Maria Weston Chapman - Anti-slavery Work

Anti-slavery Work

Though Chapman came to the anti-slavery cause through her husband’s family, she quickly and stalwartly took up the cause, enduring pro-slavery mobs, social ridicule and public attacks on her character. Her sisters, notably Caroline and Anne, were also active abolitionists, though Maria is generally considered to be the most outspoken and active among her family. The Chapmans became central figures in the “Boston Clique,” which primarily consisted of wealthy and socially prominent supporters of Garrison. In 1835, Chapman assumed the leadership of the Boston Anti-Slavery Bazaar, which had been founded the previous year by Lydia Maria Child and Louisa Loring, and remained in charge of the fair until 1858, when she unilaterally made the decision to replace the bazaar with the Anti-Slavery Subscription Anniversary. Chapman justified her decision to end the fair by claiming that it had become passé; she argued that the Anniversary—an exclusive, invitation-only soirée featuring music, food and speeches—was more au courant and more lucrative than the bazaar.

In addition to her fair work, between 1835 and 1865, Chapman served on the executive and business committees of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society (MASS), the New England Anti-Slavery Society (NEASS) and the American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS) and was active in the petition campaigns of the 1830s. She wrote the annual reports of the Boston Female Anti-Slavery Society (BFASS) and published tracts. Between 1839 and 1858 she edited The Liberty Bell, an annual anti-slavery gift book that was sold at the Boston Bazaar. The giftbook was composed of contributions from various notable figures - Longfellow, Emerson, Elizabeth Barret Browning, Harriet Martineau, and Bayard Talor, among others - none of these received any remuneration for their participation in the publication aside from a copy of The Liberty Bell. She also acted as editor to The Liberator in Garrison’s absence and was on the editorial committee of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, the official mouthpiece of the AAS. Chapman was also a member of the peace organisation, the Non-Resistance Society, who published The Non-Resistant. Chapman was a prolific writer in her own right, publishing Right and Wrong in Massachusetts in 1839 and How Can I Help to Abolish Slavery? in 1855. Aside from these works, she published her poems and essays in abolitionist periodicals. In 1840 divisions between Garrisonians and the more political wing of the anti-slavery movement split the AAS and correspondingly the BFASS into two opposing factions. Maria—nicknamed “Captain Chapman” and the "great goddess" by her opponents and "Lady Macbeth" even by her friends—outmaneuvered the opposition to take control of a resurrected BFASS, which from then on mainly focused on organizing the Boston bazaar.