Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Articles, Letters to the Editors, etc. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Free Labor Goods. Description An account of the resource A committee was recently appointed by the Union Free Produce Society, of Chester and Lancaster counties, Pa. to inquire into the genuineness of goods professing to be free from the stain of slave labor. The committee addressed the following queries to Charles Collins, of New-York: RESPECTED FRIEND: By answering the following queries thou wilt much oblige thy friends, and confer a particular favor upon the advocates of abstinence from slave labor. 1st. From what source is thy free cotton obtained? and is the necessary care taken by the manufacturer to preserve it from a mixture with that which is not free? 2d. Is the coloring used by thee, free from the stain of slavery? 3d. Whence are thy groceries obtained? 4th. Is thy store supplied entirely with free goods, or are both kinds kept therein? Committee THOMAS HAMBLETON, ELIZABETH KENT. ELIZABETH HAMBLETON, To these questions Charles Collins returned the following reply: “I received yours, requesting answers to four queries. In reply to the first, I may say that I have had some free labor cotton from Friends in North Carolina, and some from Alabama. I expect some from Georgia, and may perhaps have some from Florida. From good information, I have reason to think that free labor cotton is to be had in all the south and southwestern States, where cotton is raised. It is produced by the labor of poor, white men and their children, in small quantities. Some raise two or three bales, and some more. Much of it is cleaner and better than slave grown cotton. A person from Florida, with whom I have been acquainted for several years, told me this week, that he could get 20 or more bales in his neighborhood. Another, now deceased, with whom I was very intimate, had resided in Charleston (S. C.) and went to Friend's meeting there. He said he thought that, by taking pains, there might annually be produced in South Carolina near one thousand bales of free labor cotton. He said it was brought to Charleston in one horse wagons, in the fall; but that from slave plantations was conveyed in large teams. In the English West Indies and Haiti, free labor cotton is raised; also in some parts of South America. I think I might safely engage to procure free labor cotton in much greater quantities than there is at present a demand for in the United States. Second: Indigo is a leading article in coloring. This mostly comes from Bengal, in India, and Caraccas, in South America, where it is raised free from slave labor. Not much is now raised in the South. Madder and woad, both principal articles, come from vegetables raised in Holland and England; of course free. As to other colors, I cannot say much about them. Third: Much of my sugar is raised on free labor plantations in Porto Rico, and Laguira. The loaf and lump sugar I purchase is made of Manilla, Siam, and other free sugars ; also Carthagena. I have white sugar from Canton; likewise Maple sugar . Fourth: I have kept a strictly free labor store, for 25 years and upwards; chiefly groceries, some cotton goods. I may, perhaps, have more cotton goods. There are now in the hands of a calico printer, about 8,000 yards for me; to be plain goods, and fast colors. From late information, I am led to think that sugar , &c. raised by free labor , is to be had in Louisiana. I have written for some. I prefer goods, the growth of our own country, because no duty is paid on them. Some of the money that goes into the national treasury is used to make war upon Indians, &c.; and in this I wish to take no part. Yesterday I engaged ten bales of upland cotton to be procured in Florida, by a person with whom I have been acquainted several years; he told me he thought he could get me a much larger quantity, in a neighborhood where were a considerable number of poor people who raised it without slavery. By consulting the Encyclopedia of Geography, in 3 vols. by Hugh Murray, published in Philadelphia, in 1838, thou wilt see a list of the British islands, all free; and that in the island of Porto Rico there were, in 1830, 323,838 persons. Of this number 34,240 were slaves; 127,287 free colored persons; and 162,311 whites. This shows that about one tenth are slaves. These slaves, I expect, are chiefly employed in boiling sugar . My mind is so much led to think of the South, that I have thought I would like to spend my winter there, buying free labor goods, and visiting slave plantations. If the several free produce societies would unite, they might perhaps make it worth while for some one to go there on that business. CHARLES COLLINS, No. 3 Cherry Street, New-York. FROM THE UNION FREE PRODUCE SOCIETY. Resolved, That the reply of Charles Collins, of New-York, to the iuterrogataries of our committee, received by this society, is satisfactory in detail. It tends to confirm the confidence hitherto reposed in him, as an agent for procuring goods uncontaminated by the gains of oppression, as exhibited in the system of American slavery. A TRIBUTE TO THE DEPARTED. At a stated meeting of the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society, held 3d month 10th, the following resolution was unanimously adopted: Whereas, This society has recently been bereaved, by death, of one of its earliest and most self-denying members, Grace Douglass, and the abolitionists of this city and of our country, also, of another venerable coadjutor, James Forten, therefore, Resolved, That while we offer to their afflicted relatives and friends our warmest sympathies, we regard their removal from us as a call to renewed diligence in the work to which they devoted their energies, and in which we are permitted awhile longer to labor; and that, profiting by their exemplary lives and triumphant deaths, we will endeavor to follow them as they followed Christ. ANNA M. HOPPER, Secretary. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived National Anti-Slavery Standard Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 3.24.1842