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  • To Plead Our Own Cause: African Americans in Massachusetts and the Making of the Antislavery Movement by Christopher Cameron
  • Lois Lucas
To Plead Our Own Cause: African Americans in Massachusetts and the Making of the Antislavery Movement. By Christopher Cameron. (Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 2014. Pp. vii, 172.)

Although the general view appears to point to the Quakers as the early abolitionists in America, Christopher Cameron makes the argument in To Plead Our Cause that African Americans were early abolitionists themselves, as they spoke out against the enslavement of their people. Cameron maintains that in Massachusetts as well as other areas in the United States blacks put forth arguments against the institution in their writings and speeches. Using Calvinist theology and revolutionary ideology, blacks pled their own cause in the fight for freedom.

Describing his own work as a social and intellectual history of black abolitionists, Cameron places their contributions in the push for freedom in a larger global context (4). He makes the arguments that the radical abolitionist movement began in Massachusetts as early as the revolutionary period in American history and that the black outcry for freedom began as early as 1774 when Caesar Sarter initiated the tradition of the black jeremiad in an essay he wrote on slavery (6). In addition, Cameron discusses the works of various abolitionist organizations and maintains that the black emigration movement of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries was an important factor in antislavery activity (3).

This work is significant in that it reveals that blacks were not bystanders or latecomers in the abolitionist movement. Cameron explains that Puritan theology and the ideals of the American Revolution played a major role in shaping the political views of blacks as they presented their arguments against bondage. Significant too is the fact that Cameron refers to noted blacks such as Phillis Wheatley who, through their writings, dispelled views that blacks lacked the intellectual ability to reason. John and Susannah Wheatley had purchased [End Page 101] Phillis Wheatley as a child and chose to educate her rather than treat her as a typical slave. Phillis Wheatley went on to become a noted poet whose works were recognized in the both the United States and Great Britain.

Expressing the Calvinist doctrine of predestination in her poetry, Wheatley put forth the idea that God was not a respecter of persons in matters of salvation. In other words, it was God’s will that salvation be made available to all persons, including slaves. This was a belief of leading religious leaders of the day, including Cotton Mather and Samuel Willard (32). Wheatley and other black authors also wrote and/or spoke out against slavery, using the same arguments the American colonists used to push for their independence from Great Britain.

Cameron states that the ability to read and write by such African American authors as Wheatley served as the means by which they could prove their ability to reason and their humanity, while at the same time undermining arguments for slavery in the process (33). To ensure that the push for freedom was not forgotten, Cameron notes that these authors worked tirelessly to maintain public awareness of the slavery issue (115).

Using a number of primary sources, including government documents and the personal papers, journals, and letters of noted American and African American figures, Christopher Cameron makes a strong case for the origins of the antislavery movement among blacks in Massachusetts. This book will serve as a great resource for anyone conducting research on the role of blacks in the abolitionist movement and for college students in their study of slavery.

Lois Lucas
West Virginia State University
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