Candle in the Darkness - Lynn N. Austin [45]
“Since you are new to this area, Miss Fletcher, you may not know the history of where we are going today. Germantown was settled in 1683 by a group of Quakers and Mennonites from Germany. Its residents published some of America’s first protests against slavery. Lucretia Mott, founder of the American Anti-Slavery Society, was a Quaker, and her husband organized free stores. Have you heard of those?”
“No . . . do tell me,” Julia said.
From the rapt expression on her face, he might have been reciting love poems to her.
“Free stores sell only those products made with non-slave labor. Many of New England’s most fashionable women are choosing to avoid southern-grown cotton for their dresses.” I am sure Julia would have dressed in animal skins like a native for Rev. Nathaniel Greene.
All my life I had heard Scripture used to defend slavery, but at the lecture that day, for the first time, I heard the Bible quoted to oppose slavery. Jesus’ commandments: “. . . whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them . . .” and “love thy neighbour as thyself ” applied to all of mankind, the speaker said. Slavery was a violation of the law of love and was therefore a sin. Taking our fellow man’s freedom by force was not only cruel and unjust but also abhorrent to God.
“If you assume God will approve, then you don’t know God,” the speaker concluded, and I nearly rose from my seat and shouted, “Amen!” the way the people in Eli’s congregation did. Those words finally explained the difference I’d always noticed between the way most preachers talked about God and the way Eli always talked about Massa Jesus. Eli knew God’s heart.
As time passed, I grew more and more interested in the antislavery movement. Before long, I was no longer going for Julia’s sake but to hear the lectures for myself. I couldn’t get enough of them. The message of God’s deliverance from slavery, which Eli had preached about in the pine grove years ago, suddenly seemed possible. And ordinary people like me could actually do something to help.
In the past, Julia’s affections for her various beaux usually flamed and died fairly quickly, so I was surprised when they didn’t this time. Her obsession with Nathaniel Greene grew stronger over time, even though he gave her no encouragement at all. I could have told her that the cause of abolition so consumed him that he had no room left in his heart for any woman—but I didn’t. I wanted to attend every meeting I could.
We heard the famous Negro orator Frederick Douglass speak. We saw the lash marks on a former slave’s back and heard the story of his daring escape. We learned about the Fugitive Slave Law, passed in 1850, and how any slave fortunate enough to beat the odds and escape could still be arrested up north and sent back into slavery. We met God-fearing people who risked fines and imprisonment to help escaped slaves reach safety in Canada.
But as time went on, a lingering discontent began to grow inside me. While a few individuals were actively trying to make a difference, most of us did little more than listen, shake our heads in dismay, then go on with our shallow lives. I finally voiced my thoughts to Nathaniel one day as we drove home from one of the meetings.
“Is all this talk really doing any good?” I asked him. “These speakers are preaching to an audience that already believes in abolition. What are they doing to change the attitudes of the slaveholders down south?”
“Well, our leaders hope that laws will eventually be passed in Congress and—”
“Laws? I think . . . I think that it’s very easy for people in the North to support abolition because there aren’t very many Negroes up here. And the ones who do live here are kept segregated from white people. They don’t live in our neighborhoods, their children don’t attend our schools. Even the pews in our churches are kept separate.”
“Why, Miss Fletcher, I believe that’s because—”
“Do you even know any Negroes,