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

dated the publication of the newspaper. 74 For example, in December 1835, the Liberator
carried a report from the newly-formed Providence Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society. The
young women reported reading anti-slavery literature and raising funds for the cause
through the solicitation of donations and the sale of handmade items. The Providence
group soon opened their membership to include young black women eventually calling
themselves a “sugar-plum society,” which most likely referenced their pledge to abstain
from slave-grown sugar. 75 In 1836, young abolitionists in New York organized the
Chatham Street Chapel Juvenile Anti-Slavery Society, which served as an auxiliary
society to the New York City Anti-Slavery Society. The juvenile abolitionists invited
Lewis Tappan to address their first meeting. 76 That same year, young men in
Philadelphia formed the Junior Anti-Slavery Society of Pennsylvania. 77 In 1838, African
American juvenile societies were established in Troy, Carlisle, Pittsburgh, and
Providence. The Pittsburgh society, for example, was established in July 1838 as a “cent
a week” society. By 1839, the group had grown to forty members and had raised money
to support The Colored American. 78
Like adult anti-slavery societies, juvenile associations promoted the free-produce
movement. In January 1837, for example, the Junior Anti-Slavery Society invited Lewis
74 Ibid., 108.
75
Liberator, December 25, 1835; Benjamin Quarles, Black Abolitionists (New York: Oxford
University Press, 1969), 29.
76 The Slave’s Friend, 1837, 66; The Slave’s Friend, vol. II, no. 5, 1837, 3.
77 June 24, 1836, Minutes of the Junior Anti-Slavery Society, Reel 31, Pennsylvania Abolition
Society, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, hereafter cited as JASS, HSP.
78 Quarles, Black Abolitionists, 30; The Colored American, November 23, 1839.
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