David Walker's Appeal Electrifies the Anti-Slavery Movement

Boston clothing dealer David Walker published 'Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,' calling enslaved people to armed resistance and castigating Thomas Jefferson. Distributed by Black sailors in Southern ports, it caused panic: Georgia offered $10,000 for Walker dead, $1,000 alive. Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, and Louisiana passed laws criminalizing circulation of incendiary literature in direct response. Walker died in 1830, cause disputed.