Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research use.

Preferred Citation

MSS 7206, Wendell Phillips letter concerning a speaking engagement in New Bedford, Massachussetts, Albert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library, University of Virginia Library.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

This collection was purchased from L & T Respess Books by the Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia Library on 21 September 2021.

Biographical / Historical

Wendell Phillips (November 29, 1811 – February 2, 1884) was an American abolitionist, advocate for Native Americans, orator, and attorney. According to George Lewis Ruffin, a Black attorney, Phillips was seen by many Black people as "the one white American wholly color-blind and free from race prejudice." According to another Black attorney, Archibald Grimké, as an abolitionist leader he is ahead of William Lloyd Garrison and Charles Sumner. From 1850 to 1865 he was the "preëminent figure" in American abolitionism.

Phillips gave a lecture on Toussaint Breda Louverture, known as the "hero of Hayti" or the "Father of Haiti". Louverture (20 May 1743 – 7 April 1803)was born an enslaved person on the French colony of Saint-Domingue, now known as Haiti. He became a free man and a Jacobin, and began his military career as a leader of the 1791 slave rebellion in Saint-Domingue. He was a Haitian general and the most prominent leader of the Haitian Revolution.He displayed military and political acumen that helped transform the fledgling slave rebellion into a revolutionary movement.

Content Description

This addition to MSS 7206 Wendell Phillips papers is a single undated letter from Wendell Phillips (1811-1884), an attorney and abolitionist, concerning a speaking engagement on "Tousssaint L'Ouverture, the hero of Hayti" in New Bedford, Massachusetts.

Subjects and Indexing Terms

• Abolitionists
• Toussaint Louverture, 1743-1803