Freedom's Prophet: Bishop Richard Allen, the AME Church, and the Black Founding Fathers

The Year of the Fever, Part 2: Allen’s Antislavery Appeal

The Year of the Fever, Part 2 Allen’s Antislavery Appeal God knows the hearts of all men. —Richard Allen, “An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves and Approve the Practice” With his coauthorship of the yellow-fever pamphlet, Richard Allen entered national and international reform circles. Confirmation came from Allen’s nemesis, Mathew Carey, who found himself in the surprising position of having to reply to “Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, two free Africans” whose “publication ushered to the world . . . abuse . . . on me.” Carey’s concern stemmed from the distribution of the black duo’s pamphlet in both America and Britain. Though he brushed aside their work as “undeserving of notice,” Carey was stung. He explained that he had originally praised Allen and Jones’s benevolent work and only chastised “the vilest blacks” for “extorting” money. He did not “cast a censure on the whole” black community. Allen and Jones’s services “demand public gratitude,” he exclaimed. “I would ask the reader, is this the language of an enemy?” Is it, he finished, “honorable for Jones and Allen to repay evil for good?”1 Because antiblack thinking transcended Carey, Allen was not content merely to critique a celebrated printer’s problematic production. He also wanted to attack the foundation of American race prejudice: slavery. At the end of Allen and Jones’s yellow-fever narrative, Allen inserted his own antislavery missive—the first public challenge to bondage by a black founder since Congress moved to Philadelphia. “We do not wish to make you angry,” he proclaimed, “but excite your attention to consider how hateful slavery is in the sight of that God, who hath destroyed kings and princes for their oppression of the poor slaves.”2 American masters must heed God’s word or face divine punishment. 4 105 1. An Antislavery Standard Allen called his antislavery addendum “An Address to Those Who Keep Slaves and Approve the Practice.” In crafting it, he relied not merely on biblical moralisms but on his rising sense of self. As Allen put it, the Lord “from time to time raise[s] up instruments” to spread righteousness throughout the world. Allen viewed himself as just such an instrument . And now was the time for the black preacher to plead the cause of the oppressed.3 Although early national Philadelphia was a far cry from pre–Civil War Washington, Allen concerned himself with an issue that had already sparked debate in the nation’s capital. From 1790 to 1800, when the federal government temporarily resided in Allen’s hometown, congressmen , presidents, and statesmen examined issues ranging from runaway slaves to abolitionists’ political standing before the law. In 1793, for example, Congress passed the nation’s first fugitive-slave law. The impetus for it may have come from Pennsylvania’s borderland status. Gradual abolitionism prompted enslaved people from Delaware, Maryland , and Virginia to head for the Quaker State. While Pennsylvania abolitionists constantly boosted their lawyerly cadre to keep pace with this trend, Southern masters fumed. Congressional slaveholders became especially concerned when traveling to Philadelphia. Though they had six months to comply with the gradual abolition statute, out-of-state masters still had to worry about runaways who might find refuge among the city’s vibrant free black community and/or legal support from the PAS. In one of the best-known cases, South Carolina congressman Pierce Butler sued Pennsylvania abolitionist Isaac Hopper for allegedly helping a slave to escape.4 On the international scene, news of the Haitian slave rebellion reached Philadelphia by the early 1790s, with escaping Haitian masters and slaves telling tales of the massive black uprising. Although Pennsylvania would not grant immunity to fleeing French masters, they sought refuge in the Quaker State anyway. Nearly a thousand Haitian slaves were gradually liberated over the following several years with Pennsylvania abolitionists’ aid. Allen’s Philadelphia was, in short, full of antislavery discussion, black revolutionary action, and slaveholder concern about bondage.5 To all of this, Allen added a black man’s nonviolent call for racial justice. With the nation’s best and brightest men governing from Phila106 | The Year of the Fever, Part 2 delphia, he believed that he had a unique chance to propel black abolitionism nationally. While many white reformers critiqued slavery, black abolitionists like Allen condemned both bondage and racial injustice. He began by attacking slavery as an unchristian and unpatriotic institution . Allen favored both private manumission...