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Washington Hall's 1836 letters: A glimpse into enslaved family life

Not much is known about Washington Hall, the African American slave author of three 1836 letters to his wife, Jemima Hall. Hall’s owner was Levi E. Hall, a large landowner near Florida, Missouri, who had ten slaves in 1840 and probably produced cash crops like hemp and tobacco. When Levi Hall died in 1849, his son took over the farm and continued to own slaves. Whether Washington Hall was among them is not known.

The outlines of Jemima Hall’s life are clearer. Born in Virginia, she was about twelve years old in 1822 when she was purchased for $300 by the Davidson family and given as a wedding present to Mary Davidson Rodgers. That same year, Jemima moved with Mary and her husband, Alert Rodgers, to Missouri, where she eventually married Washington Hall. Jemima likely was given her freedom in 1836, when she accompanied the Rodgers family to their new home in Warren County, Illinois. She lived with them until her death in 1875.

Washington Hall’s correspondence and that of his master make plain the cruel realities of human bondage. In his poignant and affectionate letters to Jemima, written soon after her departure for Illinois, Washington was unable to do more than plead with her to come back to him and urge her not to let her former owner persuade her to stay with them. Levi Hall’s stern letter spells out the ground rules for Jemima’s return to Washington. He informed her that, on condition of “correct deportment,” he would “make you and Washington as happy as circumstances will admit, but not to free him, nor do I think your freedom will much better your condition.” If Jemima were to rejoin her husband, it seems she had to agree to be free in name only. She went on without him.

Correspondence from African American slaves is quite rare, and letters addressed to family members especially so. Writing was not a common form of expression among this mostly illiterate population. When it does survive, it provides an immediate and tantalizing glimpse into the lives, thoughts, and feelings of the enslaved. In addition to their almost overwhelming emotional content, the Hall letters offer clues about friendships, slave-master relationships, literacy, and religious belief that are difficult to tease out from other sources.

– Martha Briggs; originally published in The Newberry 125: Stories of Our Collection (Newberry Library: 2012).

princetonarchives

“The return of the students enliven[s] the place very materially.”

--Princeton Whig, February 3, 1854, on the return of Princeton's students following their winter break

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Children's abolition magazine: The Slave's Friend (1836-1838)

TO SUPPORT THE ABOLITION of slavery, the American Anti-Slavery Society issued four publications soon after its 1833 founding: a newspaper, Human Rights; two magazines for adults, Anti-Slavery Record and Emancipator; and a sixteen-page, monthly children’s magazine, The Slave’s Friend. Letters from Arthur Tappan, a founder of the society, edited the latter from the organization’s New York offices from its first issue in 1836 to its last, only two years later.

Each issue of The Slave’s Friend included short stories, poems, and wood engravings—all designed to show the terrible conditions of slavery in the United States. The magazine portrays slaveholders as cruel and evil, while slaves are noble but abused. Time and again, in melodramatic and sentimental tales, the magazine’s writers drew on Christian piety to excoriate the nation for the sin and shame of slavery. Editors of The Slave’s Friend imagined children as political actors, calling on them to save their pennies, and those of their parents, for the abolitionists’ cause. An 1837 issue of The Slave’s Friend asks readers to form their own juvenile anti-slavery societies.

The small-format publication cost one cent per issue, though few were sold. Instead, the society distributed the magazine through the mail free of charge. Most readers were children from Northern states; few issues made it to the South, because postmasters there were reluctant to allow delivery of abolitionist propaganda.

The cover of issue number 5 depicts a Christian gentleman teaching black children. The scriptural reference, a common feature of the magazine, reads: “The lips of the wise disperse knowledge” (Proverbs 15:7). The same engraving and reference appeared on the cover of numerous issues. The opening of issue number 2 shows a chained black man praying on one knee over the caption: “O my great massa in heaven, pity and bless me a poor slave.” Opposite is the “Child’s Creed,” intended to teach youngsters that God is the father of all children, free or slave, and “that God loves a colored child as well as a white child.” Readers likely were expected to recite the portion of the creed that states, “I believe that it is right to be kind to the poor slaves, to pray for them, and to try to persuade slaveholders to give them their liberty; that it is wicked to buy and sell men, women, and children, and that it is very wicked to say that slavery is a dreadful sin, and that it is a dreadful sin to buy and sell men, women, and children.”

The Newberry purchased multiple issues of The Slave’s Friend in 1999. The periodical supplements a number of collection strengths, including abolitionist materials and children’s literature. The issues at the Newberry are particularly notable because they include their covers as issued. -- David Spadafora; originally published in The Newberry 125: Stories of Our Collection (Newberry Library: 2012).

View The Slave's Friend at Newberry Digital Collections

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Robert Williamson – Scientist of the Day

Robert S. Williamson, an American Army officer, topographical engineer, and explorer, was born Jan. 21, 1825, in Oxford, New York.

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"The houses are all warmed underneath by stoves, besides the fireplaces. I really wonder how we have lived at the South. The stores even in town have glass doors and are warmed in that way. The Episcopal Church is kept as warm as possible when you are in there and feels as if you were in a delightful wild Spring day and just step out, the cold freezes your very flesh. The weather is much colder than ours."

--John L. Manning, Princeton Class of 1837, to his mother, January 5, 1835

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Giacomo Beltrami – Scientist of the Day

Giacomo Costantino Beltrami, an Italian adventurer, died Jan. 6, 1855, at age 75.

lindahall

John J. Young – Scientist of the Day

John J. Young, a topographic engineer and illustrator, died on Oct. 13, 1879, in Washington, D.C., of unknown age.

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United States Naval Officer’s Sword. Cheapside, London: Joseph A. Storrs, ca. early 1830s

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Selections from a collection of 179 photographs of 19th century Black Americans, recently fully digitized.

MS Am 3380

Houghton Library, Harvard University

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Anatomy studies are perfect for spooky season.

From: Cutter, Eunice P, and Edmund Flagg. Human and Comparative Anatomy, Physiology, and Hygiene. School edition. New York: Clark, Austin, and Smith, 1854.

QM27 .C88 1854

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Clipping from the Princeton Press, September 16, 1859.

(We don't know what "Princeton fever" is, either.)

princetonarchives

In 1827, someone at the College of New Jersey—now named Princeton University—had a bone to pick.

"According to this manuscript, [Princeton's] Class of 1827 was either a lot of fun or an absolute disaster, depending on how you look at it. Six students were professors of religion, but two were dissipated, two prone to infidelity, two inclined to drink, two lacking sense, three idle, and six noisy."

lindahall

Lysander Button – Scientist of the Day

Lysander Button, an American inventor and manufacturer, was born in North Haven, Conn., on Sep. 2, 1810 (or perhaps Sep. 12).

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“However then we may differ as politicians, as Christians we are one.”

--The president of Princeton's Nassau Hall Bible Society, August 14, 1814, urging members to continue working with the British in spite of the ongoing War of 1812 and the recent Burning of Washington (see "Proceedings of Semi-Annual Meeting," 1814, Nassau Hall Bible Society Records (AC038), Box 1, Folder 4).

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"Our slaves must be emancipated upon the soil which they cultivate. There is no alternative."

--Princeton's acting president, Philip Lindsley, in an address given as he was leaving the role to make way for James Carnahan to assume the post, August 15, 1824

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"There are now four decided cases of cholera existing in the heart of this town. The authorities of this town, against the wishes of a large portion of the inhabitants, have converted the town house into a hospital for the sick, as there are many cases hourly occurring on the line of the canal. When it becomes known to them, we shall, without doubt, be flooded with them. My object is to give notice to those strangers who may wish to come here, that they may be governed accordingly. A large portion of the students in college have left, and others on the eve of going, in consequence of the alarm which exists here."

--Thomas M. Taylor, to the Philadelphia Inquirer, August 4, 1832, warning people not to visit Princeton due to a cholera outbreak

lindahall

Isaac M. Singer – Scientist of the Day

Isaac Merritt Singer, an American inventor and businessman, died July 24, 1875, at age 63.

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