year he died. “The revolution in public opinion which this cause requires, is not to be expected in a day, or perhaps an age; but time, which outlives all things, will outlive this evil also.”42 Jefferson did not want to make public his prediction of even a gradual end to slavery; he asked his correspondent to keep the contents of his letter confidential.
In 1829 black writer and Boston activist David Walker, the son of a slave father and free black mother, challenged Jefferson and the founders. Walker contrasted Jefferson’s pronouncement “that all men are created equal” with the “cruelties and murders inflicted by your cruel and unmerciful fathers and yourselves on our fathers and on us.”43 Walker asked whether England’s oppression of American colonists was “one hundredth part as cruel and tyrannical as you have rendered ours under you.”44 Walker’s words opened a controversial dialogue about the use of force to cast off the chains of slavery.
Slavery in America expanded significantly in the early 1800s. Alabama’s slave population more than doubled in ten years, increasing to 117,000 by 1830. There were more than 200,000 slaves in Georgia and North Carolina, and South Carolina had more slaves than whites—315,000 slaves to 258,000 whites. Virginia had more slaves than any other state in 1830—nearly 470,000 or 43 percent of its population.45 Slavery provided labor for planting and harvesting crops, transporting goods, and transforming wilderness into civilization. Skilled slave labor built many homes, businesses, churches, roads, and bridges. Southern families measured their wealth by the number of slaves they possessed. One official in Wilmington, North Carolina, noted that when a father married off his daughter, her dowry was measured in her share of the family slaves.46
2. Slave purchase flyer, Charleston, South Carolina.
Slave purchase flyer, Charleston, South Carolina, 1835. Library of Congress.
South Carolina Senator John C. Calhoun, who had graduated from Yale and studied law in Connecticut, said slavery “was an inevitable law of society” where both slaves and masters “appeared to thrive under the practical operation of this institution.”47 Many agreed with Frederick Augustus Ross, who argued that the Bible sanctioned slavery.48 Ross, a Presbyterian minister in Huntsville, Alabama, said that slavery in the United States provided a greater good for the slave. “The Southern slave, though degraded compared with his master, is elevated and ennobled compared with his brethren in Africa.”49
The North had its own legacy of slavery. As one commentator noted, “the North found its profits in the traffic and transportation of the slave, the South in his labor.”50 Economic development in New England depended in significant part on slave labor, with textile mills and factories profiting from the cotton and raw materials produced by slaves. Throughout the 1700s and into the early 1800s, northern businessmen made fortunes importing and selling slaves. The northern slave trade involved distilling rum in New England, transporting the rum to Africa where it was traded for slaves, and delivering the slaves—shackled together in irons on crowded slave ships—to ports along the East Coast of the United States and plantations in Cuba.51 Northern banks, blacksmiths, distillers, ship builders, sailors, merchants, and mill owners all profited from the slave trade.52
Stories about the mistreatment of slaves commonly were told and repeated among opponents of slavery. “I witnessed a heart-rending spectacle, the sale of a negro family under a sheriff’s hammer,” wrote Elkanah Watson of Massachusetts, a veteran of the Revolutionary War who later lived in North Carolina. “They were driven in from the country like swine for market,” Watson said. “A poor wench clung to a little daughter, and implored, with the most agonizing supplication, that they might not be separated. But alas … they were sold to different purchasers.”53 White slave owners targeted black women for rape and sexual exploitation; by 1860 mulattos made up more than 70 percent of the free black population in North Carolina.54
3. Slave traders and auctioneers were not prohibited from separating husband from wife or children from parents.
The Parting, Henry Louis Stephens, 1863. Library of Congress.
David Walker wrote in graphic terms about the brutality toward slaves he witnessed: a son forced to whip his mother, a pregnant woman beaten until she lost her child, runaway slaves caught and murdered. “The whites have always been an unjust, jealous, unmerciful, avaricious and blood-thirsty set of beings, always seeking after power and authority. … We see them acting more like devils than accountable men.”55 Walker’s writings in the late 1820s influenced a small group of activists, including William Lloyd Garrison and Prudence Crandall.
4. Slaves often were brutally punished; no consequence ensued to a slave owner who injured or killed a slave.
The Lash, Henry Louis Stephens, 1863. Library of Congress.
Prudence Crandall’s unusual and privileged childhood began when she was born in the village of Carpenter’s Mills, Rhode Island, near Hopkinton, on September 3, 1803. Carpenter’s Mills was named for her maternal grandfather and grew as a result of his initiative as an early industrialist.56 In 1770 Hezekiah Carpenter built a dam across the Wood River and created a series of small mills and factories that became known as Carpenter’s Mills.57 A community of workers and shopkeepers developed from the factories, and Hezekiah built a two-story home near the center of town. Prudence’s parents, Pardon and Esther, lived with Esther’s parents in their home.
Pardon Crandall and Esther Carpenter were married in Carpenter’s Mills in December 1799; Pardon was twenty-one and Esther was fifteen on their wedding day. Esther wore a black satin, empire-style wedding dress—black was a popular wedding-dress color at the time—with a red broadcloth jacket and a red bonnet.58 Four years later Esther gave birth to Prudence in the Carpenter family home—the second child for Esther and Pardon Crandall. Prudence had three siblings: an older brother, Hezekiah, a younger brother, Reuben, and a younger sister, Almira.59
Prudence Crandall spent her early childhood years near relatives and extended family members. Carpenter’s Mills was located seven miles north of Westerly, Rhode Island, where her father’s parents and many other Crandalls lived. Shortly after Prudence’s birth, her parents moved into another home owned by Hezekiah Carpenter on nearby Mechanic Street—still within walking distance to Prudence’s maternal grandparents and directly across the street from the mills. Pardon Crandall disliked living in a village dominated by his father-in-law. To further complicate matters, Pardon convinced Esther to leave the Baptist church—the church of the Carpenter family—and affiliate with the Quakers. Their conversion was not well received by the Carpenters.60
Pardon Crandall’s unhappiness occasionally resulted in harsh behavior with his wife and family. During one summer Esther asked Pardon to take her to the Rhode Island shore, where she planned to meet friends for a picnic on the beach. After many pleas by Esther, Pardon reluctantly agreed. They traveled in silence for the hour-long trip. When in view of Esther’s friends on the beach, Pardon turned the wagon around without stopping and returned home. “You wanted to go to the clam-bake,” Pardon said. “I took ye, didn’t I?”61 Prudence Crandall’s niece Rena Keith Clisby, who had heard the story repeated by Crandall relatives, noted that “men were stern in those days, showing little tenderness or concern for wives.”62 On another occasion years later, Pardon struck the family Bible, threw it to the floor, and shouted, “It’s a damned lie!”63 Esther rescued the Bible, and Pardon provided no explanation for his outburst.
5. Hezekiah Carpenter House, Prudence Crandall’s birthplace, in Hope Valley, Rhode Island.
Hezekiah Carpenter House, Prudence Crandall’s birthplace, in Hope