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

American Free Produce in the 1840s
In October 1840, the American Free Produce Association held its annual meeting
at Clarkson Hall in Philadelphia. As it had with other anti-slavery and free-produce
meetings that fall, the events of the World Anti-Slavery Convention dominated the
meeting’s discussions. Henry Grew provided the only dissenting vote when AFPA
delegates passed a resolution stating the association was “deeply aggrieved” by events in
London. Lucretia Mott and Sarah Pugh presented their report to the membership, noting
that while many delegates to the World Anti-Slavery Convention expressed support of
the theory of free produce, delegates did little to aid American abstainers in obtaining
supplies of free-labor goods. James Mott and Henry Grew also presented a report to the
association. Mott and Grew noted with regret “that the consistent practice we advocate,
of abstaining from the use of the fruits of cruel and unrequited toil, has obtained to a very
limited extent among the professed friends of the injured slave.” Delegates to the
convention though professing to support abstention claimed that “impracticability” and
“inexpediency” made it impossible for them to remain consistent. Mott and Grew
claimed the slaveholder used the same excuses “to fortify his trembling conscience.” The
establishment of the British India Society, however, gave Mott and Grew reason to
believe that free produce was gaining in appreciation by the larger abolitionist
community. 23
23 Minutes, October 20, 1840, AFPA, HSP; Sarah Pugh to Elizabeth Pease, November 16, 1840,
MS.A.1.S.10.44, BPL. Garrison reprinted the AFPA’s “merited condemnation of the London Anti-Slavery
Convention, for having rejected the female delegates who were duly appointed by the Association to
represent it in that body — and who were pre-eminently qualified to discharge the duties of their high
mission.” Liberator, December 11, 1840.
199