Southern Abolitionists (Part 3) - Levi Coffin and the Quakers

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No, it's not the name of a 50s era rock band :giggle: - it's the latest installment of my series of threads on Southern abolitionists. This thread will revisit the Society of Friends (a.k.a the Quakers), who kicked off Part 1 of the series with a look at the "father" of abolitionism, the Quaker preacher Charles Osborn. It will take a look at the Quaker Levi Coffin, who would become another follower of Osborn, but not until later in life when he had already established himself as one of the most important operatives on the American Underground Railroad. (Over the course of his forty year career, Coffin is believed to have assisted upwards of 3,000 freedom seekers escape from slavery). It will also take a closer look at the Quakers themselves, and examine how displaced Quakers from the southern states came to be a nucleus of the Underground Railroad in the northern states.

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Levi Coffin
Levi Coffin was born to anti-slavery parents in 1798 in New Garden, North Carolina (near Greensboro). Levi's own anti-slavery convictions were conceived when he was seven years old, as he explained decades later in his memoirs:

At the time of which I speak, Virginia and Maryland were the principal slave-rearing States, and to a great extent supplied the Southern market. Free negroes in Pennsylvania were frequently kidnapped or decoyed into these States, then hurried away to Georgia, Alabama, or Louisiana, and sold. The gangs were handcuffed and chained together, and driven by a man on horseback, who flourished a long whip, such as is used in driving cattle, and goaded the reluctant and weary when their feet lagged on the long journey. One day I was by the roadside where my father was chopping wood, when I saw such a gang approaching along the new Salisbury road. The coffle of slaves came first, chained in couples on each side of a long chain which extended between them; the driver was some distance behind, with the wagon of supplies. My father addressed the slaves pleasantly, and then asked: "Well, boys, why do they chain you?" One of the men, whose countenance betrayed unusual intelligence and whose expression denoted the deepest sadness, replied: "They have taken us away from our wives and children, and they chain us lest we should make our escape and go back to them." My childish sympathy and interest were aroused, and when the dejected procession had passed on, I turned to my father and asked many questions concerning them, why they were taken away from their families, etc. In simple words, suited to my comprehension, my father explained to me the meaning of slavery, and, as I listened, the thought arose in my mind--"How terribly we should feel if father were taken away from us."

This was the first awakening of that sympathy with the oppressed, which, together with a strong hatred of oppression and injustice in every form, were the motives that influenced my whole after-life.

His convictions would grow as he witnessed more of slavery's horrors over the years, until at the age of 15, he began to take an active role against it himself, as he also explained in his memoirs:

In conversation I learned that one of the negroes, named Stephen, was free born, but had been kidnapped and sold into slavery. Till he became of age he had been indentured to Edward Lloyd, a Friend, living near Philadelphia. When his apprenticeship was ended, he had been hired by a man to help drive a flock of sheep to Baltimore. After reaching that place he had been seized one night as he was asleep in the negro house of a tavern, gagged and bound, then placed in a close carriage, and driven rapidly across the line into Virginia, where he was confined the next night in a cellar. He had then been sold for a small sum to [a slave-dealer], who was taking him to the Southern market, where he expected to realize a large sum from his sale. I became deeply interested in his story, and began to think how I could help him to regain his freedom.

The young Coffin made arrangements to bring Stephen to his father, who heard his story and contacted Stephen's former master in Pennsylvania, who sent his brother to New Garden to meet with the Society of Friends there. By this time Stephen had been sold downriver, but a party was gathered to track him down to Georgia, where legal proceedings were instigated to prove that Stephen was legally free. The Friends prevailed, and according to Coffin, "in six months Stephen was liberated and returned home."

It might come as a surprise to some to learn that Stephen had originally been indentured to a Friend, but in fact Friends had held indentured servants, and even slaves, since the earliest of colonial times. Even William Penn himself had been a slaveholder. But as the decades passed, the Friends came under the growing belief that slavery was incompatible with their core religious beliefs and took steps first to alleviate its hardships on the enslaved, and finally to eradicate it from their own ranks altogether. But as the slaveholding Friends in the southern states tried to divest themselves from slavery, they came up against southern laws that made it increasingly impossible, or inhumane, to do so. (I'll have more about this in a later post.)

By the early 1820s it was clear to Levi, now a young man, that "Slavery and Quakerism could not prosper together, and many of the Friends from New Garden and other settlements moved to the West." By this time Levi himself was an active Underground Railroad conductor in New Garden. But the New Garden Friends themselves were relocating to the free state of Indiana, and in 1826, Levi, with his wife Catharine and their infant son, joined them, settling in the town of Newport on the Indiana/Ohio border.

It was in Newport that Coffin's exceptional organizational and managerial skills would manifest themselves, both as a businessman and as an Underground Railroad conductor. Despite his openly anti-slavery convictions in a decidedly racist state, Coffin started several successful businesses and became quite powerful and influential. He used this power and influence to its fullest advantage to continue the Underground Railroad work he had begun in North Carolina, as he later explained:

In the winter of 1826-27, fugitives began to come to our house, and as it became more widely known on different routes that the slaves fleeing from bondage would find a welcome and shelter at our house, and be forwarded safely on their journey, the number increased. Friends in the neighborhood, who had formerly stood aloof from the work, fearful of the penalty of the law, were encouraged to engage in it when they saw the fearless manner in which I acted, and the success that attended my efforts. They would contribute to clothe the fugitives, and would aid in forwarding them on their way, but were timid about sheltering them under their roof; so that part of the work devolved on us. Some seemed really glad to see the work go on, if somebody else would do it. Others doubted the propriety of it, and tried to discourage me, and dissuade me from running such risks. They manifested great concern for my safety and pecuniary interests, telling me that such a course of action would injure my business and perhaps ruin me; that I ought to consider the welfare of my family; and warning me that my life was in danger, as there were many threats made against me by the slave-hunters and those who sympathized with them.
After listening quietly to these counselors, I told them that I felt no condemnation for anything that I had ever done for the fugitive slaves. If by doing my duty and endeavoring to fulfill the injunctions of the Bible, I injured my business, then let my business go. As to my safety, my life was in the hands of my Divine Master, and I felt that I had his approval. I had no fear of the danger that seemed to threaten my life or my business. If I was faithful to duty, and honest and industrious, I felt that I would be preserved, and that I could make enough to support my family.

Slavecatchers too became aware of the Coffins' reputation, and initiated legal action and threats of physical harm against them. But Coffin's skill and social standing rendered him virtually immune to the threats and actions. One frustrated Kentucky slavecatcher even dubbed him the "President of the Underground Railroad", a title which Coffin proudly bore for the rest of his life (although it has undoubtedly led to a lot of confusion about how the Underground Railroad really operated and Coffin's relationship to it). But Coffin's anti-slavery convictions became too much for even the Indiana Society of Friends, and ultimately Coffin joined Charles Osborn when he split off his Society of Anti-Slavery Friends. (I'll have more about this in a later post.)

In 1847 the Coffins left Newport in order that Levi might try his exceptional skills at another business. A convention of regional abolitionists had resolved to open a wholesale store in Cincinnati that would sell only free-labor products, and nominated Coffin to run it. Coffin originally demurred, but after receiving much pressure from all over the northern states, finally consented. So he and his family picked up from Newport and moved to Cincinnati. I'll descibe this endeavor in detail in a later post, but sum it up for now in Coffin's words: "By close financiering and strict economy I kept up the business at Cincinnati for ten years, then sold out, and retired from mercantile life with very limited means."

Of course the Coffins continued to be very active in the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati, which was one of the busiest Underground Railroad cities in the country. They became an integral part of Cincinnati's UGRR network, and helped coordinate the efforts between white abolitionists and black abolitionists (who did not always see eye to eye in that racially divided city). Here they were involved in some very high profile cases, including the horrific tragedy of the Margaret Garner escape. He also helped found an African American orphanage in Cincinnati.

When Civil War broke out, Coffin helped found the Western Freedmen's Aid Society and went south to help slaves who had been freed and displaced by the war. (I'll have more about these activities in a later post.) He also joined a delegation that met in Washington, D.C. to work with Lincoln Administration officials and petition Congress to form the Freedmen's Bureau. In 1864 he traveled to Britain and helped form the Englishman's Freedmen's Aid Society, which donated large sums of money and clothing towards the support of freed slaves, and in 1867 he again traveled to Europe as a delegate to the International Anti-Slavery Conference in Paris. His final contribution to the cause of universal freedom came in 1876, when he published his memoirs, which I've been quoting from and you can see here:

Reminiscences of Levi Coffin

He died the following year, in Cincinnati.

I'll have more about this remarkable man and the Society of Friends in future posts to this thread.
 
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