Black Activism Before the Civil War By Barbara Ann White
The Black community on Nantucket protested and mobilized against racism in a wide variety of ways before the Civil War. Their campaigns are familiar to protest movements today. Participated in by men and women, many whose names are unknown, their activism has been overlooked.
O
ne goal of the Black community was to educate their children, cognizant that education was the key to a better life for generations to come. Many were all too familiar with the problem of being illiterate. Nantucket was slow to establish public schools; hence, leaders in the Black community sought funding on their own, reaching off island. They asked the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel Among the Indians and Others (SPG) to fund a school, hopeful because it had established a school on Martha’s Vineyard under the supervision of Frederick Baylies, a white man. Essex Boston, Jeffrey Summons, and Peter Boston asked the SPG for funding based on their Wampanoag heritage, writing, “there are among the coloured people of this place remains of Nantucket Indians, and that nearly every family in our village are partly descended from the original inhabitants of this and neighboring places.” Their letter was successful, and in 1823 the SPG sent Baylies to establish a school for the Black community, but which included a few white children, probably held at the Second Congregational Church. But the people of New Guinea wanted a school in the neighborhood under their ownership and supervision. The African Meeting House, at the corner of York and Pleasant Streets and built in 1824, played a central role. It was used as a school, a church, and place to congregate for a variety of purposes. When the land was deeded to the Meeting House, it the stipulated that the trustees would maintain a schoolhouse—“kept in it forever.” When the town established public schools in 1826, the African School was absorbed into the town’s budget. Fear was ever present in the Black community, especially for those who had fled enslavement. Federal laws
14 Historic Nantucket | Summer 2021
View of the African Meeting House, circa 1880. F3970
supported their return, and Black leaders organized to ensure their safety. Free Blacks were also in danger of being kidnapped and transported to the South when they ventured off island. Black sailors faced danger whenever they docked in a Southern port. The community was alert and ready to resist. The most famous incidence of protecting fugitives from being returned to the South occurred in 1822, when bounty hunters came to Nantucket seeking Arthur and Mary Cooper along with their children, all born in the North. When the men showed up at the Cooper’s house on Angola Street, a defiant group was waiting for them to prevent the family’s seizure. They sought help from several prominent white men known to be sympathetic to their cause. Magistrate Alfred Folger delayed the bounty hunters by engaging them in a dialogue about the legality and authority of their documents. This gave the frightened family of six time to be spirited out through the back of the house disguised as Quakers. They were hidden for several weeks at the home of Ol-
