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The Path to Abolition - White House Collection

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    Marie Joseph Paul Yves Roch Gilbert du Motier, Marquis de Lafayette, ca. Early Nineteenth Century

    Unknown Artist

    Oil on Glass

    The Marquis de Lafayette’s likeness is featured several times in the White House Collection—a testament to his service in the American Revolution and his close relationship with several American presidents including George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and James Monroe. The Frenchman, who had helped the Continental Army to victory, was a staunch abolitionist, despite his relationships with many slave owners.

    Lafayette first encountered slavery while fighting in the American Revolution. In fact, an enslaved man named James Armistead served in his unit, spying on the British War Department and relaying important information to Lafayette and the Continental Army. Unfortunately, after the war, Armistead returned to enslavement; upon hearing of this, the Marquis de Lafayette attested to his service, which helped James obtain his freedom. James Armistead later took the surname “Lafayette” in honor of their relationship.

    In 1783, Lafayette proposed an experiment to George Washington, in which the two men would purchase land in French Guiana where enslaved laborers would be paid for tenant farming, setting them on a path to freedom; Washington ultimately did not join Lafayette, and his plan failed when the French government confiscated the land during the Reign of Terror. Lafayette remained an antislavery advocate for the rest of his life.

    White House Collection/White House Historical Association

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    William Thornton, ca. 1800

    Robert Field (ca. 1769-1819)

    Watercolor on Ivory

    William Thornton, depicted in this watercolor miniature, embodies the very complex relationship many had with slavery. Although born on his family’s sugar plantation on Tortola, British Virgin Islands, Thornton was raised by Quakers in England, developing antislavery sentiments while embracing Enlightenment ideals of freedom and equality. Despite being trained as a doctor, he went on to become a prominent architect in early Washington, D.C., serving as the first architect of the Capitol and as a city commissioner. Thornton called slavery the “darkest stain” on society yet benefitted from enslaved labor in his household and on construction projects in Washington, D.C.

    Driven to find an end to the practice of slavery, Thornton became an outspoken supporter of emancipation and subsequently, colonization. In 1791, Thornton introduced a petition to lead a colony of newly-free Black men to Sierra Leone and later proposed Puerto Rico as a possible location for such a settlement. At its core, colonization supported the idea that Black and White Americans could not live in harmony, and that instead, African Americans should “return” to Africa or elsewhere.

    Abolitionists were divided on the issue of colonization. Ultimately, colonization efforts failed, as many Black Americans desired to remain in their home country, rather than being driven away. William Thornton and others promoted colonization as a solution to slavery, when it was instead a diversion from the realities of integrating American society.

    White House Collection/White House Historical Association

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    Fanny Kemble, 1834

    Thomas Sully (1783-1872)

    Oil on Canvas

    Thomas Sully painted this portrait of English actress Fanny Kemble in 1834. Best known for her Shakespearean acting skills, Kemble became a theatrical sensation in England. In 1832, she brought her talent to American audiences on a multi-year tour of the United States, and while in America she met and married wealthy southern slave owner Pierce M. Butler.

    Fanny Kemble supported women’s equality, Indigenous rights, and abolition, which led to severe disagreements between the couple following her first visit to her husband’s Georgia plantation in 1838. The two divorced in 1849, but throughout their tumultuous marriage, Kemble documented the horrors of slavery in her journals and letters. In her words, “I have sometimes been haunted with the idea that it was an imperative duty, knowing what I know, and having seen what I have seen, to do all that lies in my power to show the dangers and the evils of this frightful institution.” She eventually decided to publish them during the Civil War under the title Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation 1838-1839, hoping to contribute to the end of slavery and by extension, the war. Though her role in swaying her countrymen and women toward the Union cause cannot be measured, her book introduced many English readers to the horrors of slavery on a southern plantation.

    White House Collection/White House Historical Association

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About this Gallery

The fight for emancipation throughout the antebellum era is also represented in the White House Collection.