May wrote that the purpose of Crandall’s school was wholly unrelated to interracial marriage, he did not recoil from the idea, even in his public response to Judson. “Of course we do not believe there are any barriers established by God between the two races,” May wrote. “Whether marriages shall or shall not take place between those of different colors is a matter which time must be left to decide. … We only say that such connections would be incomparably more honorable to the whites as well as more consistent with the laws of God and the virtue of our nation than the illicit intercourse which is now common especially at the south.”40 May published his letters in the local newspapers and paid a print shop to assemble them into a pamphlet and distribute it throughout the region.
Prudence Crandall heard rumors that Andrew Judson had prepared a libel lawsuit against William Lloyd Garrison for statements Garrison made in the Liberator, specifically in his article “Heathenism Outdone.”41 Garrison cared little about whether his comments offended anyone. The harshness of some of Garrison’s articles, however, surprised Crandall, and she asked Garrison to restrain his attacks. “Handle the prejudices of the people of Canterbury with all the mildness possible,” she wrote to Garrison, “as everything severe tends merely to heighten the flame of malignity amongst them.”42 While Samuel May respected and loved Garrison’s “fervent devotion to the cause of the oppressed,” he wrote that “no one can disapprove, more than I do, the harshness of his epithets, and the bitterness of his invectives.”43
The pleas of May and Crandall may have resulted in a moment of reflection for Garrison, but in the end he refused to moderate his attacks on those who supported or tolerated slavery and prejudice. “It is a waste of politeness to be courteous to the devil, and to think of beating down his strongholds with straws is sheer insanity,” Garrison wrote in the Liberator. “The language of reform is always severe, unavoidably severe.”44 Garrison had faced lawsuits, death threats, and time in jail. The rumor of Andrew Judson’s libel suit did not intimidate him, at least not initially.
Garrison’s inflammatory language had a more direct and personal consequence for Crandall and her supporters in Canterbury. Garrison could level his charges and print his attacks from the relative safety of his office in Boston. He had the support of a larger abolitionist community, both black and white. Crandall greatly appreciated Garrison’s strong support and moral clarity, but she faced the daily anger of the Canterbury townspeople he criticized. When consequences ensued from Garrison’s attacks in the Liberator, they fell on Crandall, her students, and her school.
It did not take long for Crandall’s opponents to launch their next offensive. At an informal meeting at the Canterbury Masonic Hall on Friday, April 5, 1833, town leaders and businessmen agreed to cut off Prudence Crandall and her family from the Canterbury community to the greatest extent possible. Merchants agreed not to sell her anything or assist her in any way.45 At least one merchant refused to go along with the planned embargo. Stephen Coit opposed Crandall’s school for black women but said he intended to sell his goods to anyone who wished to buy them, including Crandall.46 Coit’s daughters, Frances and Sarah, had attended Crandall’s school prior to Sarah Harris’s enrollment.47
The organized embargo—a tactic associated with war—sent a message to townspeople that they need not behave in a civilized manner toward Crandall or her supporters. The campaign succeeded in ostracizing Crandall and worsened relations with her neighbors. Taunts, threats, and vandalism directed against Crandall increased and went unpunished. In a letter written at the beginning of April to her friend in New Haven, Simeon S. Jocelyn, Crandall said she was “surrounded by those whose enmity and bitterness of feeling can hardly be contemplated.”48
The official opening of her new school, a “high school for young colored ladies and misses,” occurred as planned on April 1, 1833. Crandall hoped to have fifteen to twenty students. Instead, only two students, Eliza Glasko from Griswold and Sarah Harris, arrived on the first day.49 Crandall remained concerned about Judson’s efforts to close her school; however, she knew that an inability to enroll enough students to meet her basic expenses was the surest path to failure. “I have but one boarder yet and one day scholar,” she wrote to Jocelyn. “I wish you to encourage those who are coming to come immediately.”50
The Canterbury controversy did not prevent Garrison from proceeding with his plans to travel to England. While in England, he intended to raise money for the Liberator and speak out against colonization. “There, I shall breathe freely—there my sentiments and language on the subject of slavery will receive the acclamations of the people—there my spirit will be elevated and strengthened,” Garrison said.51 In March he asked George Bourne to serve as guest editor of the Liberator while he was away.52
Garrison met Bourne on a trip to New York a few years earlier, and they became colleagues and collaborators.53 Bourne’s historic antislavery tract, The Book and Slavery Irreconcilable, provided intellectual guidance for Garrison when he launched the Liberator.54 Garrison enlisted Bourne to serve as a reference for Prudence Crandall’s school, and Bourne’s name appeared as one of the supporters of the school in the advertisements for the school in the Liberator. Bourne agreed to edit the newspaper each week in New York City while Garrison was away and write the strident, antislavery articles that Garrison’s readers expected. In addition, Bourne agreed to write a weekly, anonymous column called “The Firebrand,” write one or two other articles of his choosing, and contribute a full-length editorial each week. Bourne specifically told Garrison that he did not want an announcement that he was filling Garrison’s shoes in any capacity.55 Isaac Knapp, Garrison’s assistant, and Oliver Johnson, a frequent guest editor and fellow abolitionist, agreed to assemble and print the newspaper in Boston.
Garrison traveled to Haverhill, Massachusetts, on Saturday, March 30, to meet with writer and poet John Greenleaf Whittier; Garrison was the first to publish Whittier’s poetry in the Newburyport Free Press in 1826. Garrison hoped to convince Whittier to write for the abolitionist cause. In addition, he wanted to meet three young women who called themselves the “Inquirers after Truth.” Harriet Minot and two female classmates wrote to him in support of his work in the Liberator and asked what, if anything, they could do to help end slavery. Harriet Minot was eighteen years old, Harriot Plummer was twenty, and Elizabeth Parrott was sixteen. Their letters intrigued Garrison.
“A thought has just occurred to me,” Garrison wrote to Minot in March. “Suppose I should visit Haverhill previous to my departure for England: is it probable that I could obtain a meeting-house in which to address the inhabitants on the subject of slavery? … If I can be sure of a house, I will try to come Sabbath after next.”56 Garrison told Minot he also wanted to visit John Greenleaf Whittier. A week later, however, Garrison had not secured a hall for his speech nor had he contacted Whittier to arrange a meeting. He wrote to Minot, “I shall visit your beautiful village on Saturday next even should no arrangements be made for the delivery of an address.”57
As his sons later wrote in Garrison’s biography, the letters from Minot and her friends likely kindled romantic notions.58 His sons even speculated that when Garrison wrote, “We declare that our heart is neither affected by, nor pledged to, any lady, black or white, bond or free,” in the March 16 issue of the Liberator, he intended to send a message to these young female correspondents as to his own eligibility.59 Although Garrison was usually shy in matters of romance, on a number of occasions he did send thinly veiled love notes to young women through the newspaper when he worked in Newburyport and Bennington.60
While in Haverhill, Garrison did contact and meet with John Greenleaf Whittier, who agreed to join the abolitionist cause. Garrison also met the three “Inquirers after Truth” and was captivated by Harriet Minot. He wrote promptly to her after his visit and told her how much he enjoyed Haverhill, where
