The Black Abolitionist Papers: Vol. II: Canada, 1830-1865 (Black Abolitionist Papers)

This five-volume documentary collection--culled from an international archival search that turned up over 14,000 letters, speeches, pamphlets, essays, and newspaper editorials--reveals how black abolitionists represented the core of the antislavery movement. While the first two volumes consider black abolitionists in the British Isles and Canada (the home of some 60,000 black Americans on the eve of the Civil War), the remaining volumes examine the activities and opinions of black abolitionists in the United States from 1830 until the end of the Civil War. In particular, these volumes focus on their reactions to African colonization and the idea of gradual emancipation, the Fugitive Slave Law, and the promise brought by emancipation during the war. "Black Abolitionist Papers represents a huge effort by a scholarly team, headed by C. Peter Ripley and George E. Carter, who recognized that African Americans were a pivotal and persuasive force in the 19th-century anti-slavery movement but that their work had been virtually ignored in scholarship prior to this collection. The team painstakingly identified African American activists through countless hours of research and scrutiny, bringing to light many names previously lost to history. Primary documents were gathered from over 100 libraries and archives across the world. The set was microfilmed and published in 1981 and quickly established a significant shift in historical scholarship regarding Black leadership, activism, and community life during this period. The collection remains an unequalled, "pristine record of Black abolitionism."--ProQuest Information Center American blacks looked to the British North American Provinces as a sanctuary from slavery and racial prejudice.