20 Facts About Lewis Tappan

Lewis Tappan was a New York abolitionist who worked to achieve freedom for the enslaved Africans aboard the Amistad.

Lewis Tappan was born in Northampton, Massachusetts, into a Calvinist household.

Lewis Tappan ensured the acquisition of high-quality lawyers for the captives, which led to their being set free after the case went to the United States Supreme Court.

Lewis Tappan was the brother of Senator Benjamin Tappan and abolitionist Arthur Tappan.

Once Lewis Tappan was old enough to work, he helped his father in a dry goods store.

Lewis Tappan is well known for his work to free the Africans from the Spanish ship Amistad.

Lewis Tappan initially supported the American Colonization Society, which promoted sending freed blacks from the United States to Africa, based on the assumption that this was their homeland, regardless of where they were born.

In December 1833, at Philadelphia, Lewis Tappan joined activists such as William Lloyd Garrison to form the American Anti-Slavery Society.

Lewis Tappan would have had potentially lucrative trade contacts in Africa.

The Lewis Tappan brothers were Congregationalists and uncompromising moralists; even within the abolitionist movement, other members found their views extreme.

Lewis Tappan advocated intermarriage as the long-range solution to racial issues, as all people would eventually be mixed race.

Lewis Tappan dreamed of a "copper-skinned" America where race would not define any man, woman, or child.

The Lewis Tappan brothers created chapters of the American Anti-Slavery Society throughout New York state and in other sympathetic areas.

Lewis Tappan began a nationwide mailing of abolitionist material, which resulted in violent outrage in the South and denunciation by Democratic politicians, who accused him of trying to divide the Union.

That year Lewis Tappan formed the American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society in disagreement with the AAS.

Lewis Tappan founded the abolitionist Human Rights journal and a children's anti-slavery magazine, The Slave's Friend.

Lewis Tappan attended each day of the trials and wrote daily accounts of the proceedings for The Emancipator, a New England abolitionist paper.

In 1846, Lewis Tappan was among the founders of the American Missionary Association, led by Congregational and Presbyterian ministers, both white and black.

In both 1860 and 1864, Lewis Tappan voted for Abraham Lincoln.

Lewis Tappan supported the Emancipation Proclamation but believed that additional liberties were necessary.