Speech of Miss Watkins, (13 May 1857) New York, NY

“Speech of Miss Watkins,” delivered May 13, 1857, Harper, Frances Ellen Watkins (1825-1911)

A transcription of Harper’s address, “Speech of Miss Watkins,” was published in the National Anti-Slavery Standard, volume 18, number 1, on May 23, 1857. The Library of Congress (LOC) has a digitized transcript of the speech (=A) and also provides the same address on physical microfilm, reel number 3335.

Another version of this speech (=B) is available through the New York Public Library’s (NYPL) collection, “Slavery and Anti-Slavery: A Transnational Archive.” Copy-text =B was used to fill in two lines in paragraph two that were indiscernible in copy-text =A.

Other versions of this speech exist, sometimes published under an alternate title, “Liberty for Slaves.” The National Anti-Slavery Standard version, copy-text =A, was published ten days after Harper’s address was delivered. Both copy-text =A and =B end with, “We have not attempted to give a full report of Miss Watkins’s speech” in brackets. Even with this note, the speech text we provide appears to be the most complete version available.

Paragraph structure, spelling, italics, capitalization, and punctation of the speech text have been retained from copy-text =A. Parenthetical mentions of “applause” were removed. Paragraph numbers were added in brackets.

We corrected two instances where a clear typographical error occurred for clarity and ease of reading. The number corresponds to the paragraph where the error occurred:

4: “Bnt from Boston harbour” became “But from Boston harbour”

6: “minion’s” became “minions”

The speech text has been thoroughly checked and proofread for accuracy.