Michigan Anti-Slavery Societies
© Courtesy of the Ann Arbor District Library and the Bentley Historical Library
The American Anti-Slavery Society inspired the creation of many antislavery societies
in Michigan. Elizabeth Chandler’s Logan Female Anti-Slavery Society was the first of
its kind in Michigan in 1832. Four years later, the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society
formed in Ann Arbor. In 1837, Robert Banks, William Lambert and Madison J.
Lightfoot formed the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society.
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The creation of the national American Anti-Slavery Society (AAS) and its “Great
Postal Campaign” of 1835 spurred interest in the antislavery movement throughout
the free states, as sympathetic reformers looked for ways to contribute to the
debates about abolition. On November 10 and 11 of 1836, reformers met at the First
Presbyterian Church in Ann Arbor to form a state-focused affiliate of the AAS.
Echoing the nonresistance and nonpolitical ideas of moral suasion, the group
explained in its Constitution that it wanted to “convince all our fellow-citizens by
arguments addressed to their understanding and consciences, that slave holding is a
crime in the eyes of God, and that the duty, safety, and best interest of all concerned
require its immediate abandonment” (Constitution). The following year, Robert
Banks, William Lambert, and Madison J. Lightfoot helped formed the Detroit AntiSlavery Society, which would send delegates to the annual state meetings into the
1840s.
While the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society began as an affiliate of the AAS, members
sided with the Tappan brothers during the “schism” of 1840, when disgruntled male
leaders in the AAS formed the politically oriented American and Foreign AntiSlavery Society (AFAS). In fact, the Michigan AAS was the only affiliate outside of
New York to officially declare support for the AFAS (Johnson 389 n.12). The
Michigan AAS thus turned into a social network that linked the abolitionist struggle,
issues of black male suffrage, and the local reform movement in the political party
fights for influence in the new Michigan government, as the Liberty Party attracted
male reformers in the state.
The Michigan AAS withered by 1848 as the Liberty Party melded with the Free Soil
movement. Five years later, however, a new Michigan Anti-Slavery Society formed
during William Lloyd Garrison’s tour of the Midwest. This time, the organization
reached out to Midwestern women and supported Garrison’s platform. The state
convention featured Sallie Holley and Abby Foster and passed resolutions that were
formulated and presented by Garrison himself. Quaker farmer Thomas Chandler,
Elizabeth’s brother and co-founder of the Michigan AAS, was instrumental in
bringing the organization back to life in 1853 (Merril and Ruchames 264).
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Works Cited & Further Reading
“Constitution of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society”. The Signal of Liberty. 19 January
1842.
Bonner, R. I. Memoirs of Lenawee County, Michigan: From the Earliest Historical
Times Down to the Present, Including a Genealogical and Biographical Record
of Representative Families in Lenawee County. Vol. I. Madison: Western
Historical Association, 1909.
Johnson, Reinhard O. The Liberty Party, 1840-1848: Antislavery Third-Party Politics in
the United States. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2009.
Merrill, Walter McIntosh, and Louis Ruchames, eds. The Letters of William Lloyd
Garrison, Volume IV: From Disunionism to the Brink of War, 1850-1860. VI
vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1971.
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