would only serve to incite violence in its black audiences and lead ultimately to the "extermination of the colored race" (qtd. in Hinks 107). -
Jacob Cowan
Jacob Cowan was considered David Walker's "southern agent." After he was caught distributing Walker's Appeal in Wilmington, NC, he was purportendly "arrested by Wilmington authorities and put on the Charleston, South Carolina slave block to be sold 'down the river' to Mobile, Alabama" (Rachleff 100). -
New Bern revolt
According to news reports, "‘sixty armed slaves’ had assembled in a swamp near New Bern and selected Christmas morning as the time to commence their rebellion. The local militia, however, was alerted, surrounded the swamp, and ‘killed the whole party.’ Disturbances ensued in the Wilmington region, where it was reported ... that ‘there has been much shooting of negroes in this neighborhood recently, in consequence of symptoms of liberty having been discovered among them'" (Hinks, Awaken 144). -
Hosea Easton
Hosea Easton was a lecturer, abolitionist, writer, and Congregationalist minister. Easton was born in Massachusetts in 1798 and became an active abolitionist and minister. In 1828, he delivered his "Thanksgiving Day Address" to the African American population in Providence, Rhode Island, where he disparaged slavery and racism. Shortly before his death, Easton published "His Treatise on the Intellectual Character, and the Civil and Political Condition of the Colored People of the United States -
Reverend Amos Beman
A leading black abolitionist in Connecticut, Amos Beman became the full-time pastor of the Temple Street African Congregational Church in New Haven in 1838. He was also appointed secretary of the Middletown meetings whose members gathered to protest the American Colonization Society. Beman was highly influenced by his contemporaries such as Hosea Easton and David Walker. -
Samuel Snowden
Snowden was a beloved antislavery minister who joined William Lloyd Garrison in founding the new American abolitionism after 1831. David Walker and Snowden were close friends (Hinks xxiii).
To see a write-up of an anti-slavery speech given by Snowden published in the Emancipator on August 17, 1843, follow this link:
http://research.udmercy.edu/digital_collections/baa/Snowden_07072(b)spe.pdf
