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September 1829

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Achievement · politics
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.

Events

  1. September 28, 1829
    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.

  2. September 1829
    David Walker Publishes His Appeal

    David Walker, a free Black man in Boston, self-published 'Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,' one of the most radical anti-slavery documents in American history. The pamphlet demanded immediate emancipation and called on enslaved people to rise up, terrifying slaveholders across the South who placed bounties on Walker's head. It profoundly influenced the abolitionist movement and Black nationalist thought for generations.