William Dawes (abolitionist)

For other people named William Dawes, see William Dawes (disambiguation).

William Dawes was a 19th-century abolitionist who worked at Oberlin College.

William Dawes at the 1840 convention

A note in William Dawes' hand itemising expenses

Life

Dawes and John Keep toured England in 1839 and 1840 gathering funds for Oberlin College in Ohio.^[1] They both attended the 1840 anti-slavery convention in London.^[2]

John Keep and William Dawes both undertook a fund raising mission in England in 1839 and 1840 to raise funds from sympathetic abolitionists. Oberlin College was one of the few mult-racial and co-educational colleges in America at that time.^[3]

Both John Keep and Dawes are credited with helping to start the collection of African Americana at Oberlin College which inspired other writers.^[4]

A house occupied by someone of the same name was in Hudson, Ohio in the 1830s supporting the route for escaping slaves.^[5]

References

1. The culture of English antislavery, 1780-1860, David Turley, p192, 1991, ISBN 0-415-02008-5, accessed April 2009
2. The Anti-Slavery Society Convention Archived 2016-03-03 at the Wayback Machine, 1840, Benjamin Robert Haydon, accessed April 2009
3. Oberlin Digital Collections, accessed April 2009
4. Bibliophiles and Collectors of African Americana Archived 2008-05-17 at the Wayback Machine, Charles L. Bronson, accessed April 2009
5. Hudson Historic pictures, accessed April 2009