Race - Essays in this Section
The importance of African-Americans is present in every issue of The Unionist, and yet there are not many Black voices on its pages. There are some – such as the letter to the editor from Cato – but in general, the paper is nowhere near as integrated in racial terms as The Liberator was. Of course, we are dealing from limited evidence, with only five extant issues. But it is still a problem on the face of it, and one worthy of a few comments. First, everyone connected with the school did their best to protect the students by not revealing too much about them. Were it not for trial transcripts, we would not even have most of the student names that we do. In an atmosphere of constant legal and vigilante violence, this was likely a wise policy. A similar sense of community security might have been generated from the small free Black community in Eastern Connecticut. Realizing that feelings were already running hot because of the Academy, they might have preferred to not draw additional attention to themselves by being published in the abolitionist newspaper. The framing of Frederick Olney demonstrates the ever-present danger. It is also possible that Charles Burleigh did not yet have rich connections to the Black community locally, and so did not know who to approach for additional content. In the end, though, what is clear is that The Unionist functioned less as a community resource for free Blacks in Connecticut, and more as an organ to leverage and organize white opinion in favor of Abolition principles, including support for the Canterbury Female Academy and combatting racial prejudice.
For Further Reference
- Mancini, Jason R. “Glasgo: Isaac Glasko Forges a Life.” Connecticut Explored, Summer 2016, https://www.ctexplored.org/glasgo-isaac-glasko-forges-a-life/
- Wright, Theodore S. “The Progress of the Antislavery Cause” (1837). In Carter G. Woodson, editor. Negro Orators and Their Orations. Washington DC: The Associated Publishers, Inc., 1925.
Above: Black woman in silhouette
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