The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey by E. Fuller Torrey (review)

BOOK REVIEWS 88 OHIO VALLEY HISTORY The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey E. Fuller Torrey Just before his premature death from tuberculosis in a Maryland prison hospital in 1846, activist CharlesTorrey admitted to freeing nearly four hundred slaves. Who was Torrey and why, despite the publication of shelves of antislavery histories since the 1960s, did it take until 2013 for someone to write a modern biography of the man? In The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey, psychiatrist E. Fuller Torrey investigates the life of his distant relation, an often-overlooked abolitionist and slave rescuer, and contends that historians must reexamine Charles Torrey. Martyrdom considers Torrey’s battles against prejudice and for abolition. The book ably reveals Torrey’s humanity, and his strengths and weaknesses during his eleven-year activist career. In the first eight chapters the author lays outTorrey’s context and actions; he then explores their implications as well as his contested place in history. The book begins in 1839 with the split within the radical antislavery movement when Torrey embraced political abolition, the anti-Garrisonian faction. Subsequent chapters loop back to Torrey’s Massachusetts childhood, the roots of his religious and antislavery convictions , and then trace Torrey’s central role in the founding of the Liberty Party. He quickly moved from political abolitionism to attacking slavery directly and aiding fugitive slaves. In the early 1840s, Torrey and Thomas Smallwood, a free African American man, moved back and forth between Washington D.C. and the North, running slaves to freedom quite publicly. Torrey innovated in collaborating with African Americans to create systematic, large-scale slave rescues, with particular emphasis on congressmen’s slaves. Torrey became notorious among slaveholders and the authorities for encouraging slaves to leave and steal assets as they escaped. The authorities issued warrants for the activists’ arrest, but Torrey and his allies nonetheless carried on, even printing the names of the slaves they assisted in newspapers . The Maryland authorities finally caught up with Torrey and arrested him in June 1844. The activist’s lifelong struggle with tuberculosis resumed while he was in jail. He also faced a difficult defense as numerous witnesses testified about his well-documented actions. The court found him guilty and sentenced him to six years in prison. Torrey’s friends unsuccessfully tried E. Fuller Torrey. The Martyrdom of Abolitionist Charles Torrey. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2013. 248 pp. ISBN: 9780807152317 (cloth), $39.95. BOOK REVIEWS SPRING 2014 89 to obtain a pardon, but his notoriety rendered this impossible and he died in prison at the age of thirty-two. In the wake of his death, Torrey’s legacy as an abolitionist martyr seemed secure, with throngs of abolitionists across the North honoring the man. The author also sees his influence in subsequent activists’ direct action against slavery. The book makes for an enjoyable read, especially for non-experts, but its contributions and Torrey’s significance remain unclear. First, while lucidly written and interesting, this narrative history lacks a clear statement of its argument. As a result, the book often lacks focus and offers excessive detail about antislavery history without establishing the information’s relevance. For example, the author discusses William Lloyd Garrison, his views, and the mutual dislike between Garrison and Torrey, but this information remains inexplicable until chapter ten when the author argues that this animosity explainsTorrey’s descent into relative obscurity. Here Martyrdom offers an intriguing historiographical insight: historians have overlooked Torrey because the Garrisonians wrote many of the earliest histories of the period. Most of Torrey’s allies and admirers died shortly after he did, and many of those who survived, like Gerrit Smith, feared publicizing their illegal activities even after the fact. The author makes a persuasive case about why historians overlooked Torrey’s importance, including his glaring absence from Garrisonian William Still’s 1871 The Underground Railroad. The biography would have benefited from more such original analysis about Torrey and his milieu. Second, while chapter ten reveals the significance of the author’s arguments, his claims for Torrey’s importance echo those of historian Stanley Harrold. The author credits Harrold’s “initial research on Torrey” (xiii) for having inspired the book, but that understates the...