@article{680529611d1f418895e8476fb06cb215,
title = "Lucretia Mott and the Underground Railroad: The transatlantic world of a radical American woman",
abstract = "This article examines abolitionist Lucretia Mott{\textquoteright}s views on the Underground Railroad. In 1856 Mott publicly dismissed fugitive slave assistance, comparing it to Liberian colonization, both of which she considered unable to compete with natural increase of slaves and thus ineffective in toppling U.S. slavery. Such a position was incongruous with the general attitude among U.S. abolitionists who categorically denounced Liberian colonization as a racist, pro-slavery movement while amplifying their Underground Railroad activism in the 1850s. The article attributes the timing of Mott{\textquoteright}s 1856 remark to a partisan abolitionist strife spanning the Atlantic and explains her disregard of fugitive assistance to her puristic commitment to women{\textquoteright}s rights.",
keywords = "abolitionism, Lucretia Mott, Philadelphia, Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, slavery, nineteenth century, Underground Railroad, transatlantic activism, women's rights",
author = "Ikuko Asaka",
note = "Funding Information: Webb, reiterated the linkage between the vigilance committees and the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society throughout the 1850s. A believer in women{\textquoteright}s aptitude for the “self-sacrificing” work on behalf of “the American slave,” Webb was well known to the Bristol women through his participation in local antislavery meetings. His sparring with Lewis Tappan, which the Bristol Examiner reported, also raised his Gar-risonian profile. Publicity was further amplified through pamphlets that each man published defending his stance. Webb chastised Tappan{\textquoteright}s organization as indistinguishable from the New York Vigilance Committee. The American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Webb scoffed, “has a name and existence on Tuesday afternoon of anniversary week in May, for the space of three hours. The rest of the year it is the Vigilance Committee.”29 Another forum in which denunciations of fugitive aid unrolled was the Anti-Slavery Advocate, the Garrisonian periodical edited by Webb and funded by John Estlin and the Bristol and Clifton Ladies{\textquoteright} Anti-Slavery Society. Founded in 1852, the paper aimed to disseminate information on antislavery efforts of U.S. Garrisonians. The Advocate{\textquoteright}s partisan character was manifest in its unremitting dig at the Tappanites and vigilance committees. The paper repeatedly reminded its readers that “the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society” and “the Vigilance Committee” did not represent “true and catholic principles which must eventually overthrow slavery.” To “succour in flight the escaping fugitive” was “accomplishing nothing towards the abolition of slavery.” Thus, to count such line of work as one of “the requirements” of antislavery activity signaled a “confused or mistaken” understanding of the cause. The message that “the anti-slavery enterprise was not undertaken . . . to promote the escape of fugitives” appeared in the Advocate repeatedly. The paper pressed home the issue throughout most of the 1850s. In 1857 it published an article, “TRUE ANTI-SLAVERY EFFORT,” calling on British antislavery sympathizers to support Garrisonian abolitionists who strove to eradicate slavery at its core through “diffusion” of antislavery",
year = "2018",
month = dec,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1353/jer.2018.0067",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "38",
pages = "613--642",
journal = "Journal of the Early Republic",
issn = "0275-1275",
publisher = "University of Pennsylvania Press",
number = "4",
}