BARTHOLOMEW FUSSELL was born into a prominent Quaker family in Chester County on January 9, 1794. As a young man he went to Maryland to study medicine. During this time, he began instructing slaves how to read the Bible. Although in Maryland it was not illegal for slaves to learn to read and write, whites were discouraged from teaching them. Years later, Dr. Fussell would assist many of his former students at his home known as “The Pines” when they were making their way to freedom.
Speaking His Mind After his graduation in medicine, Fussell was asked to deliver an address before the Medical Society of Baltimore. The audience consisted of those who were pro-slavery, as well as slave-holding professors and men of authority. Dr. Fussell spoke his mind, denouncing “the most preposterous and cruel practice of Slavery, as replete with the causes of disease,” and expressed the hope that the day would come “when Slavery and cruelty should have no abiding place in the whole habitable earth; when the philosopher and the pious Christian could use the salutation of ‘brother,’ and the physician and divine be as one man; when the rich and the poor should know no distinction; the great and the small be equal in dominion, and the arrogant master and his menial slave should make a truce of friendship with each other, all following the same law of reason, all guided by the same light of Truth!” Words Into Action Fussell was one of the original signers of the “Declaration of Sentiments” issued and adopted by the American Anti-Slavery Society which met in Philadelphia on December 4th, 1833 where the Society was born. The document is a formal statement of the beliefs and goals of the American Anti-Slavery Society at the time of their founding. You can read the entire document here or by clicking on the image above. I think the excerpt below sums up the heart of the matter for those who came together on that cold night in December of 1833 for the very first meeting of this Society: “. . . We will do all that in us lies, consistently with this Declaration of our principles, to overthrow the most execrable system of Slavery that ever been witnessed upon earth; to deliver our land from its deadliest curse; — to wipe out the foulest stain which rests upon our national escutcheon — and to secure to the colored population of the United States all the rights and privileges which belong to them as men and as Americans — come what may to our persons, our interests, or our reputation — whether we live to witness the triumph of Liberty, Justice and Humanity, or perish untimely as martyrs in the great, benevolent and holy cause.”
–Declaration of Sentiments, 1833 An Early Feminist
Dr. Fussell was also well known as an advocate of common school education, of temperance, and of every other principle which he believed important to the welfare of man. He was one of the first to advocate that women should be physicians. In 1840 he began teaching a class of women, and it was through one of these pupils that the first [woman medical] graduate in America became interested in the study of medicine. In 1846 he communicated to a few liberal-minded professional men a plan for the medical education of women. Although not directly responsible for its creation, the Woman’s College on North College Avenue in Philadelphia was a result of his continued advocacy for the participation of women in the medical profession. Among his friends Dr. Fussell counted William Lloyd Garrison and John Greenleaf Whittier, with whom his anti-slavery sympathies had made him acquainted, and whose friendship lasted throughout their lives. It was while living in Philadelphia in 1838-40, that Whittier wrote his stirring poem, “The Response.” It was addressed to the politicians who were clamoring for the suppression of the abolitionists. |
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