Lewis
Tappan was
born in Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1788. Tappan became a clerk
in Boston but in 1828 he joined his brother, Arthur Tappan, in the
silk trade in New York. Later, the two brothers established America's
first commercial credit-rating service, the Mercantile Agency.
Tappan held strict moral views and contributed a large amount of his
wealth to campaign against alcohol and tobacco. He also helped fund
several anti-slavery journals and in
1831 with his brother, Arthur Tappan,
helped establish America's first Anti-Slavery
Society in New York.
In 1839 Lewis played a leading role in organizing the defence of Joseph
Cinque and the African slaves who captured the Amistad.
Lewis argued that while slavery was legal in Cuba, importation of
slaves from Africa was not. The judge agreed, and ruled that the Africans
had been kidnapped and had the right to use violence to escape from
captivity.
The United States government appealed against this decision and the
case appeared before the Supreme Court.
The former president, John Quincy Adams,
was so moved by the plight of Joseph Cinque
and his fellow Africans, that he volunteered to represent them. Although
now seventy-three, his passionate eight-hour speech won the argument
and the mutineers were released.
Lewis objected to the prominent role played by women in the Anti-Slavery
Society. Some leaders, such as William
Lloyd Garrison, Theodore Weld, Wendell
Phillips and Frederick Douglass
were as committed to women's rights as they were to the abolition
of slavery. Others, such as Lewis, Arthur
Tappan, Gerrit Smith and James
Birney, disagreed with this view.
Great controversy was created when three women,
Lydia Maria Child, Lucretia
Mott and Maria Weston Chapman were
elected to the executive committee of the Anti-Slavery Society. Lewis
argued that: "To put a woman on the committee with men is contrary
to the usages of civilized society."
After the passage of the Fugitive Slave
Law in 1850, Lewis, like his brother, Arthur
Tappan, became more radical. He declared he was now willing to
disobey the law and helped fund the Underground
Railroad. Lewis
Tappan
died in Brooklyn Heights in 1873.
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