403

OverviewTranscribeVersionsHelp

Facsimile

Transcription

Status: Complete

HISTORICAL ANNOTATION 1031

Collins opened the program with a prayer. John W. Jones, the presiding officer, called
the assembly to order and introduced William H. Lester, who delivered a dramatic
reading of the Emancipation Proclamation. Jones then introduced Douglass, who
spoke for two hours, ending the afternoon's exercises. The Elmira Advertiser observed
that "his oration was long, and delivered from manuscript; the speaker utters his sen-
tences deliberately, and his hearers never tire." Douglass had earlier declined an
invitation to lecture in Elmira that evening, claiming that a two-hour outdoor address
was all he could manage in a single day because "my forty years of speaking have left
me less strong than younger men." Having spent the previous night in Elmira,
Douglass left that city by train immediately following his speech to deliver a cam-
paign address in Rochester the next day. Douglass to Charles J. Langdon, 9 August
1880, CtHnf; Elmira (N.Y.) Advertiser, 23, 30, 31 July, 3 August 1880; Washington
(D.C.) People's Advocate, 7 August 1880; Holland, Colored Orator, 348.

469.5 president of the day] John W. Jones (1817-1890), a former slave from
Leesburg, Virginia, presided over the celebration as president of the day. Jones
escaped from slavery in 1844 and came to Elmira on 5 July of the same year. In 1847
he was appointed sexton of the First Baptist Church, a post he held for forty-three
years. Throughout the 1850s Jones also served as a leading agent for the Underground
Railroad in Elmira, aiding over 800 fugitive slaves traveling between Philadelphia
and St. Catharines, Canada. A prominent and much-loved figure in the city, Jones died
at his farm on 26 December 1900. Elmira (N.Y.) Advertiser 3 August 1880; Clay W.
Holmes, The Elmira Prison Camp: A History of the Military Prison at Elmira, N. Y.,
July 6, 1864, to July 10, 1865 (New York, 1912), 140-50.

470.13 the British throne] William IV (1765-1837), formerly the Duke of
Clarence, reigned as king of Great Britain from 26 June 1830 to his death on 20 June
1837, when he was succeeded by Princess Victoria. Although he had earlier led the
West Indian planters' opposition to William Wilberforce's 1791 abolition bill, as king
William IV was content to leave matters of slavery emancipation, reform, and other
political affairs to his administrators. Kenneth Morgan, Slavery and the British
Empire: From Africa to America (New York, 2007), 164; DNB, 21:325-31.

470.15-16 eight hundred thousand people] According to the report from contem-
porary observers Reverend James Armstrong Thome and Joseph Horace Kimball,
793,680 slaves were fully emancipated by 1 August 1838. However, only the 34,145
slaves residing in Antigua and Bermuda, or 4.3 percent of the eventual total freed,
were emancipated in 1834. James A. Thome and Joseph H. Kimball, Emancipation in
the West Indies: A Six Month's Tour in Antigua, Barbados, and Jamaica in the Year
1837, 2d ed. (New York, 1839), xiv.

470.38 witnessed the scene] In order to maintain social control over the emanci-
pated slaves in the British West Indies. colonial administrators ordered churches to
open their doors to the black public on 1 August 1834. In Montego Bay and Falmouth
approximately 3,000 and 1,600 former slaves, respectively, attended religious cere-
monies. In their report Emancipation in West Indies, Reverend James Armstrong

Notes and Questions

Nobody has written a note for this page yet

Please sign in to write a note for this page