Charles H. Howard to Frederick Douglass, January 9, 1872

CHARLES H. HOWARD^{1The younger brother of the Civil War general Oliver Otis Howard, Charles Henry Howard (1838–1908) graduated from Bowdoin College in 1859. He rose to the rank of brigadier general in the Union army where he was wounded twice in combat and placed in charge of training black troops. After the war, Howard served as both a Freedmen’s Bureau inspector of schools and as the western district secretary of the American Missionary Association. He thereafter edited a series of religious and political newspapers later returning to government service as an inspector of Indian agencies during the Garfield and Arthur administrations. Joe Martin Richardson, Christian Reconstruction: The American Missionary Association and Southern Blacks, 1861–1890 (Athens, Ga., 1986), 80–81, 174–75; Merrill and Ruchames, Garrison Letters, 6: 321.} TO FREDERICK DOUGLASS

Chicago[, Ill.]^{2Howard added additional information regarding his address: “American Missionary Association / 204 West Madison St.”} 9 Jan[uary] 1872.

HON. FREDERIC DOUGLASS

DEAR SIR:

Since listening to your instructive and truly inspiring lecture on Santo Domingo^{3Howard probably attended Douglass’s lecture “Santo Domingo,” delivered at the Union Park Congregational Church on 29 December 1871. The following January, Douglass delivered the lecture throughout the Midwest. Douglass Papers, ser. 1, 4: xxx; Chicago Tribune, 30 December 1871; Champaign (Ill.) Champaign County Gazette, 3, 10, 17 January 1872.} I am the more convinced that your sentiments regarding the great mission of this country to that long oppressed people ought not to be confined to the considerably few who can hear your voice. As soon as the Island is under our flag it will fall to the lot of our Association^{4Formed in 1846 in Albany, New York, the American Missionary Association was an organization of Christian abolitionists who chose not to associate with established missionary agencies of the major denominations. Early leaders of the group included Lewis Tappan (treasurer) and Simeon S. Jocelyn and George Whipple (secretaries). The organization promoted educational and missionary activities for blacks in the United States and abroad. By 1855, the American Missionary Association had more than one hundred missions in North America as well as posts in Egypt, Thailand, Haiti, Jamaica, and West Africa. In addition to establishing missions, the association served as an important medium through which Christian abolitionists lobbied American churches to take up antislavery activities. During and after the Civil War, the association became a leading missionary and educational agency, serving southern freedpeople. As Reconstruction progressed, the association became aligned with the missionary interests of the Congregational Church, leading African American clergymen to accuse the group of stifling their independence. Although similar charges were lodged against the association’s schools and college, the organization nonetheless made a major contribution to the advancement of African American education in the late nineteenth century. Richardson, Christian Reconstruction, 154–59, 259–61; McKivigan, War against Proslavery Religion, 114–15; Clifton H. Johnson, “The American Missionary Association, 1846–1861” (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1958).} (which represents some 8500 membership scattered throughout the land and embracing in one union the energy & character of the old abolitionists headed by such men as the Tappans^{5The Tappan brothers were two of the most prominent opponents of William Lloyd Garrison inside the abolitionist movement. Lewis Tappan (1788–1873), an affluent New York merchant and abolitionist, devoted much of his considerable wealth and energy to religious and reform causes such as abolitionism. He was an early supporter of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions and the American Bible Society, a founder of the New York Evangelist, and a patron of Oberlin College. He helped organize the New York Anti-Slavery Society and the American Anti-Slavery Society in 1833. In 1840, Lewis broke with Garrison over the issue of political action and the advisability of linking abolitionism with other reforms. A founder and leading figure in the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, he maintained close ties with British abolitionists opposed to Garrison. Lewis played a leading part in securing the freedom of the African captives on the slave ship Amistad in 1841. In 1846, abandoning efforts to convert older benevolent societies to abolitionism, he founded the American Missionary Association. Focused mainly on the religious sphere, he gave only a lukewarm endorsement to political abolitionism. Arthur Tappan (1786–1865) began work as a dry-goods clerk in Boston, but by the age of fifty, he had become a prosperous silk-jobbing merchant in New York City. Believing that his wealth obligated him to be “a steward of the Lord,” Arthur gave generously of his time and money to such reform organizations as the American Bible Society, the American Tract Society, the American Home Missionary Society, and efforts to root out moral vice of every sort, including intemperance. Oberlin College was founded largely through his financial contributions. He also made timely contributions at an early period to Garrison’s Liberator. After renouncing his membership in the American Colonization Society, Arthur devoted most of his philanthropic energies to the antislavery movement. In 1833 he helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society. Seven years later, he seceded from it because of tactical disagreements with the Garrisonians, and he helped organize the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. Arthur served as the first president of both these major antislavery organizations and was an early supporter of the Liberty party. When missionary societies with which he had been affiliated failed to adhere to his antislavery principles, he cut his connections with them; in 1846, he helped establish the American Missionary Association. Arthur tried to promote schools and colleges for free blacks in the North, but local racist feeling frustrated his efforts. Lewis Tappan, The Life of Arthur Tappan (New York, 1870); Bertram Wyatt-Brown, Lewis Tappan and the Evangelical War against Slavery (Cleveland, 1969); ACAB, 6: 33; NCAB, 2: 320–21; DAB, 18: 298–300, 303–04.} of New York) to start upon the work of Education there, with all the [illegible] of Primary, normal & collegiate schools as have [illegible] in the South. Now I beg you let some one write off for me some of the introduction and a part of the closing portion of your lecture if you have not the time and strength and inclination to prepare especially an article bearing on this subject.^{6While Douglass lectured frequently in 1871–73 on Santo Domingo, he never published an article on that topic for any American Missionary Association periodical.} I shall gladly pay you for your valuable Contribution at your accustomed rates. And I shall be grateful both for my own part & for the cause which we trust is that of the Master and which I doubt not you will be satisfied to aid of if you consistently can.

Please inform me by Eastern mail or as soon as convenient what you can do. I would like the article before the end of February—but if I can know it is coming would wait longer.

Very Respectfully

C. H. HOWARD

ALS: General Correspondence File, reel 2, frames 619–20, FD Papers, DLC.

This page is blank