Angelina
Grimke,
the daughter of slaveholding judge from Charleston, South Carolina,
was born on 20th February, 1805. Sarah and her sister, Sarah
Grimke, both developed an early dislike of slavery
and after moving to Philadelphia in 1819, joined the Society
of Friends.
In 1835 Angelina had a letter against slavery published by William
Lloyd Garrison, in his newspaper, The
Liberator.
She followed this with the pamphlet, An
Appeal to the Christian Women of the South.
Sarah Grimke followed her example by
publishing An
Epistle to the Clergy of the Southern States.
These pamphlets were publicly burned by officials in South Carolina
and the sisters were warned that they would be arrested if they ever
returned home.
The sisters moved to New York where they became the first women to
lecture for the Anti-Slavery Society.
This brought attacks from religious leaders who disapproved of women
speaking in public. Sarah Grimke wrote
bitterly that men were attempting to "drive women from almost
every sphere of moral action" and called on women "to rise
from that degradation and bondage to which the faculties of our minds
have been prevented from expanding to their full growth and are sometimes
wholly crushed." Refusing to give up their campaign, the sisters
now became pioneers in the struggle for women's
rights.
In 1838 Angelina married the anti-slavery campaigner,
Theodore Weld. They settled in Belleville,
New Jersey, with Angelina's sister, Sarah
Grimke, and opened their own school. Later they established a
progressive school at the Raritan Bay Community in New
York.
During the Civil War Angelina wrote
and lectured in support of Abraham Lincoln.
After the war Angelina and Theodore Weld
moved to Hyde Park, Massachusetts. Angelina Grimke continued to campaign
for civil rights and woman's
suffrage until her death on 26th October, 1879.
(1)
Angelina Grimke, An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South
(1836)
Search the Scriptures daily, whether the things I have told you are
true. Other books and papers might be a great help to you in this
investigation, but they are not necessary, and it is hardly probable
that your Committees of Vigilance will allow you to have any other.
The Bible then is the book I want you to read in the spirit of inquiry,
and the spirit of prayer. Even the enemies of Abolitionists, acknowledge
that their doctrines are drawn from it. In the great mob in Boston,
last autumn, when the books and papers of the Anti-Slavery Society,
were thrown out of the windows of their office, one individual laid
hold of the Bible and was about tossing it out to the ground, when
another reminded him that is was the Bible he had in his hand. "O!
'tis all one," he replied, and out went the sacred volume, along
with the rest. We thank him for the acknowledgment. Yes, "it
is all one," for our books and papers are mostly commentaries
on the Bible, and the Declaration. Read the Bible then, it contains
the words of Jesus, and they are spirit and life. Judge for yourselves
whether he sanctioned such a system of oppression and crime.
(2)
Angelina Grimke, An Appeal to the Christian
Women of the South (1836)
It is through the tongue, the pen, and the press, that truth is principally
propagated. Speak then to your relatives, your friends, your acquaintances
on the subject of slavery; be not afraid if you are conscientiously
convinced it is sinful, to say so openly, but calmly, and to let your
sentiments be known. If you are served by the slaves of others, try
to ameliorate their conditions as much as possible; never aggravate
their faults, and thus add fuel to the fire of anger already kindled,
in a master and mistress's bosom; remember their extreme ignorance,
and consider them as your Heavenly Father does the less culpable on
this account, even when they do wrong things. Discountenance all cruelty
to them, all starvation, all corporal chastisement; these may brutalize
and break their spirits, but will never bend them to willing, cheerful
obedience. If possible, see that they are comfortably and seasonably
fed, whether in the house or the field; it is unreasonable and cruel
to expect slaves to wait for their breakfast until eleven o'clock,
when they rise at five or six. Do all you can, to induce their owners
to clothe them well, and then allow them many little indulgences which
would contribute to their comfort. Above all, try to persuade your
husband, father, brothers, and sons, that slavery is a crime against
God and man, and that it is a great sin to keep human beings in such
abject ignorance; to deny them the privilege of learning to read and
write. The Catholics are universally condemned, for denying the Bible
to the common people, but, slaveholders must not blame them, for they
are doing the very same thing, and for the very same reason, neither
of these systems can bear the light which bursts from the pages of
that Holy Book. And lastly, endeavour to inculcate submission on the
part of the slaves, but whilst doing this be faithful in pleading
the cause of the oppressed.
(3) Angelina
Grimke, An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836)
Some of your own slaves yourselves. If you believe slavery is sinful,
set them at liberty, "undo the heavy burdens and let the oppressed
go free." If they wish to remain with you, pay them wages, if
not let them leave you. Should they remain teach them, and have them
taught the common branches of an English education; they have minds
and those minds ought to be improved. So precious a talent as intellect,
never was given to be wrapt in a napkin and buried in the earth. It
is the duly of all, as far as they can, to improve their own mental
faculties, because we are commanded to love God with all our minds,
as well as with all our hearts, and we commit a great sin, if we forbid
or prevent that cultivation of the mind in others, which would enable
them to perform this duty. Teach your servants then to read and encourage
them to believe it is their duty to learn, if it were only that they
might read the Bible.
(4)
Angelina
Grimke, An Appeal to the Christian Women of the South (1836)
The women of the South can overthrow this horrible system of oppression
and cruelty, licentiousness and wrong. Such appeals to your legislatures
would be irresistible, for there is something in the heart of man
which will bend under moral pressure. There is a swift witness for
truth in his bosom, which will respond to truth when it is uttered
with calmness and dignity. If you could obtain but six signatures
to such a petition in only one state, I would say, end up that petition,
and be not in the least discouraged by the scoffs and jeers of the
heartless, or the resolution of the house to lay it on the table.
It will be a great thing if the subject can be introduced into your
legislatures in any way, even by women, and they will be the most
likely to introduce it there in the best possible manner, as a matter
of morals and religion, not of expediency or politics. You may petition,
too, the different ecclesiastical bodies of the slave states. Slavery
must be attacked with the whole power of truth and the sword of the
spirit. You must take it up on Christian ground; and fight against
it with Christian weapons, whilst your feet are shod with the preparation
of the gospel of peace.
Sisters in Christ, I have done. As
a Southern, I have felt it was my duty to address you. I have endeavoured
to set before you the exceeding sinfulness of slavery, and to point
you to the example of those noble women who have been raised up in
the church to effect great revolutions, and to suffer for the truth's
sake. I have appealed to your sympathies as women, to your sense of
duty as Christian woman. I have attempted to vindicate the Abolitionists,
to prove the entire safety of immediate Emancipation, and to plead
the cause of the poor and oppressed. Farewell. Count me not your "enemy
because I have told you the truth," but believe me in unfeigned
affection.
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