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

interests at the international meeting including James and Lucretia Mott, Sarah Pugh,
William Bassett, and Abraham Pennock. Delegates also passed a resolution calling upon
recalcitrant abolitionists “to reflect upon the glaring inconsistency of protesting against
slavery as an immorality, and yet paying for its support.” 88 More than anything,
members of the AFPA hoped to end abolitionists’ “lamentable apathy” toward free-
produce.
British India Society
The British India Society and its short-lived publication the British Indian
Advocate promised a possible solution to the “lamentable apathy” of many abolitionists
toward free produce. The first issue of the Advocate reinforced the cosmopolitan focus of
the BIS. The Advocate’s slogan — “Justice to India – Prosperity to England – Freedom
to the Slave” — echoed, in some ways, the motto of the Liberator. 89 Edited by William
Adam, the Advocate was established eighteen months after the organization of the British
India Society by Joseph Pease, William Howitt, and George Thompson to promote
reform in India. American and British supporters of the BIS imagined that reform in
India would open new sources for the production of free-labor goods, which in turn
would aid the emancipation of slaves in the United States and elsewhere. Writing in
1839, Maria Weston Chapman claimed the BIS was in fact doing the work of American
abolitionists “by bringing the free labor of British India in direct competition with slave
88 Minutes, October 15, 1839, American Free Produce Association, AFPA, HSP.
89 The motto, “Our Country is the World — Our Countrymen are All Mankind,” appeared on
every issue of the Liberator just under the masthead.
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