Description

Holograph, signed.Title devised by cataloger.On verso, the letter is addressed to "William Lloyd Garrison Boston" and is postmarked with a red, circular stamp reading "Brattleboro VT Sept 1".In this letter to William Lloyd Garrison, Arnold Buffum discusses two lectures he delivered in Greenfield, Massachusetts. He tells Garrison about one man who asked about his connection to Garrison and another, an editor of the local colonizationist newspaper, who discussed the movement with Buffum and "seemed very anxious we should make some [concessions] that we might unite". Buffum details how he rejected the offer, insisting that "we could have no fellowship with deception of any kind or for any purpose as long as the people of color were slandered and abused as they have been by the Colonizationists". He then mentions his various writings and a conversation he had with Joshua Noble Danforth, in which Danforth explained that he "did not mean any reflection or disrespect at all" when he called introduced Buffum as "Arnold Buffum the Hatter." He then proposes that "we might cordially coordinate with them," the American Colonization Society, if there is "a radical change in almost all their measures." For example, Buffum says, "I see no objection to a Colony of blacks in our western Country under our own government". He then discusses his lectures in Brattleborough and his plans to travel to Walpole, Massachusetts to speak there, before going to Keene, New Hampshire, and then Worcester.

Record Contributed By

Boston Public Library

Record Harvested From

Digital Commonwealth