Amos Dresser

Amos Dresser (1812–1904) was a student at Lane Theological Seminary, in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1833–34. He was one of the Lane Rebels, 51 students who signed a declaration declaring themselves unable to remain at a school where discussion of American slavery and its evils was prohibited. and withdrew for the new Oberlin College. During the summee of 1834, when Lane was not holding classes, to raise money Dresser traveled around the South selling Bibles.[1]:1 In Nashville, Tennessee, he was publicly given 20 lashes, after freely admitting his abolitionist views and being convicted by a vigilance committee of sixty members,[1]:2 of

  • Being a member of an Anti-Slavery Society in Ohio
  • Having in his possession periodicals published by the American Anti-Slavery Society, and
  • Circulating these periodicals and advocating in the community "the principles they inculcated".[1]:4

Dresser published in the Cincinnati Daily Gazette the story of what had happened to him, and this was twice reprinted in pamphlets,[1][2] the second together with the observations of Asa A. Stone (1810–1835) on slavery in Florida. He later spoke of it many times, in the course of abolitionist lectures.[3]

Background

Vigilance committees

Vigilance committees were tribunals of influential citizens who were vested with the authority to punish persons who engaged in otherwise legal behaviors seen as disrespectful to the communities which they oversaw. These committees had the power to break up meetings, censor press, inflict punishment, and even expel someone from the community. The justification for these committees was that they protected aspects of communal life that could not be otherwise shielded by law. The logic was that there were times when the needs of the community took precedent over one's legal rights, and vigilance committees did not have to respect those rights as their first duty was to the community as a whole.[4]

Amos Dresser

Amos Dresser was born in Massachusetts, and grew up on a farm with his mother and step-father, until leaving at the age of fifteen to pursue an education,[5] eventually enrolling as a student at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati, Ohio.[6] In 1834, Dresser was part of a mass student resignation from Lane along with several other students for being prohibited from discussing slavery, even at meal-times.[6] The students expelled during the incident came to be known as the Lane Seminary Rebels,[7]

Lashing

Arrest

After his expulsion, Dresser took to selling bibles in Tennessee to further his education.[5] On Saturday, July 11th, 1835, Dresser arrived in Nashville with anti-slavery pamphlets stored in a box in his barouche and settled in a local inn. Two days later, while Dresser's barouche was being repaired, the box was uncovered and his abolitionist leanings were made public as a result. Afterwards, rumors began to spread that Dresser was attempting to incite the free blacks of Nashville into violence.[8] Dresser was later apprehended and summoned to appear before the Committee on Vigilance on the charge of distributing abolitionist materials.[9]

Trial and Sentence

The Committee consisting of sixty members interrogated Dresser using the pamphlets as evidence in addition to testimony from "witnesses,"[10] and his status as one of the Lane Seminary Rebels.[11] Before final committee deliberations, Dresser openly denounced the proceedings and the institution of slavery altogether.[12] He was found guilty and received 20 public lashes as punishment, to be carried out over the course of an hour. The lashing was publicly administered the following Saturday night from 11:00 to midnight.[13] During the lashing, Dresser was stripped completely naked as a crowd of citizens and most of the committee watched.[14]

Aftermath

After leaving Nashville, Dresser returned to Ohio where he continued his seminary studies at Oberlin College until the fall of 1839.[15] After completing his studies, Dresser became a Presbyterian minister and continued his abolitionist activism, having gained noterity for both the Nashville lashing and his status as one of the Lane Seminary Rebels.[7] He wrote a recollection of his experience in Nashville titled The Narrative of Amos Dresser.[15]

References
  • Eaton, Clement (1942). "Mob Violence in the Old South". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 29 (3): 351–370. doi:10.2307/1897915. ISSN 0161-391X. JSTOR 1897915.
  • Dumond, Dwight L. (1949). "The Mississippi: Valley of Decision". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 36 (1): 3–26. doi:10.2307/1895693. ISSN 0161-391X. JSTOR 1895693.
  • Crowell, Cheryl (2012). New Richmond. Arcadia Publishing. ISBN 978-0-7385-8868-1.
  • Finkelman, Paul (2007). Slave Rebels, Abolitionists, and Southern Courts: The Pamphlet Literature. The Lawbook Exchange, Ltd. ISBN 978-1-58477-744-1.
  • Snodgrass, Mary Ellen (2015). Civil Disobedience: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States: An Encyclopedic History of Dissidence in the United States. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-317-47441-8.
  • Garrison, William Lloyd (1971). The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison. Volume II: A House Dividing Against Itself, 1836-1840. Belknap Press of Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-52661-7.
  • Birney, James Gillespie (1885). The American Churches the Bulwarks of American Slavery. P. Pillsbury.
  1. Dresser, Amos (1835). Amos Dresser's Narrative. "From the Cincinnati Daily Gazette". Cincinnati, Ohio.
  2. Dresser, Amos (1836). The narrative of Amos Dresser: with Stone's letters from Natchez, an obituary notice of the writer, and two letters from Tallahassee, relating to the treatment of slaves.
  3. "(Untitled)". Vermont Telegraph (Brandon, Vermont). February 14, 1838. p. 2 – via newspaperarchive.com.
  4. Dumond 1949, p. 10.
  5. Finkelman 2007, p. 255.
  6. Snodgrass 2015, p. 5.
  7. Crowell 2012, p. 33.
  8. Finkelman 2007, p. 256.
  9. Finkelman 2007, p. 258.
  10. Finkelman 2007, p. 259-260.
  11. Finkelman 2007, p. 260.
  12. Finkelman 2007, p. 261.
  13. Birney 1885, p. 12.
  14. Birney 2015, p. 12.
  15. Garrison 1971, p. 202.
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