Images(2)

Ribbon

Date1837-1840

OriginAmerica

MediumSilk

DimensionsOverall Length: 4.25 inches, Overall Width 3.25 inches

Credit LineMuseum Purchase, The Friends of Colonial Williamsburg Collections Fund

Object number2020-39

DescriptionA very small plate printed ribbon. The ribbon’s central motif is Liberty pointing to a printing press with a kneeling enslaved African beside her set within a clouded sunburst. Laying beneath her feet is a broken chain and whip. Surrounding the imagery is the text “Lovejoy The First MARTYR to American LIBERTY. MURDERED for asserting the FREEDOM of the PRESS at ALTON NOV. 7. 1837.”
Label TextElijah Parish Lovejoy (1802-1837) was born in Maine and received his education there, attending what is today Colby College. After his graduation he determined to move to Illinois, and after a brief stint at selling newspapers in Boston, moved to St. Louis in 1827. Even at this early date, St. Louis was at the nexus of the question of slavery, and it was here that Lovejoy made acquaintances with a number of Missouri abolitionists.

In 1832 Lovejoy returned east to study at the Princeton Theological Seminary, and in the spring of 1833 was ordained a minister in the Presbyterian church. In that same year he returned to St. Louis to edit the St. Louis Observer. By 1834, editorials critiquing the Catholic Church, liquor, tobacco and slavery began to regularly appear in the paper. His abolitionist sentiments particularly inflamed supporters of slavery and his printing press was destroyed on three different occasions.

In 1837 Lovejoy made the decision to move his press across the Mississippi to Illinois, a free state. As news of his plans spread, his office once again became a target, and his office and press was vandalized even before it could be packed.

Lovejoy found no friends in Alton. Although located in Illinois, a free state, it was a pro-slavery town, and Lovejoy's call for the formation of a state-wide Anti-Slavery Society only inflamed the forces opposing abolition. Things came to a head in November, 1837 when pro-slavery forces attacked a warehouse where Lovejoy had hidden his press. In the ensuing melee, the warehouse was set afire and Lovejoy was killed by a shotgun blast. After murdering Lovejoy, the mob broke up the press and threw its pieces into the Mississippi River.

Lovejoy's murder was the touch point for many abolitionists. According to John Quincy Adams, the murder "[gave] a shock as of an earthquake throughout this country." The Boston Recorder declared that these events called forth from every part of the land 'a burst of indignation which has not had its parallel in this country since the Battle of Lexington." When informed at a meeting about the martyrdom, John Brown said publicly: "Here, before God, in the presence of these witnesses, from this time, I consecrate my life to the destruction of slavery."