Ripe for Emancipation: Rockbridge and Southern Antislavery from Revolution to Civil War (review)

Historians often disagree on the means Americans employed to end slavery during the antebellum period, especially when tied to the colonization movement. Neely Young’s Ripe for Emancipation adds to the historiography on the antislavery and colonization movements as well as West Virginia history in an accessible way for the general reader, while contributing something for the specialist. The author connects southern antislavery efforts and African colonization in Rockbridge County to place Virginia at “the center of the Upper South emancipation movement” (4). He argues that leaders of Rockbridge County’s antislavery forces were in fact moderate ‘racialists’—rather than racists—who supported colonization as a reasonable solution to end slavery in the United States (198–200).

Young’s focus on Rockbridge County demonstrates that antislavery supporters such as Henry and William Henry Ruffner differed from supporters of the broader antislavery movement. They were more moderate, demonstrating the transition from morally opposing slavery after the American Revolution to a pragmatic opposition grounded in economics—slavery was less productive than free labor. In short, slavery hurt both whites and blacks (97–98, 198). Furthermore, the approach Young uses, which some may argue is only local history, is of value for those interested in West Virginia history because it adds to the historiography by explaining the divisions within Virginia that ultimately led to the 1863 split that created the state. Finally, Ripe for Emancipation adds to the growing body of work on the colonization movement. The movement generally sought to solve America’s race problems and Young’s interpretation supports that offered by Eric Burin in Slavery and the Peculiar Solution (2005).

The author provides a compelling argument that antislavery was not just a northern phenomenon. He achieves this outcome by tracing the origins and growth of Rockbridge antislavery after the revolution to its peak in the 1840s; the movement declined quickly after 1850. Young also details the connections that leaders in Rockbridge shared with antislavery supporters in other parts of the country, and concludes with a discussion of the demise of antislavery in the 1850s. In short, the study enriches our knowledge of the national antislavery movement by looking at it in an Upper South community. In doing so, the complexity of American society is further revealed to the reader.

Young also ties African colonization, a popular national movement that began formally under the guidance of the American Colonization Society (ACS) in 1816, to his antislavery theme. Young consistently connects Rockbridge antislavery and colonization throughout the book; consistency matters because he clearly illustrates what colonization meant for supporters in Rockbridge County, Virginia. Their reasons for backing colonization could be and often were quite different from those of supporters elsewhere. It would be easy to conclude that colonization sought to end slavery; such a view is as simplistic as thinking that antislavery advocates opposed slavery only for moral reasons. Young does fall short by not exploring more of the nuances of the colonization movement. Many colonizationists avoided the topics of emancipation or even the appearance of being antislavery because the leadership of the movement wanted to appeal to the broadest section of the American population. This has led to numerous interpretations of the ACS and its real purpose, beginning with Philip Staudenraus, who suggested in his 1961 work, The African Colonization Movement, that colonization was mainly a humanitarian effort.

Certainly specialists will find issues about which to argue in this book. Young has, however, produced an accessible study and given historians further incentive to examine this period as they continue to fill in the gaps of American history.