Sargent, William

Description

Holograph, signed.Title devised by cataloger.On verso the letter is addressed "To the Editors of the Liberator Philadelphia Pennsylvania." There is also a note indicating that, "This letter was opened by John Ferral [?] supposing it intended for the National Laborer the only 'Liberator' periodical of Phila[delphia]."Above the letter Sargent has copied a notice titled, "Negro Woman," that announces a "warrant of a justice of the Country of Pendleton K[entuck]y to the jail thereof a negro woman, who calls herself Sarah, supposed age, 50 y[ea]rs." The notice identifies her physical features, including her height and a number of scars, and blames "the spirit of abolitionism infuse[d] by reading (as she can read) their publications" for the scars on her back. It warns her owner to "prove property according to law" and remove her from jail or she will be sold "at public auction under the orders of the County Court ..."In this letter addressed to the "Editors of the Liberator" [William Lloyd Garrison], William Sargent has copied "an official advertisement put up at the Court house door of the County," a warrant for an escaped slave. Sargent says the notice is an example of the suffering that abolitionists are "bringing down upon the heads and bodies of one class of of [sic] the human family exemplified in the above scarified body of an aged woman." He points to the accusations against abolitionists in the notice and says, "Now cruelty & vengeance excited by the intermed[d]lers of the north is poured out...

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Boston Public Library

Record Harvested From

Digital Commonwealth