Slavery In David E. Jackson's 'David Ruggles'

Slavery in the 1830s was a hectic time. About most people wanted to continue slavery while the others wanted to abolish it. However, it seems that early historian scholars gave white abolitionists more credit than the African Americans ones. Up until recently have more historical scholars looked into this matter and figured out this was not true. Renewed investigations on the impact of black abolitionists have corrected this matter. Nonetheless, even with this concentration of black abolitionists’ contribution author Hodges Graham of the book “David Ruggles,” noticed that one key player David Ruggles remains unknown. David Ruggles is a hardworking educated black abolitionist who died a young age of thirty-nine overworking himself to fight against

One of Ruggles’s main accomplishments was creating a defense committee in New York to help protect fugitive slaves and runways. This organization called the “New York Committee of Vigilance” and was meeting unofficially in the year 1835. Author Hodges briefly discusses how Ruggles created this organization to do two things. The first thing was to battle kidnappers; The second thing was to provide support for self-emancipated slaves. This essay continues Hodges’s conversation in his book “David Ruggles” and continues the conversation that David E. Swift makes in his book “Black Prophets of Justice” that the New York Committee of Vigilance was indeed created for two reasons to both attack slave kidnappers and provide support for fugitive and runaway slaves. However, this essay also differs in the conversation to Hodges and Swift by stating that the primary reason the members of New York Committee of Vigilance created this organization was more primarily to battle and attack slave catchers and kidnappers more than to protect fugitive slaves. It was a way for the Committee to use harsher methods to attack slave catchers and kidnappers than using non-violent methods to persuade