Opposed to slavery, but also against a war to end it
"The Boston Way: Radicals Against Slavery & the Civil War," by Mark Kurlansky, Godine, 240 pp.
Mark Kurlansky has written 40 books, but he鈥檚 best known for 鈥淐od鈥� and 鈥淪alt,鈥� two works in which he looked at common food items with fresh eyes. He has a signature gift for inviting readers to consider the familiar in new ways, which is why 鈥淐od鈥� and 鈥淪alt鈥� became bestsellers.
Kurlansky is up to something similar in 鈥淭he Boston Way,鈥� his new book about how 19th-century pacifists navigated the prospect of an American civil war to end slavery. Hundreds of books have been written about the Civil War, but Kurlansky breathes new life into the subject by taking a more novel slant. He focuses on a subset of Americans in and around Boston who saw slavery as an unmitigated evil, but were horrified by the thought that their fellow citizens might try to settle the matter by killing each other.
Readers might wonder if Kurlansky, who鈥檚 best known for writing about food, is up to the challenge of a Civil War narrative. But in addition to his chronicles of cod and salt, along with lively volumes on oysters, milk, salmon, and onions, he鈥檚 also churned out books of social history, including 鈥�1968: The Year That Rocked the World,鈥� and 鈥淣onviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea.鈥� In an author鈥檚 bio on the dust jacket of 鈥淭he Boston Way,鈥� Kurlansky makes his own views on nonviolence clear. We learn that he 鈥渞efused to serve in the Vietnam war, and has opposed every war since.鈥�
Why We Wrote This
A group of abolitionists in Boston urged nonviolent action against slavery, arguing that violent conflict would not solve the issue. Instead, they argued, a civil war would create a backlash and stall progress toward rights for African Americans.
But wasn鈥檛 the cause of freeing American slaves worth fighting for? The case for a nonviolent alternative was made most vigorously by William Lloyd Garrison, a Boston abolitionist who rests at the center of Kurlansky鈥檚 story. Garrison predicted that if emancipation came about through violence, it would create even more hatred, delaying by at least a century the day when African Americans secured their rights. 鈥淚t has been taking even longer than that,鈥� Kurlansky concludes.
鈥淭he Boston Way鈥� appears at a time when polarized politics are inviting some social commentators to wonder if Americans might collectively take up arms against each other again. Such a prospect might seem unthinkable to most of us, but as Kurlansky suggests, the thought of civil war seemed unthinkable to many antebellum Americans, too. Like last year鈥檚 鈥淭he Demon of Unrest,鈥� Erik Larson鈥檚 account of the days just before the attack on Fort Sumter, 鈥淭he Boston Way鈥� persuasively immerses readers in the national mood shortly before the Civil War. Kurlansky drops us into this long-ago world quickly 鈥� so quickly, in fact, that readers might need some time to get their bearings.
John Brown, the militant abolitionist who would eventually be hanged after seizing a federal arsenal, pops up on the first page, and the trouble starts a few sentences later when he and Garrison get together in Boston in 1857 and debate the best way to end slavery.
鈥淭he meeting was a disaster 鈥� a shouting match, according to some accounts,鈥� Kurlansky tells readers. Brown was unswayed by Garrison鈥檚 calls for nonviolence, using Old Testament passages to invoke notions of vengeance and divine wrath. Kurlansky seems to smile on the page as he quotes a standard rebuttal to such arguments from abolitionist Lydia Maria Child: 鈥淲hat a convenient book the Old Testament is, when ever there is any fighting to be done.鈥�
Child, a bracing and often witty writer, is one of the stars of 鈥淭he Boston Way,鈥� and other leading women thinkers of the day, including Margaret Fuller, Susan B. Anthony, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton, show up, too. Kurlansky positions the cause of nonviolent opposition to slavery within a larger spirit of social experiment that has long defined Boston political culture. But even by Boston standards, Child and her allies were ahead of their time. 鈥淐hild was one of several women of prominence in the abolitionist movement,鈥� Kurlansky writes, 鈥渁nd soon others joined. This in itself was a growing controversy in a society where women were not expected to be involved in politics.鈥�
Kurlansky鈥檚 chapters buzz like a period version of a talk show, with chatty appearances by Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry David Thoreau, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Frederick Douglass. One complication is the book鈥檚 lack of an index 鈥� a vexing omission given its multiplicity of figures and its ambitions as a work of scholarship.聽聽聽聽聽聽聽
There is, alas, no need for spoiler alerts in discussing 鈥淭he Boston Way,鈥� since readers know that Garrison and like-minded thinkers couldn鈥檛 steer their fellow countrymen away from armed conflict. But Kurlansky argues that the efforts of Garrison鈥檚 circle, known as the Boston Clique, weren鈥檛 in vain.
鈥淭he great leaders of nonviolence, charismatic figures such as Mohandas Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jr., are often remembered as rarefied geniuses who hatched their ideas from the ether,鈥� Kurlansky writes, 鈥渂ut the ideas and tools of nonviolent activism have been pursued by many people many times, and though a small group in nineteenth-century Boston may be little remembered today, what they did, what they learned, and what they taught, have lived on.鈥�