page_title: Free-produce movement
section_title: African Americans
hierarchical_section_title: Free-produce movement / 1800s / African Americans
caption_attribution_description: English: Mrs. F. E. W. Harper, Author and Lecturer, Philadelphia, Pa
context_page_description: The free-produce movement was an international boycott of goods produced by slave labor. It was used by the abolitionist movement as a non-violent way for individuals, including the disenfranchised, to fight slavery.
  In this context, free signifies "not enslaved". It does not mean "without cost". Similarly, "produce" does not mean just fruits and vegetables, but a wide variety of products made by slaves, including clothing, dry goods, shoes, soaps, ice cream, and candy.
context_section_description: In 1830, African-American men formed the "Colored Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania", subsequently, African-American women formed the "Colored Female Free Produce Society of Pennsylvania" in 1831. Some black businesses began to feature free produce; William Whipper opened a free grocery next to Bethel Church in Philadelphia, and in the same city, a Negro confectioner used nothing but sugar from free will labor sources, and received the order for Angelina Grimké's wedding cake. In New York, a supportive article in Freedom's Journal calculated for its readers that, given typical free Negro consumption of sugar, if 25 black people purchased sugar from slaveholders, then one slave was required to sustain the flow. New York City's small population of African Americans was said to require for their sugar the labor of 50 slaves.
  Resolutions in favor of free produce were passed at each of the first five conventions held by African Americans in the 1830s. Henry Highland Garnet preached in New York about the possibility that free produce could strike a blow against slavery. Black abolitionist Frances Ellen Watkins always mentioned the free-produce movement in her speeches, saying she would pay a little more for a "Free Labor" dress, even if it were coarser. Watkins called the movement "the harbinger of hope, the ensign of progress, and a means for proving the consistency of our principles and the earnestness of our zeal."
caption: Frances Ellen Watkins Harper supported the free-produce movement, regularly saying she would pay more for a "Free Labor" dress
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