THERE IS DEATH IN THE POT - The University of Texas at Arlington

donations and subscriptions in 1829. 63 In 1830, the Birmingham women, frustrated with
the gradualist policies of the national society, passed a resolution to withhold their annual
contribution to the Anti-Slavery Society unless “they are willing to give up the word
gradual in their title.” 64 Labeling the Anti-Slavery Society a “Gentleman’s Anti-Slavery
Society,” the women distinguished between the policies of male and female associations,
clearly identifying men with the failed gradualist policies that had dominated anti-slavery
discourse up to that time. Seven weeks after the Birmingham women passed their
resolution, the Anti-Slavery Society resolved to drop “mitigation and gradual abolition”
from the Society’s title. While pressure from male provincial delegates influenced the
Society’s change of title, the financial pressure from women surely had an impact as
well. 65
Immediatism and Commerce
British Quaker James Cropper’s campaign to equalize sugar duties contrasted
with Heyrick’s radicalism, emphasizing the different directions male and female anti-
slavery associations took in the 1820s. 66 Heyrick rejected revision of tariffs because such
63 Account of the Receipts and Disbursements of the Anti-Slavery Society, for the Years 1829 and
1830; with a List of Subscribers (London: S. Bagster, Jr., 1830).
64
Minutes, April 8, 1830, Birmingham Ladies’ Society for the Relief of Negro Slaves, Minute
Book, Reel 2, BLS.
65 Midgley, Women against Slavery, 115.
66 See Midgley, Feminism and Empire, 61. According to Midgley, equalization was emphasized
by men’s associations; abstention from West India sugar and consumption of East India sugar, however,
were the focus of ladies’ associations. See also Hochschild, Bury the Chains, 327. Hochschild describes
ladies’ associations as “almost always bolder than those of men” because of their emphasis on direct action
through abstention. David Brion Davis suggests that Cropper was embarrassed by “such unwanted allies”
as Heyrick. Yet, Cropper expressed admiration of the moral scruples of Heyrick and other radicals. “It is
75