3

The Beginning of Antislavery Commitment, 1834–1837

In 1834, Cowles found a teaching position in Austinburg and returned home. Her father was deathly ill, and she missed her siblings and friends. Living at home meant no worries about paying for room and board or fitting into a new community. It also meant that she had more opportunity for intellectual and personal growth. Like many other young women, particularly in the North, Betsy hungered for knowledge. In response, she and a small group of friends and family created the Austinburg Young Ladies Society for Intellectual Improvement, one of many such literary groups that emerged in the 1830s. Their focus was scholarly development and moral enrichment. As they stated in their constitution, they hoped to expand their “rational faculties,” “elevate the soul,” and advance “every good principle of our nature.” With sixteen members, including Betsy, Cornelia, and sister-in-law Rachel, they met every other week, usually at one another’s homes. Serious and well organized, the group elected officers, wrote a mission statement, and developed strict guidelines. Participants were expected to be punctual and respectful; “slander or detraction . . . of the character of others” was not tolerated.¹ Meetings and topics were chosen in advance. If a participant had to be absent, she was expected to provide a minimum of six discussion points on the proposed topic. Violations of these rules would be documented in the minutes of the meetings. Topics for discussion ranged from etiquette to astronomy to finance. Members explored the topic at hand and engaged in a thoughtful debate. Literary societies like the one in Austinburg offered young women a substitute collegiate experience at a time when only one college, Oberlin, admitted women: participants engaged in research and writing, oratory, discussion, and application of their knowledge.

Betsy benefitted tremendously from her participation in this group. She became practiced at respectful disagreement. She learned how to research topics, develop a cogent argument, and speak in public. She also learned how to organize a group, from writing a constitution to keeping minutes of meetings. These skills would serve her well in her teaching career and her reform activism. A year after its founding, the group invited young men to participate and changed its name to the Young Gentlemen and Ladies Society for Intellectual Improvement. This was useful to Cowles because she became increasingly comfortable in disagreeing with men, despite the fact that young women were trained to be demure and subservient. Years later, longtime friend Timothy Hudson became so frustrated with Cowles’s outspoken opinions during one of their heated correspondences that he declared her “inconsistent” and “uncharitable.” Although we do not know how Cowles provoked him, she clearly expressed her opinions with confidence. The two had developed a close friendship in the 1830s, though they often disagreed about political issues. Betsy became adept at employing humor and sarcasm as well. In another letter Hudson begged her “not to speak so funnily!”2

One of the most important issues the Society for Intellectual Improvement debated was slavery. Most Western Reserve inhabitants in the 1830s found slavery a regrettable institution that had to be tolerated. All northern states had outlawed slavery in the first few decades of the early Republic. New York was the last, with its gradual emancipation law that freed most slaves by 1827. The Northwest Ordinance of 1787 prohibited slavery in the area that would become Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, and Wisconsin, though indentured servitude persisted in some parts of the region through the 1820s. While the North slowly eliminated slavery, the institution became more entrenched in the South, especially with the invention of the cotton gin. As a result, regional disagreements over slavery increased and led to several serious political eruptions that worried citizens. The 1820 Missouri Compromise had offered some respite. It made slavery illegal north of the parallel 36°30', thus guaranteeing that the western territories—including what would become Kansas and Nebraska—would be free. It also maintained the vital balance between free and slave states in the Union by admitting Maine as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. Most Americans hailed this legislation as an acceptable stalemate. Any further agitation on the issue of slavery would seemingly threaten this delicate equilibrium.

In Ohio, many inhabitants had links to the South. Business connections, family relationships, and political ties meant that slavery was a topic to avoid. A well-publicized antislavery convention in Cincinnati, for example, might influence a profitable southern company to abandon the state. A slave-owning uncle might resent his niece’s participation in an antislavery group. All major Protestant denominations, including the Presbyterians, Congregationalists, Methodists, and Baptists, also chose to ignore slavery for fear of alienating white southern Christians. Some passionate evangelicals insisted on denouncing the institution, but by and large the general population of Ohio preferred to remain silent when it came to this controversial topic.

By the 1830s maintaining silence had become virtually impossible. Nat Turner’s rebellion in the late summer of 1831 realized southerners’ worst fears about slave uprisings. A literate, deeply religious enslaved Virginian, Turner had secretly planned his revolt for months. He and his followers murdered over fifty whites during their short insurgency. Local white vigilantes and authorities responded by killing more than twice as many blacks, and the Virginia legislature passed laws making it illegal to teach enslaved or free blacks to read or write. But not everyone believed that violent retribution and re-entrenchment of slavery were the answers. Many became convinced that the practice was simply too dangerous to continue. The existence of 2 million enslaved people in the South meant that a rebellion could occur at any moment. A large group of Virginia women quickly took the extraordinary step of petitioning the state legislature in support of gradual emancipation and colonization. This was a bold move. The only other example of such a female legislative petition in the United States was the 1829 petition authored by educational leader Catharine Beecher to protest the removal of Cherokees from Georgia. The Virginia petitioners—like the women protesting Indian removal—carefully avoided any claims to political rights. They explicitly draped themselves in morality and domesticity. The Turner rebellion was a sign of violence to come, and they simply sought protection for their families. Colonization—that is, the so-called repatriation of African Americans to Africa—seemed to offer a safe method for ending slavery and ridding the nation of ex-slaves.

The American Colonization Society attracted an unlikely group of followers. Founded in 1816 by a Presbyterian minister who believed that whites and blacks could not peacefully cohabitate, it had chapters in both the North and the South. Supporters argued that gradual, compensated emancipation accompanied by forced expulsion of newly freed slaves would benefit the nation by decreasing the potential for interracial strife. It would serve as a release valve. Many colonizationists were driven by racial hatred; they were eager to see the nation rid of all blacks, whom they depicted as naturally indolent and violent. Others believed that colonization would benefit formerly enslaved people, who would be able to reach their full potential once freed from the constraints of forced labor. Moreover, their deportation to Africa would allow them to evangelize that continent. Some free African Americans, including shipping magnate and Quaker Paul Cuffee, supported colonization because they understood that racial discrimination prevented blacks from participating as equal citizens in the United States. Convinced that the institution was the nation’s greatest sin, many white evangelicals and Quakers, who tended to stereotype blacks as intellectually inferior, also hoped that the Colonization Society would allow for a safe, gradual end to slavery and provide free blacks with the opportunity to move to Africa or some other location outside the country.

While some African Americans like Paul Cuffee supported colonization, most rejected the movement. Free and enslaved blacks considered the United States their home and had no interest in moving to a place where they did not speak the language or understand the culture. (After the legal end of the international slave trade in 1808, a majority of slaves had been born in the United States rather than forcibly brought there.) Instead, these African Americans supported immediate emancipation, also known as abolition, accompanied by a guarantee of equal rights. Some of these men and women, including James Forten, a Philadelphia businessman, were courageous enough to publicly articulate their support for abolition. Forten and other black abolitionists influenced some whites to reconsider their support for colonization. One such man was William Lloyd Garrison. A printer and reformer who spent time in Boston and Baltimore, Garrison was primed for reform activism.

Like many other eager young reformers, Garrison had been swept away by the Second Great Awakening in the 1820s. Convinced that true Christians were obligated to transform and perfect the sin-ridden world, these reformers attacked drunkenness, greed, and even slavery. They joined temperance and moral reform groups and lobbied for new laws that reflected their values. For a small minority, slavery was the most serious and intolerable of all the nation’s sins because it turned God’s children into chattel. Garrison was troubled by this terrible institution, and in the early 1830s he abandoned colonization and supported immediate emancipation. Listening to the voices of black abolitionists, Garrison argued that slavery denigrated the entire nation. All souls, regardless of their race, were equal before God, and to treat some human beings like animals was a violation of God’s laws. Garrison helped initiate a movement to convince southern slaveholders to free their slaves voluntarily. Using pamphlets, newspapers, lecturers, and conventions, immediate emancipationists attempted to create a peaceful end to slavery. Garrison advocated this method of “moral suasion” in his own newspaper, the Liberator, first published in January 1831. “I do not wish to think, or write, or speak with moderation,” he declared in his inaugural issue. “I am in earnest—I will not equivocate—I will not excuse—I will not retreat a single inch—and I WILL BE HEARD.” While abolitionists convinced few slave owners to free their slaves, they succeeded in keeping slavery a topic of discussion and debate across the nation.

In response to Garrison and his new antislavery newspaper, reformers in Ohio also started to voice their opposition to colonization. Thanks to the introduction of the steam press in the early nineteenth century, publishing techniques improved tremendously, and Garrison’s publications spread across the North and South. While the South quickly outlawed circulation of what they deemed incendiary texts, some reform-minded northerners found his arguments compelling. A large contingent of these reformers lived in the Western Reserve, and as a result it became a major center of abolitionist activism. Indeed, the first location to witness a public battle between colonizationists and abolitionists was Western Reserve College in Hudson, Ohio. Since Betsy’s father had been one of the founders of the college, she may have followed the debate very carefully. The discussion began in the summer of 1832, two years before the founding of Betsy’s literary society, when three new young faculty members arrived on campus: Beriah Green, Elizur Wright, and Charles Storrs. Newly converted abolitionists, these men began teaching and lecturing about the sinfulness of slavery and the need for immediate emancipation. Wright wrote a series of essays that unapologetically denounced the colonization movement for its racism. Green, the college chaplain, used his pulpit to rebuke colonizationists and praise abolitionists. Students listened. They began speaking out against colonization and in favor of abolition. Trustees at Western Reserve, on the other hand, found the heated discussions about abolition highly problematic. They preferred the more sedate and gradual colonization scheme because it had support in the North and South and sought to compensate slaveholders. It was less threatening. The abolitionist proposal to free all slaves immediately and unconditionally terrified many white Americans, who worried about the economic, political, and social implications of such an upheaval. The trustees censured the disruptive newcomers. By 1833, all three men had moved on. But they left behind their abolitionist ideas.

Among those who watched and listened to the various debates over emancipation, the members of the Society for Intellectual Improvement in Austinburg carefully weighed the pros and cons of each side. Following the lead of the rebels at Western Reserve, they soundly rejected colonization in favor of abolition. They denounced slavery because it crushed the intellect of slaves and obliterated the moral principles of slave owners. Slavery was also “inconsistent in a republican government.” Colonization, they argued, reflected the “prejudice of the whites” and was ineffective. The best method for ending slavery was through the “moral power of the gospel.”3 Despite the fact that women were discouraged from participating in such public debates over controversial topics, the Austinburg women were primed to reach this conclusion because evangelicalism had taught them that they had a role to play in perfecting the world around them.

In the first three decades of the nineteenth century, women’s charitable and benevolent activism increased significantly. Thousands of American women, particularly in the North, believed their sex especially attuned to people in need. As Massachusetts abolitionist Abby Kelley explained, “Women’s moral perception is much clearer.”⁴ These ideas emerged out of a new literature that celebrated women’s moral superiority to men. Mothers and sisters together eagerly consumed magazines like Godey’s Ladies Book that shared fictional stories of women’s self-sacrifice and virtue and encouraged readers to model their own behavior on that of the stories’ characters. Clergymen advised women to take their nurturing instincts outside the domestic arena and use them to help the less fortunate. Women were expected to live up to high standards of kindness and generosity.

In response, many in this new generation of literate young women created well-organized and well-funded benevolent associations focused on helping orphans and widows. Mostly privileged and white, they used their social networks and connections to promote their groups. Isabella Graham’s Society for the Relief of Poor Widows with Small Children, for example, benefitted from extensive public funds, land grants, and rescinded assessments because Graham worked effectively with New York politicians. Graham adopted a subordinate and grateful attitude toward the powerful men who helped her, and as a result she organized effectively and efficiently. Some African American women followed the same path. Although more likely to hold jobs in addition to their reform efforts, black women participated in benevolent and self-improvement organizations through their churches. The African Dorcas Association in New York City, founded in 1828, provided clothing for children attending the African Free Schools. Steeped in the very same notions of women’s moral superiority, this group emphasized women’s important role in reform work.

Some people felt uncomfortable with women’s increased participation in public life and thus disapproved of these women’s groups. Who were these articulate, confident women negotiating with politicians, bankers, and clergymen? What business did they have in statehouses, courtrooms, and financial institutions? Surely the dirty and corrupt world of commerce threatened women’s virtue? Many worried that women’s intrusions endangered manliness as well. What if women crowded men out of their roles in business, politics, and the marketplace?

Leaders of the benevolent societies defended themselves against such criticisms. They pointed out that women, with their munificent concerns, brought purity into public life. Unlike men, they were not driven by the base motives of greed and power. In fact, women sought to solve the problems caused by men’s self-indulgence and dishonesty. They focused their efforts on those most in need, especially widows and children. They distanced themselves from the machinations of partisan politics and argued that benevolent workers had no desire to threaten or challenge men. Empowered by their self-sacrifice and genuine kindness, benevolent women successfully countered most critiques and gained momentum. They set the stage for women’s entrance into the antislavery movement.

Elizabeth Margaret Chandler articulated the most compelling reasons for women’s abolitionist participation. A young Philadelphia Quaker who began writing antislavery poetry during her teens, Chandler moved to the Michigan frontier in 1830. During the late 1820s, she wrote a series of essays for Benjamin Lundy’s antislavery newspaper, the Genius of Universal Emancipation, laying out her rationale for women’s antislavery activism. Relying on familiar assumptions about female moral superiority, Chandler focused on motherhood and sisterhood. Slavery violated motherhood because slaveholders often sold individuals away from their families, tearing children out of their mothers’ arms and forcing them to live as orphans in a cruel, violent world. This denigrated motherhood for all women—white and black, free and enslaved. Chandler also highlighted slavery’s destructive effect on women’s virtue. By allowing and even encouraging sexual violence against female slaves by white southern men, slavery tainted all women. Christianity and the integrity of womanhood required all true women to oppose this inhumane institution.

The well-read and articulate women of Austinburg’s Society for Intellectual Improvement read Chandler’s essays with amazement. How could this be happening in a republican nation? How could American women stand idly by while their sisters were persecuted? By the time the group debated colonization in the spring of 1834, they were well prepared to articulate a rational and compelling opposition. Surely it was neither Christian nor virtuous to continue to force slaves to endure sexual violence and family breakups. Such sin should not be eliminated slowly; it demanded immediate action.

In the fall of 1835, Betsy, Cornelia, Rachel, and most of the women in the Society for Intellectual Improvement decided to act on their outrage by organizing the Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society. Sister Martha and Edwin’s wife, Almira, joined as well. There was precedent for such a group. Thanks to Chandler’s writings and Garrison’s call for antislavery activism in his newspaper, the Liberator, female antislavery societies blossomed throughout the 1830s. These organizations attracted reform-minded women like Betsy and focused on writing and publishing antislavery tracts, sponsoring sewing bees, and raising money through fairs. The Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1833 and guided by the wealthy, white Weston sisters, Anne Warren and Maria Chapman. The Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, also founded in 1833, included an interracial membership with strong leadership from the African American Forten family. Some female antislavery groups debated whether to admit black women, revealing the pervasiveness of racial discrimination even among those who opposed slavery. The Fall River Female Anti-Slavery Society in Massachusetts nearly disbanded over the question of admitting African American women. Some white members argued that while it was acceptable for black women to attend meetings, they should not be admitted as members because this would put them on an equal level with whites.

As more and more female antislavery societies emerged, opposition arose. Even among those who found slavery abhorrent, many preferred the slow approach of colonization. As one local woman abolitionist explained to Betsy, “There are many here who say they are opposed to slavery but do not approve of immediate emancipation—they are in favor of colonizing.”5 Garrison and his allies threatened to tear the scab off the national wound of slavery. Very few people wanted a debate about the morality of the practice. They worried it would cause financial, political, and religious divisions across the nation. And they were especially opposed to women’s involvement in the movement. Unlike charitable work, antislavery activism threatened powerful social and cultural institutions and racial norms. Slavery was a critical component of southern politics and the economy. Opposition to slavery placed women in an unpopular and controversial political debate, and most Americans believed this was an inappropriate position for them.

Aware of this critique of women in antislavery, Cowles and her colleagues carefully built their organization with an eye to their opponents, focusing on patriotism and religion. They pointed out that it was their “obligation and privilege” as American women to spread the “spirit of truth” about slavery. Though unable to vote or hold office and bereft of many basic rights, women could claim the memory of the American Revolution and its call for liberty. They reminded their friends and neighbors that their desire for nationwide freedom could be traced to the very roots of the United States. In addition to patriotism, the Ashtabula women emphasized Christianity as a prime motivator for their antislavery activism. They referenced the holy scriptures and the “blessing of God” in calling women to battle the “unspeakable evils of the system of slavery.”⁶

Loyal Americans and devoted Christians, the Ashtabula women focused on spreading “correct” information about slavery. Hoping to link themselves to the tradition of women’s benevolent organizations, they pointed to their moral and nurturing instincts as motivating their efforts to save the nation’s most downtrodden victims. In their reports and published letters, they followed Elizabeth Chandler’s lead and consistently highlighted the breakup of slave families, weeping slave mothers, and licentious and brutal slave owners. Women abolitionists adopted this basic approach for the next thirty years.

Betsy was the guiding light of the Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society. As Abby Kelley wrote of her a few years later, “She is the greatest woman on the Reserve.” Within a few short years Cowles organized the largest and one of the most influential female antislavery groups in the nation. With nearly five hundred members at its peak in 1837, it was double the size of the better-known Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society. Betsy served as the corresponding secretary while Cornelia sat on the Board of Managers. Although her friend Lovina Bissel became the president of the organization, Betsy initiated its growth and action. As the corresponding secretary, she maintained a continuous letter-writing campaign with women across the region. She used her charm, humor, passion, and knowledge to inspire and coax hundreds of women to join the movement. As experienced Cincinnati abolitionist Lucy Wright exclaimed to Cowles, “Go on dear sister, and may your zeal provoke very many.” Encouraging women in nearby towns to create their own local societies and then become auxiliary to the county group, she succeeded in rapidly expanding the society’s membership rolls.7

Cowles helped increase membership, despite the opposition of many, by creating a comfortable path for becoming involved. Antislavery concerts, for example, allowed women to express their abolitionism within a safe religious framework. Joining voices for a greater cause resonated with women familiar with church music. Beautiful vocalists and talented musicians, the Cowles women spread the abolitionist message through compelling performances. Cornelia, Betsy, and their brother Lewis became a very popular singing trio. They received requests to perform at antislavery meetings across the region and predated the Hutchinson Family Singers, who would become internationally famous in the 1840s and 1850s. In some cases, the antislavery concert was the only avenue for women to safely express their abolitionism. Joanna Chester, an enthusiastic member of the Ashtabula group, explained to Betsy that although many locals in Rome, Ohio, expressed sympathy toward antislavery, they disapproved of women organizing for this purpose. Musical performances, however, met with general appreciation: “We do intend and feel it very important to observe the monthly concert.”8

Joanna Chester and her group of antislavery vocalists in Rome were not the only women to encounter public disapproval. An abolitionist organizer in nearby Andover, Ohio, lamented to Betsy, “Some others would have united with us had their husbands been willing.” She concluded, “Though they are not permitted to unite with us yet we have their hearts with us in the good cause.” Wives were often subject to their husband’s will and thus prevented from taking a public role in antislavery. Despite carefully linking themselves to religion and familiar female activities, the Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society confronted widespread resistance, sometimes from women as well as men. Abolitionist Rachel Babcock of Wayne, Ohio, reported to Betsy that some women in her community were “in doubt whether it is suitable for ladies to go forward in so public a cause.”⁹ As the subject of extensive political debate over the previous decades, antislavery raised the specter of controversial political activism. Slavery was a topic for legislators, merchants, plantation owners, and lawyers—in sum, men.

Many women, however, defined antislavery as a moral movement that superseded politics. It was a matter of following God’s laws, which politicians and economists could not dictate. As the morally superior sex, abolitionist women demanded the right to be heard on issues linked to virtue and piety. “High time is it for ladies . . . to awake and attend to [slavery],” cried Lucy Wright. She advised Cowles and other women abolitionists to ignore “the look of scorn when women associate their efforts in this cause.”¹⁰ Women like Wright recognized that antislavery might force a reconceptualization of women’s civic role, and they embraced this opportunity.

Many male antislavery leaders, especially in the West, generally agreed with Wright. Women had a critical role to play in the movement. “Abolition is opening a new field for female effort,” wrote Ohio abolitionist Augustus Wattles to Betsy in the spring of 1836. “I am anxious to see you rise in the majesty of womanhood and redeem your captive sisters from a heathenish barbarism.”11 Following Elizabeth Chandler’s lead, Wattles hinted at the sexual exploitation of enslaved women in order to justify women’s public activism.

But Wattles went further. When he wrote to Betsy that spring, he hoped to convince her to attend the annual meeting of the mixed-sex Ohio Anti-Slavery Society to be held in Granville. This annual gathering offered abolitionists across the state a chance to discuss the successes and failures of the year and to strategize for the future. It had the feel and tone of a political convention. Worried that Cowles and other women would be reluctant to participate because of this environment, Wattles offered encouragement. Men were not the “lords of creation,” he declared. “A mind whether deported in a male or female body is equally valuable for all moral and intellectual purposes. Indeed there is no station in life but what may be filled as ably and as beneficially by woman as by man. The difference is made principally by education.” If women were self-confidant and well educated they could achieve any goal. He concluded by boldly declaring that Betsy’s group of antislavery women alone had “power enough if properly directed to emancipate the slaves of America.”

Betsy did not attend the annual meeting in Granville that year, most likely due to her teaching responsibilities, but nearly a hundred other Ohio women did, including several from her group. The decision to make the trek to a large meeting for an unpopular cause required courage. These women knew that opponents would obstruct their meeting with verbal and physical abuse. Nearly a dozen anti-abolitionist riots had occurred across Ohio. Only two weeks prior to the Granville meeting, an anti-abolitionist mob attacked an African American community in Cincinnati, burning homes and injuring citizens. Their sex did not protect women from such violence. A year after the Granville meeting, a group of opponents attacked visiting male abolitionist Marius Robinson in Berlin, Ohio, in the home of Mrs. Garretson. In her attempt to defend and protect Robinson, Garretson received a sprained wrist and deeply bruised breast. Robinson himself was dragged from the house, stripped, covered with hot tar and feathers, and dumped in a neighboring town. It took him years to recover from the physical and emotional scars left by this attack.

Undaunted by the threat of violence, the women arrived in Granville on April 27 to join their male colleagues. Meeting in a large barn (nicknamed the Hall of Freedom) since, as was often the case, the local meeting places in town were all closed to them, two hundred abolitionists listened to a variety of passionate speeches and debates. Experienced abolitionist lecturer James Thome offered an eloquent speech titled “Address to the Females of Ohio,” specifically exhorting women to use their influence and skills to ensure emancipation as quickly as possible. Like Wattles, he rejected the idea of a limited “woman’s sphere” that prevented women from acting publicly as responsible citizens.

As expected, violence marred the gathering. Because the few law enforcement officers in the town disapproved of abolitionism and considered its supporters to be disruptive fanatics, they did nothing to protect the visiting activists. An irate crowd of anti-abolitionists pushed, shoved, and verbally assaulted attendees as they left the meeting. Some women were tripped and physically attacked. Former-slaveholder-turned-abolitionist James Birney—editor of an antislavery newspaper in Cincinnati whose offices would be destroyed by a mob two months after the Granville meeting—was showered with “eggs and curses.” Thome was so distressed by these attacks that he wept with despair. Betsy must have been worried about her friends at the meeting when she read about the violence in a letter from a participant.

Although certainly saddened and fearful, women attendees responded with defiance. They decided to stay another day and hold a meeting to create a statewide female antislavery society. Calling themselves the Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society, they became the first statewide female antislavery organization in the nation. Every other western state followed suit. These statewide societies made it possible for rural women to band together and combine their voices. Unlike women in the East, who lived in large urban areas or closely connected villages, women in Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, and Michigan often lived in isolated areas. Statewide groups made small-town western women feel connected to a national movement.

Despite missing the initial meeting, Cowles became a leader in this organization and helped to ensure that it adopted a pragmatic and flexible approach. This would become the hallmark of western female abolitionism. First developed and enacted by Cowles in her Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society, cooperative and practical abolitionism infiltrated western women’s groups throughout the antebellum period. It allowed women to respond to local needs and develop policies and activities suited to community politics. It gave them tools to respond to critics and encouraged collaboration with men and other reform organizations.

The first goal of the Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society was to publish and distribute copies of Thome’s “Address to the Females of Ohio” as presented at the annual meeting in Granville. The women successfully collaborated with their male colleagues in the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society and helped distribute copies of the address across the state. This effort resonated with other female antislavery societies. The dissemination of antislavery writings would become a mainstay of female abolitionist groups for the next three decades. Many women would become adept at producing as well as distributing these writings, with a special focus on attracting women into the movement. Harriet Beecher Stowe would use her experiences among abolitionists in Cincinnati, Ohio, where she lived in the 1830s, as the focus of her spectacularly popular 1852 novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The best-selling novel of the century, this book helped influence many toward antislavery by humanizing slaves and presenting the institution of slavery as a moral issue.

The Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society also devoted many of its efforts toward education for African Americans. Ohio, along with Indiana and Illinois, passed Black Laws that prohibited African Americans from attending public schools (these laws also excluded blacks from testifying against whites in court, participating in the militia, and voting). Although it was not illegal to teach blacks how to read, as it was in the South, the Black Laws obstructed efforts by African Americans to gain an education. Everyone understood that if black children were prevented from learning basic skills such as reading, writing, and arithmetic, they would be excluded from civic activities and well-paying employment. With few opportunities for self-improvement and reduced to menial jobs, blacks had little hope for advancement.

Education became a symbol of white dominance in the United States—it was a reminder to all African Americans, whether free or enslaved, that they could not access basic rights. Advocates for public schools in the early part of the century saw education as a way to impart to the nation’s youth not only knowledge and skills but also the meaning of citizenship. Schools promoted common values that led to a shared understanding of national identity. In other words, public schools taught young people what it meant to be American. White children looked around their classrooms and saw no people of color. The message was clear: blacks were not considered citizens.

The Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society was determined to challenge this white monopoly on education. Betsy’s background as a teacher and an advocate of racial equality meant that she strongly endorsed this goal. The group encouraged local female antislavery groups to raise funds for African American schools. Women abolitionists across the state responded: over the course of a year, they raised more than $300.

One way to appeal to female abolitionists for financial support for schools was to highlight the sacrifices of women teachers. “Those who come to teach are poor,” explained Amzi D. Barber, an education agent for the Ohio group. “All the teachers ask is enough to comfortably (not extravagantly) feed and clothe them[selves]. Ought they not to receive this?” Barber asked why antislavery lecturers were relatively well supported but teachers were ignored. “Let any one who supposes that slavery can be abolished while the colored people remain as they are, come to this city and circulate petitions for the abolition of slavery in DC or for the repeal of obnoxious laws, and he will find his error. The elevation of the colored people is evidently the hinge upon which everything turns. Why should not the teacher be sustained as well as the lecturer?”12

The Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society accented the need for white abolitionists in every community to seek out local African Americans and work as partners in the effort toward equal education. “We recommend to societies through the state that they appoint a committee to visit the colored people in their vicinity, give them suitable advice and instruction, enquire into their condition, and report to the committee of Correspondence.” Despite the patronizing and superior attitude reflected by the exhortation to dispense “advice and instruction,” the connection with locals was the emphasis. In 1838, the group suggested that “female societies of each county” should “pledge themselves to procure and support a teacher the coming year” for a local African American school. They further instructed their auxiliaries to “send in a report respecting the condition of the colored people in their respective neighborhoods,” thus requiring white women to step outside their comfort zone and into the world of their African American sisters and brothers.13

Among the various activities adopted by the Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society the most influential was its petition drive. Cowles had already organized an antislavery petition with her Ashtabula County Female Anti-Slavery Society in 1835, the same year her father died. This petition censured Protestant churches for failing to publically oppose slavery. Too many ministers refused to discuss the institution at all and regularly closed their churches to antislavery meetings. Local female antislavery groups across the Western Reserve felt frustrated by this resistance and embraced Betsy’s petition drive. “I have obtained nearly all the names of the females belonging to this church,” boasted Laura M. Wright of Morgan, Ohio, to Cowles in April 1835. The petition drive allowed them to work within their own churches, circulating the petition to sisters, cousins, friends, and neighbors. As Lucy Wright wrote to Betsy in March 1836, “We think it highly important that our ecclesiastical bodies consider this subject for if ministers of the gospel of Christ [condone slavery], how can we expect anything favorable in the halls of legislation?”¹⁴

Inspired by Cowles’s campaign, the Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society decided to circulate a petition to Congress. This was riskier than Betsy’s church petition because it brought women abolitionists directly into politics. By the 1830s, voting rights had been extended to all adult white men regardless of property ownership, wealth, or education. This widened the gap between the privileged male citizenry and the disenfranchised female population. Gender became a key factor in defining political rights. Although women were not allowed to vote, hold office, or serve on a jury, no law prevented them from signing a petition to their local, state, or national government. Like the Virginia women who petitioned their legislature in favor of colonization a few years earlier, these Ohio women knew they walked a fine line in deciding to enter a political debate. Putting one’s signature on a petition required political knowledge, debating skills, and a willingness to disagree with friends and neighbors. It also required a careful, structured approach: “We address persons under every variety of circumstance, often where no writing implements are at hand,” explained one antislavery petitioner. “It would be well for each one . . . in this business, to provide herself with a small pocket inkstand and a ready made pen to be produced in all emergencies.”15 This emphasis on preparedness meant that virtually any circumstance could become an opportunity for antislavery action: an encounter at a post office, church, or school or even on the street. Petitioning pulled women directly into civil society and partisan politics, resulting in increased confrontation with those who sought to silence them.

Knowing that they would be subject to opposition due to their intrusion into politics, the Ohio women adopted a subservient tone in their “Fathers and Rulers” petition. They “humbly” requested legislators to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia, one of the few regions over which the national government had authority: “We should be less than women, if the nameless wrongs of which the slaves, of our sex, are made the defenseless victims, did not fill us with horror,” they explained. Identifying with enslaved women as victims of sexual abuse, the abolitionists pointed to values reflected in the founding of the nation to advocate their position. “In the name of humanity, justice, equal rights, and impartial law . . . we earnestly implore for this our humble petition, your favorable regard.”¹⁶

Despite the risk of alienating some, the group recognized the potential of a petition campaign, particularly with a statewide approach. As Lucy Wright wrote to Cowles, “We thought that our united voice might perhaps obtain a more favorable hearing than if a few scattering petitions were sent in.” Betsy’s antislavery colleague Maria Sturges published the petition in the Cincinnati-based Philanthropist, accompanied by various reasons for supporting the campaign, including regional pride, women’s rights, and religion. Noting that Ohio needed to establish itself as a forerunner in the antislavery movement, Sturges called on women to show the nation that the West was a bastion of morality and virtue. She also rejected claims that political actions were outside woman’s domain, asserting that “the sphere of female action has been so narrowed down, as to cause us sometimes to inquire, if the shadows of the dark ages are returning to dim our hemisphere.” Ohio women would not be “bantered from the field because we are women.” Sturges concluded by reminding her readers, “God holds us accountable for all the talents which he has committed to our keeping.”17

The Ohio petition drive, which garnered over 3,000 signatures, symbolized the cooperative antislavery approach that Cowles spearheaded. It relied on a network of individuals and organizations working in coordination with one another over a period of time. The petition had to be financed, organized, distributed, and promoted. Betsy’s extensive friendships and collaborations with women and men across the state were key to the success of antislavery petitioning in Ohio. Her reputation for intelligence, Christian devotion, and kindness all helped ensure the effort reached its goals. By 1836, Cowles was well known in reform circles throughout Ohio and even the region. She was a key player in the largest, most active female antislavery society in the nation. She knew how to set and achieve goals, and since people liked her, she easily won their support.

The Ohio petition campaign had national political significance. The famed Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society found itself flat-footed in regard to this new political initiative. “We very gratefully acknowledge the suggestion that we have received from the ladies of Ohio, in reference to the District of Columbia. In imitation of their example, we have determined to send petitions to every town in Mass[achusetts] and trust that the result of these efforts will reward us tenfold.”¹⁸ Women abolitionists across the North imitated Cowles’s petition effort and adopted the “Fathers and Rulers” petition with a passion that blindsided Congress. Hundreds of these petitions with thousands of signatures reached the Capitol. Irritated congressmen quickly passed the Gag Rule, automatically tabling all such antislavery petitions without their being read.

The Gag Rule caused a massive nationwide uproar and paradoxically led to an expansion of the antislavery movement. Many northerners felt that silencing the voices of abolitionists was going too far. After all, one of the basic guarantees of American citizenship was the right of free speech, which the Gag Rule appeared to deny. The idea that politicians would simply dismiss opinions they did not want to hear offended even those who felt that slavery was a controversial topic to be avoided.

Cowles and the Ohio State Female Anti-Slavery Society took pride in their campaign. They had developed a shrewd approach that allowed women to enter the off-limits arena of partisan politics while remaining shrouded in female modesty, virtue, and self-sacrifice. They ignited a popular campaign that affected national politics and kept slavery in the public eye. They also influenced the Anti-Slavery Convention of American Women in 1838, held in Philadelphia. Angelina Grimké reminded attendees, “Men may settle questions . . . at the ballot box but you have no such right. It is only through our petitions that you can reach the Legislature. It is therefore, peculiarly your duty to petition.”19

The abolitionist movement offered Cowles a sense of accomplishment and purpose in the mid-1830s, especially in combination with her successful teaching career. But the intellectual stimulation offered by abolitionism also made Betsy increasingly aware of the limits of her rural education. If she wanted to continue to build her teaching career and her abolitionist commitment, she knew that a college-level education was necessary. In 1837, she found the opportunity she desired at Oberlin College.