The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4American Anti-Slavery Society
History
The Anti-Slavery Examiner, Part 2 of 4
American Anti-Slavery Society
Antislavery movements -- United States -- Periodicals; Slavery -- United States -- Periodicals
The main object of this society is denoted by its name. It supplies a
daily meal to those who are otherwise unprovided for. A commodious house
had just been completed in the suburbs of the town, capable of lodging a
considerable number of beneficiaries. It is designed to shelter those
who are diseased, and cannot walk to and fro for their meals. The number
now fed at this house is from eighty to a hundred. The diseased, who
live at the dispensary, are mostly those who are afflicted with the
elephantiasis, by which they are rendered entirely helpless. Medical aid
is supplied free of expense. It is worthy of remark, that there is no
_public poor-house_ in Antigua,--a proof of the industry and prosperity
of the emancipated people.
DISTRESSED FEMALES' FRIEND SOCIETY.
This is a society in St. John's: there is also a similar one, called the
Female Refuge Society, at English Harbor. Both these societies were
established and are conducted by colored ladies. They are designed to
promote two objects: the support of destitute aged females of color, and
the rescue of poor young colored females from vice. The necessity for
special efforts for the first object, arose out of the fact, that the
colored people were allowed no parochial aid whatever, though they were
required to pay their parochial taxes; hence, the support of their own
poor devolved upon themselves. The demand for vigorous action in behalf
of the young, grew out of the prevailing licentiousness of slave-holding
times. The society in St. John's has been in existence since 1815. It
has a large and commodious asylum, and an annual income, by
subscriptions, of £350, currency. This society, and the Female Refuge
Society established at English Harbor, have been instrumental in
effecting a great reform in the morals of females, and particularly in
exciting reprobation against that horrid traffic--the sale of girls by
their mothers for purposes of lust. We were told of a number of cases in
which the society in St. John's had rescued young females from impending
ruin. Many members of the society itself, look to it as the guardian of
their orphanage. Among other cases related to us, was that of a lovely
girl of fifteen, who was bartered away to a planter by her mother, a
dissolute woman. The planter was to give her a quantity of cloth to the
value of £80 currency, and two young slaves; he was also to give the
grandmother, for her interest in the girl, _one gallon of rum_! The
night was appointed, and a gig in waiting to take away the victim, when
a female friend was made acquainted with the plot, just in time to save
the girl by removing her to her own house. The mother was infuriated,
and endeavored to get her back, but the girl had occasionally attended a
Sabbath school, where she imbibed principles which forbade her to yield
even to her mother for such an unhallowed purpose. She was taken before
a magistrate, and indentured herself to a milliner for two years. The
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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