biography
| name: |
Birney, James Gillespie
|
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1792–1857)
|
| biography:
| Abolitionist, lawyer, and writer, born in Danville, Kentucky, USA. The son of rich slaveholders, he started out as a lawyer and state legislator in Kentucky and then in Alabama. His opposition to slavery led him to sell his plantation and most of its slaves, and by 1832 he was an agent in the American Colonization Society, but he soon moved from advocating resettlement of slaves to abolitionism. After freeing his last slaves he helped found the Kentucky Anti-Slavery Society (1835) and, as co-editor (with Gamaliel Bailey) of the Cincinnati Philanthropist (1836–7), he attacked slavery. Often harassed for his views, he was indicted for harbouring a fugitive slave (1837) but was acquitted. He moved to New York City (1837) to serve as executive secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society, and twice ran for president as a candidate of anti-slavery parties (1840, 1844). In 1842 he moved to Michigan, attracted by the cheap land, but after being severely injured in a riding accident (1845), he settled in an abolitionists' compound in New Jersey. |
|
|
