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ANNUAL REPORT 
 
 OF TH E 
 
 ASSOCIATION OF FRIENDS 
 
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 FOR PROMOTING THE 
 
 ABOLITION or SLAVERY, 
 
 ^ AND 
 
 Improving the Condition of the Free People of Color. 
 
 FOU THE YEAR 1846. 
 
 ;>^HILADELPHIA. 
 
 Ailit .1' ('UjC cOiOfGi "'^8, Printer, 299 Market Street, 
 
 1S?6. 
 
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 REPORT. 
 
 Tn presenting a summary of our labors for the past 
 year, we are sensible of the little we have accomplished; 
 but for the encouragement of others we can state, that 
 if, as we hope, this little has been blessed to those for 
 whom it was intended, we know that it has been doubly 
 blessed to us in its performance. 
 
 The meetings of the Association have all been resru- 
 larly held, and, as heretofore, the subjects of Education, 
 Free Produce, and collecting and disseminating informa- 
 tion on the subject of Slavery were intrusted to Standing 
 Committees on each. 
 
 The condition of the colored portion of our population 
 has claimed much of our attention; and, as opportunity 
 offered, we have endeavored to promote their advance- 
 ment in morality and intelligence by public and private 
 labor and an evening school; for the latter, considerable 
 pecuniary outlay was necessary. This branch of our 
 labors we continue to feel an important one, being aware 
 that much misapprehension exists in relation to the real 
 condition of the free people of color. Statistics of pau- 
 perism and crime, as made up from our alms houses and 
 prisons, should not be received without due examination. 
 Much the larger portion of the white inmates of these 
 places comes from the class who are, from their rela- 
 tions to general society, most exposed to adverse circum- 
 stances, being generally known as the laboring class; 
 and as our colored friends almost wholly belong to this. 
 
we should, in making statistic comparisons, not judge 
 them as is commonly done, in reference to the whole 
 white population, but only in regard to those with 
 whom they fairly come in competition, whose means of 
 living like their own are precarious, and who are sub- 
 jected to difficulties and temptations from which the 
 others are exempt. Comparisons thus drawn, give an 
 aspect to their condition very ditferent from that which 
 is ordinarily assumed, and is consistent with what we 
 might expect from extended personal intercourse with 
 them. It has long since been ascertained that in this 
 country they not only pay taxes sufficient to support 
 their own poor, but actually assist in supporting the poor 
 whites. Through all their difficulties many of them 
 have attained a high standard of intelligence — and in 
 their domestic relations exhibit a refinement which would 
 be creditable to the most favored of our own color. We 
 are the more willing to be explicit on this subject, from 
 the belief that some have had their sympathies checked 
 and their interest in the progress of Emancipation dimin- 
 ished by admitting the preposterous assertion, that the 
 free colored people are little if any better off than the 
 slaves. 
 
 Amona:st the encourao-ins: circumstances connected 
 with our testimony against Slavery, is the increasing 
 desire to avoid the contamination of its fruits, and the 
 extended facilities for procuring goods free from such 
 contamination. Large quantities of cotton, the produce 
 of free labor, of a quality much superior to that for- 
 merly had, has, we are informed, been received in this 
 city, and will be speedily manufactured. Some of the 
 manufacturers in England, we are told, contemplate 
 manufacturing free goods. Recent advices state, that 
 sugar to almost any amount may now be obtained 
 from China, and that the difficulties of raising cotton in 
 India have been overcome. The disposition to avoid the 
 
produce of slave labor Mhich seems to be extending 
 over the world, must contribute to the general feeling 
 against Slavery. 
 
 Collecting and disseminating information on the sub- 
 ject of Slavery has occupied a large share of our atten- 
 tion. The Committee set apart for this purpose have 
 made monthly reports to the Association of events that 
 have transpired bearing upon the testimony, and the re- 
 marks and concerns growing out of these have added 
 much to the interest of our meetings. A remonstrance 
 against the admission of Texas, as a Slave State, was 
 forwarded to Congress by direction of the Association; 
 and petitions to our State Legislature, on behalf of the 
 colored people, were printed and circulated amongst our 
 citizens. The readiness with which signatures were 
 obtained to these, and their favorable reception by the 
 Legislature were encouraging. Several publications 
 which were believed calculated to promote an interest 
 in the concern, have been re-published and extensively 
 distributed. 
 
 In taking a retrospect of the past year, there are many 
 indications of an increasing interest in the subject of 
 Slavery. So closely has the system become interwoven 
 with our religious, social, and civil relations, that scarce- 
 ly a public body of importance assembles in which its 
 consideration does not claim attention. Throughout the 
 Northern States legislative deliberations and enactments 
 show an increasing disposition to regard the rights of 
 the coloured people; and in some of them, a desire to be 
 absolved from all participation in the Slave System. 
 
 In some of the Northern States laws have been passed 
 forbidding the interference of their State officers, (as 
 such.) and the use of their prisons, for the apprehension 
 and security of fugitive slaves. In Pennsylvania, a bill 
 of similar import has been reported by a special commit- 
 tee. 
 
 1* 
 
Political papers which, from their very nature, float 
 on the tide of popular opinion, give evidence that this 
 popular opinion is demanding more and more informa- 
 tion in reference to Slavery. Even in the South, we 
 find an earnest discussion going on through the public 
 press. Cassius M. Clay, formerly a large slave-holder, 
 after emancipating his own slaves, has given himself 
 and his extended means earnestly to the task of indu- 
 cing others to follow his example. The " Baltimore 
 Saturday Visiter," a paper of wide circulation, has taken 
 strong ground; and other journals still further south, 
 have opened their columns to essays on this subject. 
 
 It is evident that • persons interested in Slavery are 
 giving increased attention to the great experiment insti- 
 tuted in the British West Indies; and notwithstanding the 
 efforts made by interested parties to misrepresent the 
 workings of Emancipation there, we have reason to be- 
 lieve that the truths of its happy results are beginning 
 to force themselves on the convictions of our southern 
 planters. 
 
 The arrival of the slaver Pons at our wharves from 
 the coast of Africa, bringing the revolting details of her 
 iniquitous cruise, and the shocking inhumanity and suf- 
 fering growing out of it, has created a deep feeling in 
 our community. The circumstance of her having been 
 built and fitted out by our own citizens, and the suspicion 
 that her destination at the time was known and approv- 
 ed by some, has brought the question of Slavery home 
 to many minds. This obvious participation in some of 
 the worst features of the odious system, gives a conclu- 
 sive denial to the assurance that we of the north have 
 nothing to do with Slavery. 
 
 The African Slave Trade had almost been lost sight 
 of as an object of interest here; but the knowledge that 
 no fewer than three vessels fitted out from our ports have 
 recently been captured by one American cruiser, and 
 
the startling announcement made in the National Intel- 
 ligencer, of Washington, that in about eleven months 
 upwards of one hundred slave ships have been captured 
 on the coast of Africa, has again brought the subject be- 
 fore us with solemn claims on our attention. If such a 
 large number are captured, a still greater must be en- 
 gaged in the traffic. VVe may picture to ourselves the 
 awful mental and bodily sufferings of the poor victims, 
 as their homes are given to the torch — their friends to 
 the sword, and they are themselves dragged to a doom 
 the most terrible that their imaginations can conceive : 
 and we may have some conception of the debasing in- 
 fluences accruing to the actors in these horrible trafje- 
 dies — but a full knowledge of all, few will be able to 
 realize. 
 
 As we contemplate this picture, and our hearts revolt 
 at its enormities, do we remember that its counterpart 
 exists amongst us? that a domestic slave trade, sanction- 
 ed by our government, participated in by our citizens, 
 facilitated by our prisons, and whose head quarters is 
 our national capitol, is actively carried on in our midst? 
 And as a peculiarity, stamping it with features almost 
 beyond belief, that this domestic slave trade, with its 
 abundant inducements to evil — its cruelties and depriva- 
 tions — its heart rendings, and its violations of the most 
 sacred sympathies of our natures, owes its continuance 
 to the fact that a large number of professing christians 
 are engaged in rearing men and women for the southern 
 shambles, as brute beasts are reared; and that in many 
 instances the subjects furnished are known to be the 
 children of those who thus consign them to the rice 
 swamps, the sugar plantations, and the cotton fields. 
 
 In giving such revolting details, it is not our aim to 
 arouse feelings of indignation or sympathy merely; these 
 we are aware may be misdirected and misapplied — but 
 that each one of us, remembering the relations we bear 
 
as consumers of the fruits, and upholders of laws that 
 support the system, and as common brethren to those 
 "Engaged in it, may seek to know our own duties and 
 endeavour to carry them out with fidelity. 
 
 That those more immediately implicated in this trade 
 are not entirely insensible of its character, the following 
 extracts will show : 
 
 The New Orleans Courier of February 15, 1845, 
 says: "We think it would require some casuistry to show 
 that the present slave-trade from Virginia is a whit bet- 
 ter than the one from Africa." 
 
 Professor Andrews, of North Carolina, says: "I asked 
 a slave-dealer if he often bought the wife without the 
 husband ? Oh, yes, often, and frequently too, they sell 
 me the mother, while they keep her children. I have 
 often known them to take away the infant from its mo- 
 therms breast, and keep it ivhile they sold her.^^ An ad- 
 vertisement in the Georgia Journal, January 2, 1838, 
 describing the property of Gabriel Gunn, to be sold, 
 mentions one child named James, about eight months 
 old. 
 
 Niles' (Baltimore) Register, vol. 35, p. 4, says: "Deal- 
 ing in slaves has become a large business — establisli- 
 ments are made in several places in I\Iaryland and Vir- 
 ginia, at which they are sold like cattle. These places 
 of deposit are strongly built, and well supplied with 
 thumb-screws and gags, and ornamented with cow-skins 
 and other Avhips, oftentimes bloody. '^ 
 
 " Of the extent of this trade," says a writer in the 
 New Jersey State Gazette, " few of us have any just 
 conception. Between the years 1817 and 1837, a period 
 of twenty years, 300,000 slaves were taken from Vir- 
 ginia, North Carolina, and Maryland, to the Southern 
 market, agreeably to the statement of the Rev. Dr. Gra- 
 
ham, of North Carolina; and in 1635, it was estimated 
 by the most intelligent rnen in Virginia, that 120,000 
 slaves were exported from that State during the pre- 
 ceding twelve months. About two-thirds of these accom- 
 panied their owners, who removed; the remaining one- 
 third were sold at an average of 8600 each, amounting 
 to 824,000,000, which the domestic slave-trade poured 
 into Virginia in one year. ' In 1836,' says the Mary- 
 ville (Tennessee) Intelligencer, ' 60,000 slaves passed 
 through a little western town on their way to the South- 
 ern market, and in the same year four States imported 
 200.000 slaves from the North.' In 1837, a committee 
 appointed by the citizens of Mobile (Alabama) to inquire 
 into the causes of pecuniary distress so prevalent, report- 
 ed, that between 1833 and 1837, Alabama alone import- 
 ed from the Northern Slave States 810,000,000 worth 
 of slaves annually, amounting to forty millions in four 
 years." 
 
 The Government of Denmark is making progress to- 
 L wards Emancipation in her colonies. 
 ■|L France is seriously contemplating the Abolition of Sla- 
 ^Bvery in her colonial dominions; and the Bey of Tunis 
 ^Bias actually put an end to the system throughout his do- 
 minions, stating it to be the result of a conviction which 
 had long impressed his mind. 
 
 In looking at the objects of our Association, we are 
 sensible of occupying a responsible position, and earn- 
 estly desire to maintain it in a manner consistent with 
 our christian profession. 
 
 We regret that feelings of distrust and a want of cha- 
 rity should exist amongst Friends in reference to their 
 testimony against Slavery — and we indulge the hope, 
 that a disposition may prevail to search out the causes 
 of difficulty where they exist, and have them tested bv 
 the plumb-line of Truth. 
 
10 
 
 For ourselves, while claiming the privileges of ex- 
 hortation and remonstrance, in brotherly love, with our 
 fellow members, let us be willing to concede the same 
 to them, — and in all our efforts to carry out our convic- 
 tions, strive to give evidence that we have the peaceable 
 spirit and wisdom of Jesus. Let us then go forward 
 with hope, bearing with each other's infirmities, and re- 
 membering our own weaknesses, — endeavour to encou- 
 rage to love and good works. 
 
 We have much to remind us of the importance of 
 fidelity to manifested duty, and the uncertainty of our 
 tenure upon life. One after another of our little com- 
 pany has been called from works to rewards since our 
 last annual meeting — and of those set apart to embody 
 this report, one of the most steadfast* has been stricken 
 down almost while thus engaged ; and while finishing 
 the labor he assisted in commencing, the hearts of his 
 survivors are overflowing with sorrow for his loss. But 
 he has left behind him a rich legacy of love — an exam- 
 ple that should cheer and animate us in the path of duty, 
 and incite us to emulate his firmness and devotion in 
 acting out our convictions of right. 
 
 On behalf of the Association, 
 
 JACOB M. ELLIS, 
 LYDIA GILLINGHAM. 
 Philada., 5ih mo., 1846. Clerks. 
 
 * Daniel Neall. 
 
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