Introduction
The Women’s Campaigns
Later Histories and Connections
Directions for Further Learning
Introduction
Birmingham was at the centre of one of the earliest, one of the
longest running, and one of the most significant of Britain’s
numerous nineteenth century women's antislavery societies. "The
Female Society for Birmingham, West Bromwich, Wednesbury, Walsall,
and their Respective Neighbourhoods, for the Relief of British Negro
Slaves" was officially founded in 1825 by Lucy Townsend and
Mary Lloyd. This was a year before the all male 'Birmingham Anti-Slavery
Society' was established. Like the men, they were indebted to non-conformist
religious views such as Quakerism. Unlike the men however, their
official position was to raise charity funds to relive suffering,
rather than to exist as a ‘political’ organisation.
Undermining this distinction, some of the women’s views on
slavery were often highly radical, as can be seen by Elizabeth Heyricks’
call for ‘immediate abolition’ expressed as early as
1824.
Despite the creation of separate men’s and women’s
antislavery societies in Birmingham, a large degree of interconnectivity
does appear to have existed between the two. Male and female antislavery
activists were often married or part of the same family, as for
instance with the Sturge family whose women were prominent campaigners
in their own right. Both genders shared intellectual ideas and argued
over the best way to aid slaves and end slavery. But without the
leading role that the women took in finding money and raising petitions,
it is unlikely that the antislavery cause would have been supported
for long. The men may have gone to argue with Parliament, but the
women took to the antislavery argument to people’s doorsteps.
Later, the women’s network would more simply become known
as The 'Ladies’ Negro’s Friend Society'. Again, perhaps
this title implied that the women were not a radical political movement,
but, more modestly, a system of support that would help those in
most distress. Certainly, it is clear that in most cases, the actual
knowledge that the women had of conditions faced by slaves came
second hand, and that their perceptions of black women in victimised
distress led them to see themselves as the privileged ‘emancipators’
of inequality. At the same time, the stratagies of the women, which
stressed the need to boycott the sale of sugar and other products
produced through oppression, become a powerful tool in promoting
justice and have since remained influential in transforming ideas
about how to promote a fair trade society without slaves.
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The Women’s Campaigns
Central to the women's campaigns were the concepts of abolishing
those trades linked to slavery, creating local and national petitions
of support and raising financial donations from families and businesses.
In turn, society members chose to especially highlight the case
of the oppressed female slaves to whom they sent relief. For it
was, they rightly argued, female slaves and mothers who were often
subject some to of the most barbaric treatment of the trade. Mothers
were constantly at risk of being separated from their children and
families, sold to new masters. Daughters were subjected to sexual
abuse by their owners, against whom they had no legal or social
defence.
Birmingham women wanted to challenge this situation. They sought
to establish a new public awareness of the female slave’s
plight, and collected substantial amounts of money over nearly a
century of campaigning. They sent donations to help individuals
whom they had learned to be at risk, orphaned by the trade, scarred
by the plantations, or left destitute without homes after escaping.
For example, their minute books reveal an involvement in the famous
case of ‘Mary Prince’ who published the first example
of a text from the female viewpoint of a West Indian ex-plantation
slave.
As the 'Ladies’ Negro’s Friend Society' grew older,
they turned their activities to support a long involvement in missionary
work in Africa, as well as educational schemes in the United States.
Here, the society gave financial aid to the African-American Amanda
Smith, head of a school for African-American children. They also
sought to support the important Tuskegee schools created by Booker
T. Washington. In these examples, we see a focus on aiding youths
left without education and in crippling povery across the American
South.
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Later Histories and Connections
The history of women’s antislavery in Birmingham has passed
down to us a significant social legacy. The enduring practical and
evangelical spirit of their campaigning ensured they continued to
function for almost a hundred years. The 'Ladies Negro’s Friend
Society' only produced its final reports in 1919. During this timespan,
many of these women were also involved in other local social reform
movements involving education and the relief of poverty. Meanwhile,
the daughters of the women who were once such a central part of
Birmingham antislavery circles, would often become involved in providing
shelter for refugees in the next century during the outbreak of
two world wars.
It is also interstesting to note how the call for the ‘freedom
for slaves’ and the crusade for ‘women’s rights’
both became increasingly vital issues in the nineteenth century.
This might lead us to explore how the 'Ladies Negro’s Friend
Society' could be reconsidered as both an anti-racist and an anti-sexist
campaigning group. Does the existence of the Birmingham women's
antislavery network allow us to make an early connection between
campaigns against the oppression of slavery abroad, and the growing
sense that female oppression in the home also needed to be challenged?
There may be no straightforward answer to this issue. Certainly,
some of the society's more radical members did rebel against the
dominant wisdom of the day stating women were simply to be guardians
of the family and domestic spheres. At the same time however, it
is also true that for others, embracing fierce antislavery convictions
did not mean they were ready to abandon traditional gender roles
within the home for the arena of politics that was hostile to female
interference.
If women’s convictions about gender perhaps had to remain
ambiguous, their approach to antislavery always remained one of
clear conviction. Throughout their lifespan, they not only supplied
intellectual arguments and a powerful moral conviction against slavery,
but also a highly practical and extended fund raising network. Their
records and archives show how Birmingham women have a proud and
long history of campaigning for social justice alongside men.
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Directions for Further Learning
Starting points for further discussion, or your own archive research, might include:
What different kinds of strategies were needed by men and women in Birmingham on behalf of the antislavery cause? And how effective were they?
What is the relationship between the quest for women’s rights and antislavery activism?
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Image Reference:
Birmingham City Archives: Women’s Antislavery Collection
IIR62.
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