The Liberator Files

July 31, 1840

These are speeches made at the British Foreign A. S. Society, June 24, at Exeter Hall

February 18, 1842

This meeting, held in the Representatives’ Hall, began at an early evening hour, and continued until almost eleven.  Speakers included Remond,  Phillips, Frederick Douglass, Abby Kelley, and Garrison.  It is said of Douglass:  “who made, perhaps, although void of any regular education, the best speech of the evening everything considered.  He showed great imitative powers, and gave an amusing exhibition of the southern style of preaching to slaves, and the corresponding practice, which seemed to interest the meeting greatly. His natie talents are evidently of a high order.”

October 28, 1842 

Latimer, a fugitive slave from Norfolk, Va., was pursued by his owner, James Gray, who had him arrested on a charge of larceny. A writ of habeas corpus brought Latimer before the court .Judgment of the Supreme Judicial Court is that he must remain in custody of owner’s agent, allowing time for said agent to  produce evidence necessary for Latimer to be returned to Norfolk as slave. The article is from the Atlas, and that paper comments:  “Thus is Boston made the slave-hunting ground of the South, and thus does the city consent to aid and abet the vilest of kidnapers!”   It has harsh criticism for the police, the city marshal, and all involved in the case .. “There should be but one determination among our citizens — and that is , that Latimer should never go back to the South.  Old Faneuil Hall is to speakout, on this matter, on Sunday evening next.”

 This issue also notes a meeting at the Belknap-Street church, at which Garrison, Remond, others spoke about the case, and the paper also includes an announcement of a “Grand Meeting at Faneuil Hall, For the Rescue of Liberty!”

November 11, 1842

Here is an account of the Faneuil Hall meeting, in which it becomes clear that the “darkey” who had not been “listened to” was Lenox Remond.

January  13, 1843

Here is an account of  “A Church Mob, with the Minister at the Head of It”, which disturbed an abolitionist lecture in a Congregational Church in Phipsburg, Maine. Here also are accounts of aboltionist meetings in Braintree (concern with Latimer incident), and a Women’s antislavery conference in Haverhill, Massachusetts, and another in Kingston, at which Remond  spoke.

April 28, 1843

Here Remond tells of having used private conveyance at heavy expense, in order to avoid Jim Crow cars on the Salem and Boston road.  Then he was informed that the train from Portland came through without a Jim Crow car on it. When he was refused a seat on that train other than in the “Jimmy” car, he remained in the station, and his “business was frustrated”; he was prevented from attending “the Convention in Waltham”. 

Jun 23, 1843

Here reference is to a committee, headed by Wendell Phillips, appointed to meet with Tyler, upon his coming to Boston, to urge him to emancipate his slaves.  On the committee are George Latimer and Charles Lenox Remond.

October 6, 1848

A brief article, from the Pennsylvania Freeman, tells of Douglass, Delany, and Remond, in Philadelphia, with “the principle object of extending the circulation of the North Star….. We wish our friends, Douglass and Delany, most cheering success in their efforts for the North Star. There ought to be at least 1,000 subscribers to it among the colored people here, and if they would spend less of sensual indulgence and foolish show, they might do more than this to sustain their ablest organ, and thereby improve themselves. We hope every colored church will be freely opened to them, and that minister and people will unite to aid their work.”

November 29, 1850

Here is the record of a meeting at the Belknap Street Church, by a crowd so large that not all could gain access to the building.  John T. Hilton chairs the meeting, and Charles Lenox Remond  introduces Thompson, whose speech is included here.

June 10, 1853

Nell, Sarah Remond, and Caroline Putnam are denied entrance to an opera, though they have tickets. A court case is heard by Judge Russell, who finds against two discriminating defendants, in “the first case of its kind in Boston”.