Ohio History Journal

  • 1
  •  
  • 2
  •  
  • 3
  •  
  • 4
  •  
  • 5
  •  
  • 6
  •  
  • 7
  •  
  • 8
  •  
  • 9
  •  
  • 10
  •  
  • 11
  •  
  • 12
  •  

The National Negro Convention, 1848

The National Negro Convention, 1848

 

By HOWARD H. BELL*

 

 

ON SEPTEMBER 6, 1848, a small but determined group of men

gathered at Cleveland, Ohio, to discuss the peculiar problems facing

them and to lay plans for improving their position in the land of

their birth. They were mainly men of the Old Northwest, but there

were also representatives from Canada, where the escaped slave

was finding a haven of refuge in ever increasing numbers.1 They

were carpenters, editors, barbers, tailors, self-made men of the

rank and file, men who had endured the self-disciplining hard-

ships of the frontier era and who had been significantly influenced

by the general American optimism of the 1840's.

Though drawn largely from the area mentioned, these men had

come together to represent the free Negro of the entire North,

and they had assembled with more than the usual degree of con-

fidence that the days of their second-class citizenship were drawing

to a close. The belief that slavery and second-class citizenship

could be challenged successfully had in the previous decade been

demonstrated by the action of England and France in the emancipa-

tion of their remaining slaves. This historical corroboration of their

belief was supplemented favorably by changes in the contemporary

scene. Steamers on the Great Lakes were beginning to allow cabin

accommodations to Negroes. Certain hotels in Cleveland accorded

the convention delegates every consideration and respect.2 Sympathy

for the enslaved was making slow but steady progress in the North.

Third-party movements had for almost a decade championed

abolition of slavery or at least restriction of slavery to its current

limits. Even in the face of probable acquisition of Mexican territory

 

* Howard H. Bell is associate professor of history at Texas Southern University.

1 Pennsylvania Freeman (Philadelphia) September 21, 1848.

2 North Star (Rochester, N. Y.), September 15, 1848.