Alyssa Gustin
Dr. Teresa Coronado
English 226
9 December 2014
From Slave-owner to
Abolitionist: The Life of William Brisbane
Early American literature was
created during a time when this nation was beginning to find its own identity.
It is meant to educate those who read it about the lives of the people during
those times, and to make a difference. One piece that does this is a speech by
William Brisbane entitled, “Speech of Reverend William H. Brisbane lately a
slaveholder in South Carolina; containing an account of the change in his views
on the subject of slavery”. In this speech, Brisbane gives an account of what
caused him to go from being a slave owner to becoming an abolitionist. This
speech gives us a look into the past and explains how a person with such strong
beliefs can have their opinion changed so dramatically. The reasons behind his
change in life style are the most interesting and relevant parts of his entire
speech. Literature, religion, and his identity as an American all contributed
to his lifestyle change, and they are also relevant to many Americans today,
which makes this speech valuable to the American literature canon.
William Brisbane was a Baptist
pastor, born in South Carolina in 1806. He came from a family of slave owners
and inherited those slaves as he grew older. Being a slave owner, Brisbane was
first dedicated to the defense of slavery and even published several writings
about it. Later on, however, Brisbane became a devoted abolitionist who ended
up buying back all the slaves he had sold and freeing them. Religious historian
Wallace Acorn says the Brisbane:
…was not a first-rank abolitionist, mind you, but he knew
them all. And he stood head and shoulders above those better known because he
not only opposed slavery and fought against it, but he had actually freed his
slaves. He spoke with a conviction few could share. (“Dissenting Baptists” 4)
Brisbane
even became associated with other famous abolitionists such as like Harriet
Beecher Stowe and William Lloyd Garrison (wallaceacorn.org). Eventually,
Brisbane’s anti-slavery views caused him to be driven out of the south, so he
settled down in Wisconsin, where he founded the town of Arena, and he died
there in 1878.
Brisbane’s speech was first given in
Cincinnati in 1840, and was later issued as a pamphlet. It gives an account of
what caused him to become an abolitionist. In the end of the speech he makes a
plea for his audience to join the abolitionist cause. Throughout the entire
speech, Brisbane uses rhetoric that is similar to the rhetoric used in slave
narratives, such as promoting humanitarianism and making overt appeals to the
audience. Brisbane does this right in the first line of his speech, when he
said:
BY the grace of God, having been fully convinced that
slavery, perpetual, involuntary servitude, is a condition of wrong to man, and
on the part of the master, of sin against God, I feel it a duty to myself as
well as to society, to make known in a public manner, that I most heartily
repent of all part that I have heretofore voluntarily taken in supporting this
unholy system of wrong and oppression. (Brisbane)
He
first renounces slavery as something that is wrong and admits to his past as
slave-owner. This sets up his entire speech and even when he is giving a
narrative of his own life, he still maintains an emotional edge in the speech
that reminds the reader or listener that this is not simply a biography of
Brisbane’s life, but is also meant to be persuasive. Brisbane himself was
persuaded to become an abolitionist, and he cites different pieces of
literature, religion, and his identity as an American as the three reasons
behind his lifestyle change.
Literature was what first affected
Brisbane’s views on slavery. In the speech, Brisbane first began to think about
abolition after reading an anti-slavery pamphlet. This pamphlet did not change
his point of view immediately, but he does give credit to it for making him
think about why people would be pro-slavery. The literature that really caused
him to begin doubting his views was Dr. Wayland’s chapter on Personal
Liberty from his work “Elements of Moral Science”. Brisbane said that it, “produced
a powerful effect on [his] feelings, and [he] began to doubt the correctness of
the views [he] had been entertaining” (Brisbane). He attempted to reply to the
chapter in order to defend slavery, but found that his argument was lacking as
it went against his principles as a republican. Feeling unsettled by this,
Brisbane began to seriously question his opinions on slavery and came to the
conclusion that, “…if freedom be a good, slavery is an evil” (Brisbane).
Literature is what started Brisbane down the path to abolitionism, which
changed to nature of his life and all that he knew. Since it had such a strong
effect upon Brisbane, Brisbane’s speech also holds the power to do so as well.
Brisbane’
religion also helped to change his ways. Before becoming an abolitionist,
Brisbane had tried to say that the Bible justified slavery, and that slavery
was necessary. However, just as he looked through Dr. Wayland’s chapter and
found ways that slavery was wrong, he did so as well while reading the Bible.
While reading the Old Testament, he discovered that, “slavery was regarded as a
curse to be made use of as a punishment for crime… that it secured the servant
against cruel treatment, by demanding his freedom for the loss of even a tooth”
(Brisbane). While he may have not been a cruel slave-owner, there were
certainly those who were cruel, and the Bible states that those who are cruel
to their slaves must be punished for doing so. Brisbane also states, “Does not
the Bible say, What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder? And do
not the laws of slavery empower the wicked man to separate husbands and wives,
and tear the infant from its mother's breast?” (Brisbane). American slavery
separated those relationships most sacred to human lives, and the Bible was
strictly against men breaking apart those relationships. The cons of slavery in
the Bible far outweighed the pros of slavery, and so Brisbane discovered that
he could no longer use the Bible as a basis for his pro-slavery beliefs. As a
way to begin spreading his newly found beliefs, when Brisbane bought back the
slaves he had sold, he wrote a letter to the buyer of the slaves. In the
letter, he states, “I was wrong to sell those I had. — I had no right from God
to them, and thus convinced, I shall never be easy in mind until I can get them
out of bondage fairly and honestly” (Brisbane). While this probably did not
convince the buyer to get rid of all his slaves, Brisbane successfully got
those slaves back and freed them as a way to rid himself of the sinfulness of
slavery. Brisbane’s religious beliefs are what caused him to take action, and
the same can be said about many people in modern times.
Perhaps the
most relevant reason for Brisbane’s lifestyle change, in regards to the American
literature canon, was his identity as an American. As liberty and independence
are so commonly seen within the contexts of American writing, Brisbane’s values
as an American stemmed off of those concepts. Brisbanes states that, “…as a
man, con-scious of my own rights, and jealous of those rights, I feel that that
man is degraded, who is so humbled as not to know he has a right to liberty and
independence” (Brisbane). Slavery did not offer freedom or independence to
those who were oppressed by the institution. Brisbane believed that if someone
was to support slavery, they could not then identify themselves as an American
since America was founded on ideologies that go against slavery. Not only do
his own beliefs about the identity of Americans come into play during the
speech. In the speech, Brisbane even used the Declaration of Independence and
the principles of the founding fathers in order to defend his belief that
slavery was wrong, and he said:
And hence it is, that our noble
fathers made no attempt to prove that all men are created equal, that they have
a natural right to liberty; they did not dream that their sons would be such
simpletons as to require proof of this; and hence, instead of attempting to
demonstrate it, they called it a self-evident truth.” (Brisbane)
. Brisbane thought that the phrase “all men are created
equal” should be inclusive to all men, regardless of race, and that the
Declaration of Independence also supported this idea. Since the founding
fathers claimed that all men are created equal, that belief should be upheld
and applied to all men. Therefore, those who would go against slavery are truly
American, as they support liberty and independence for all.
Throughout
the entirety of our American literature class, we have examined pieces of
literature that define what it means to be an American, as well as have taught
us about life in early American history. William Brisbane’s speech, without
question, does all of this and then some. Just as literature had a profound
effect upon Brisbane, as it is what set his abolitionism into motion,
literature in modern times can also effect the live of readers. The pieces read
in this class have given insight into the lives of those narrators or
characters in them, and this speech certainly gives us an understanding of the
life of Brisbane. The literature read also always had a presence in everything
read in early American literature since the country was settled because of the
beliefs of religious freedom. Religion was what truly set Brisbane into action
when it came to defending abolition. The most obvious reason for Brisbane’s
speech being included in the American literature canon is, of course, the fact
that Brisbane himself was an American and identified himself as such. Having
that American identity so strongly present in his speech that supported
abolitionism makes Brisbane something of an American icon, as he stood for the
very principles that this country was founded on. Since he can be seen as an
American icon because of all these factors, his speech should be included in
the American literature canon.
Works Cited
Alcorn, Wallace. "Dissenting Baptists: The Glory of a
Hated People." Baptisthistory.org. First Place Sermon. (2003).
---. "William Henry Brisbane 1806-1878." wallacealcorn.org.
Web. 25 Nov. 2014.
Brisbane, William. "Speech of Rev. Wm. H. Brisbane
Lately a Slaveholder in South Carolina; Containing
an Account of the Change in His Views on the Subject of Slavery. :: Turning Points in Wisconsin History." Wisconsinhistory.org.
Wisconsin Historical Society. (1840).
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