Letter from Sophia Davenport, St. Louis, [Missouri], to Caroline Weston, 1835 Nov[ember] 15

Sophia Davenport writes to Caroline Weston in regards to her journey to St. Louis. She discussed slavery with James Clark and his mother, who visited the south and believes "after she had been there a short time, she soon perceived that they were not fit to take care of themselves, that it would be doing a great injury, to set them free, &c..She approved of the colonization scheme." Clark's mother now thinks George Thompson is a "great villain." She writes of her experience speaking with a well treated slave woman. She spoke to an old female slave who attended Miss B's Sunday school who "prided herself upon being a Christian." A senator from Illinois denouced abolition as "shocking and fanatical." Davenport is enjoying her time in St. Louis. In the postscript, she describes being onboard a steamboat from Pittsburgh to Louisville with more than a dozen slaves chained below, to be sold in New Orleans.
Courtesy of Boston Public Library