In the fall of 1830, Garrison reached out to the black population of Boston for support and subscriptions. Many knew of Garrison’s brief partnership with Benjamin Lundy, his imprisonment in Baltimore, and his Independence Day speech regarding slavery. In the fall of 1830, the black community in Boston needed advocates. The black newspaper Freedom’s Journal had ceased publication in 1829. Black leader David Walker had died, most likely as a result of tuberculosis, although some believed he was poisoned and murdered. The lanky twenty-four-year-old Garrison begged the question—how could this young, white man know of the trials and needs of the black community? Garrison persisted, and in November and December of 1830, he received support at black churches and in meetings with black leaders. As one commentator later wrote, “It is no wonder that, after launching his operation without a single subscriber or a penny in reserve, with borrowed type and paper obtained on the shakiest of credit, he quickly picked up 450 subscribers, of whom 400 were Negroes.”148
Garrison published volume one, number one of the Liberator in Boston on New Year’s Day 1831. In the time since his Independence Day speech in 1829, he had witnessed slave auctions in the markets and streets of Baltimore. He had supported and then rejected colonization and its goal of returning blacks to Africa, an idea “full of timidity, injustice and absurdity.”149 Garrison took aim at both the slave owners in the South and slavery apologists in the North. Comparing his time in Baltimore with his years in Massachusetts, Garrison concluded that prejudice in the North was as bad and often worse than in the South. “I found contempt more bitter, opposition more active, detraction more relentless, prejudice more stubborn, and apathy more frozen, than among slave owners themselves,” Garrison said.150 “I determined, at every hazard, to lift up the standard of emancipation in the eyes of the nation, within the sight of Bunker Hill and in the birthplace of liberty.”151
While Garrison did not embrace violence, he aligned himself with the activist philosophy of David Walker. “Let all the enemies of the persecuted blacks tremble,” Garrison wrote in his passionate statement of purpose. “I will be as harsh as truth, and as uncompromising as justice. … I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—AND I WILL BE HEARD.”152
13. William Lloyd Garrison in the 1850s.
William Lloyd Garrison. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Gift of I. N. Phelps Stokes, Edward S. Hawes, Alice Mary Hawes, and Marion Augusta Hawes, 1937 (37.14.37). Image © The Metropolitan Museum of Art.
Garrison’s launch of the Liberator in January 1831, when he was twenty-five years old, was an act of faith. From a business point of view the entire enterprise, held together with borrowed assets and romantic notions, seemed doomed to failure. The cause of the newspaper—the immediate abolition of slavery—severely limited his base of subscribers and advertisers. This did not deter Garrison. “The curse of our age is, men love popularity better than truth, and expediency better than justice,” he wrote.153 The modest success he had achieved did not make him cautious. Instead, Garrison vowed to risk everything, his newspaper, what little money he had earned, his safety, his own freedom—everything—in a cause he knew was right.
3 : Education for All
Prudence Crandall told no one in Canterbury about her plans to teach black women at her school; she confided only in William Lloyd Garrison. “I do not dare tell any one of my neighbors anything about the contemplated change in my school,” she wrote to Garrison, “and I beg of you, sir, that you will not expose it to anyone; for if it was known, I have no reason to expect but it would ruin my present school.”1 To emphasize the point she ended her letter by saying, “I must once more beg you not to expose this matter until we see how the case will be determined.”2
There is no evidence that Crandall seriously considered reversing her decision to admit Sarah Harris; however, she clearly did not want to lose her school. Crandall decided to travel to Boston to meet Garrison and discuss the feasibility of recruiting black students. She told local supporters, including her pastor, Levi Kneeland, that she planned to visit schools and purchase supplies, and she asked for letters of introduction to those who could assist her in Boston. She told no one of her meeting with Garrison or her idea to change the mission of her school. Eleven days later on January 29, 1833, she took the stagecoach from Canterbury to Boston.
The coach arrived at the Marlboro Hotel, a four-story building that served as the depot for many stagecoach routes.3 The Marlboro was the oldest hotel in Boston; Lafayette stayed there, as did John Quincy Adams and Daniel Webster.4 James Barker, the manager of the hotel, received Prudence Crandall when she arrived. She gave Barker a note that he promptly delivered to Garrison: “The lady that wrote you a short time since would inform you that she is now in town, and should be very thankful if you would call at Mr. Barker’s Hotel and see her a few moments this evening at six o’clock.”5 Garrison was familiar with the Marlboro’s large hall for speeches and its several drawing rooms for smaller meetings.
Garrison did not wish to see Crandall’s idea of a school for black women meet the same fate as a recently defeated proposal for a black college in New Haven, Connecticut. In June 1831, Simeon S. Jocelyn—a white minister of a black church—told Garrison of his plans to create a black college. Arthur Tappan agreed to purchase the land and raise funds for the new school. Garrison visited New Haven and wrote that the laws of the city were “salutary and protecting to all, without regard to complexion.”6 Garrison made those observations before the Nat Turner insurrection in August, when Turner led the slave uprising that resulted in the deaths of hundreds of blacks and whites. One month later, with fears of black rebellion and violence fanning northward, city residents at a town meeting voted overwhelmingly against the creation of a black college in New Haven, much to the discouragement of Garrison.7
Prudence Crandall met with Garrison in one of the drawing rooms at the Marlboro that wintry Tuesday evening. Each was likely a surprise to the other. Garrison, the emphatic abolitionist in print, was reserved and polite in person. Crandall, who had come to Boston to explain why she wanted to risk her financial future for the benefit of black women, was an educator, not a political activist. They both were passionate about their work. Crandall described her plans for the new school. Garrison conveyed his concerns based on the events in New Haven. Garrison also came prepared to answer Crandall’s specific questions about recruiting students from cities in the Northeast. He said he could solicit support from those he knew in Boston, including Arnold Buffum, a Quaker abolitionist and one of the founders of the New England Anti-Slavery Society. Garrison also said he could provide information about black families in New York, New Haven, and Providence. Crandall offered to travel directly from Boston to Providence to meet with those whom Garrison knew in the black community and said she would pursue the other contacts as quickly as possible.
Crandall told Garrison that when she returned to Canterbury she would seek out local supporters, including Daniel Packer, the mill owner and person responsible for the creation of the Packerville Baptist Church. They agreed that if the initial meetings and student recruitment efforts went well, Garrison would place an ad for her school in the Liberator and extensively promote her school. At the end of this extraordinary meeting, any lingering doubts on the part of Crandall or Garrison were replaced with determination. They agreed to work together to make the idea of