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

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

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Figure 5. Label, American Free Produce Associ<strong>at</strong>ion. Courtesy Middlesex<br />

County Historical Society, Middletown, Connecticut.<br />

With more than one hundred people in <strong>at</strong>tendance, the first annual meeting <strong>of</strong> the<br />

AFPA in October 1839 seemed a vibrant but struggling community <strong>of</strong> dedic<strong>at</strong>ed<br />

reformers. Deleg<strong>at</strong>es celebr<strong>at</strong>ed emancip<strong>at</strong>ion in the West Indies and the form<strong>at</strong>ion <strong>of</strong> the<br />

British India Society (B<strong>IS</strong>). <strong>The</strong>se events, members claimed, were “calcul<strong>at</strong>ed to have an<br />

important bearing on the cause <strong>of</strong> freedom generally and on our enterprise in particular.”<br />

<strong>The</strong> deleg<strong>at</strong>es passed a resolution to open correspondence with the B<strong>IS</strong>. While they<br />

worried about their lack <strong>of</strong> progress, the associ<strong>at</strong>ion’s deleg<strong>at</strong>es looked forward to the<br />

World’s Anti-Slavery Convention scheduled to meet in London in June 1840. <strong>The</strong> AFPA<br />

selected nine deleg<strong>at</strong>es — seven men and two women — to represent the associ<strong>at</strong>ion’s<br />

172

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