Miss Prudence Crandall, about this time, started a school for colored females, in Canterbury, Connecticut, which was soon broken up, and Miss Crandall thrown into prison.
David Walker, a colored man, residing at Boston, had published an appeal in behalf of his race, filled with enthusiasm, and well calculated to arouse the ire of the pro-slavery feeling of the country.
The liberation of his slaves, by James G. Binney of Kentucky, and his letters to the churches, furnished fuel to the agitating flames.
The free colored people of the North, especially in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia, were alive to their own interest, and were yearly holding conventions, at which they would recount their grievances, and press their claims to equal rights with their white fellow-citizens.
At these meetings, the talent exhibited, the able speeches made, and the strong appeals for justice which were sent forth, did very much to raise the blacks in the estimation of the whites generally, and gained for the Negroes’ cause additional friends.
CHAPTER XXXVIII. MOB LAW TRIUMPHANT.
In the year 1834, mob law was inaugurated in the free states, which extended into the years 1835-6 and 7.
The mobbing of the friends of freedom commenced in Boston, in October, 1835, with an attack upon William Lloyd Garrison, and the ladies’ Anti-slavery Society. This mob, made up as it was by “Gentlemen of property and standing,” and from whom Mr. Garrison had to be taken to prison to save his life, has become disgracefully historical.