born 1815, New Market, Md., U.S.
died Feb. 13, 1882, Liberia
U.S. clergyman and abolitionist.
Born a slave, he escaped in 1824 to New York, where he became a Presbyterian minister. He joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and agitated for emancipation; in a 1843 speech at a national convention of freedmen he called on slaves to revolt and murder their masters. The convention refused to endorse his radicalism, and he gradually turned more toward religion, serving as pastor in a number of Presbyterian pulpits during the next two decades. Late in life he favoured emigration of U.S. blacks to Africa. He was appointed U.S. minister to Liberia in 1881 but died within two months of his arrival in the African nation.