Reverend Henry Highland Garnet

An Important Figure in the Abolitionist Movement

Reverend Henry Highland Garnet was an important figure in the Abolitionist Movement and was also important in the Black community in Troy, New York during the 1840s. Henry Highland Garnet was born into slavery in Maryland in 1815. When his enslaver died in 1824, his family escaped from slavery and arrived in New York City in 1826.

While in New York City, Henry H. Garnet began to look for places where he could go to school. He first went to an academy in New Hampshire. However, a mob attacked the school for allowing Black people to study there so Garnet left New Hampshire and went to study at the Oneida Institute near Utica, New York, a school known for its abolitionist teachings.

In 1840, Garnet traveled to Troy to become a teacher in a school for Black children. He also became associated with the Liberty Street Presbyterian Church, an African-American congregation. During this time, Rev. Nathan Beman, an abolitionist preacher in Troy, instructed Henry Garnet in theology. In 1842, Garnet was ordained by the Troy Presbytery and became the first minister of the Liberty Street Presbyterian Church.

After this, Rev. Garnet became active in the anti-slavery movement. He was involved with the American Anti-Slavery society and he published and distributed a small paper, The Clarion, whose objective was “to aid the Negro in all aspects of his emancipation.” With William G. Allen, also of Troy, he produced the periodical The National Watchman. Unfortunately, no copies of The Clarion exist.

In 1843, Rev. Garnet stood before the delegates of the 1843 National Negro Convention in Buffalo, New York and gave a fiery speech. Just a year before in another speech, he had said that he believed that the responsibility for the end of slavery lay with the whites. Sometime between 1842 and 1843, Garnet had a radical change of mind. In what has come to be known as his “Call to Rebellion,” Garnet gave an impassioned speech in which he encouraged people who were enslaved to revolt against their enslavers. Frederick Douglass and other abolitionists, who believed in a non-violent approach to abolish the institution of slavery, spoke after Garnet and denounced the speech.

By 1849, Garnet began to favor emigration to Liberia, a country in Africa inhabited by freed Blacks from the New World. He also traveled to England and Scotland, where he lectured on abolishing slavery. Although he considered remaining in England, he left for Jamaica in 1852 to work as a missionary. In 1864, Rev. Garnet was asked to become the minister to a church in Washington, D.C. A year later, after Congress adopted the thirteenth amendment on emancipation, Rev. Garnet was invited by the House of Representatives to deliver a sermon. In 1881, in Liberia, Rev. Garnet became ill. Just two months after his arrival, Rev. Garnet died in 1882.