1827: James W. C. Pennington escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad, quickly receiving an education to become a teacher, journalist, activist, writer and evangelical Reformed Christian minister. How did this Black abolitionist with such an extraordinary career almost get lost to time and forgotten about despite his achievements?
Jan Stievermann, a professor focused on the history of Christianity in the United States at the theology and American studies departments at Heidelberg University, gave a talk on his research surrounding Pennington’s life in the University of Connecticut’s Wood Hall basement on Oct. 8.
UConn’s Draper Chair in American History Manisha Sinha gave a brief introduction on Stievermann, saying he studied and wrote a “broad area of topics on religion and literature.” He is an accomplished essayist and author who has won awards such as the Society for U.S. Intellectual History’s Best Book prize.
Stievermann began his talk by calling Pennington “The great African American intellectual and reformer few people have heard of.” Pennington was recognized as a leader in thought and activism talked about in the same breath as fellow Black abolitionist and intellectual Frederick Douglass, according to Stievermann. He said that Pennington’s book “The Fugitive Blacksmith” was the third slavery memoir printed overseas, with the first being Douglass’ narrative. Ultimately, Stievermann said that Pennington’s life and legacy was “largely eclipsed” by other Black abolitionists at the time.
As little information is in public consciousness about Pennington, Christopher L. Webber’s book on him, “American to the Backbone,” helped start a dialogue about Pennington. Steivermann noted the book was “not as organized as it should be, but we can build upon [it].”
This led to Stievermann getting books such as “The Fugitive Blacksmith and Other Essential Writings” about Pennington published this coming November. However, due to the Oxford University Press’ word count, Stievermann said he had to eliminate some sources.
Stievermann then began retelling the chronology of Pennington’s life. He was more likely to be born in 1808 rather than 1807 to Bazil and Nelly Pembroke into slavery on Rockland Plantation in eastern Maryland. In October 1827, he fled to freedom.
Stievermann would later note that, in his memoir, Pennington focused on his family a lot and struggled with the guilt of knowing that his family was tortured by their enslaver since he escaped. Frisby Tilghman, Pennington’s enslaver, would later put an ad in the local newspaper to enslave him again and they would both be in letter communication.
Pennington educated himself in 1828, Stievermann saying he “becomes a very eloquent speaker.” He then converted to evangelical Reformed Christianity in 1829 and started teaching at schools a decade later. “He would be a teacher all his life,” Stievermann said, primarily teaching at African schools and evening schools while also being a minister in Hartford, Conn. Pennington used the majority of his $200 per year from preaching for children’s school supplies.
“He writes about education a lot,” Steivermann said. This was despite how, at Yale University, Pennington was forced to sit outside the classroom and was banned from borrowing books simply due to the color of his skin.
As a writer alone, Pennington made significant contributions to race history, whether through his essays or journalism in the northern free Black press. Furthermore, Pennington was a part of the Colored Conventions Movement.
“It was a series [that] provided an organizational structure where Black men could pursue abolitionist rights and suffrage,” Stievermann said. Pennington defied “stereotypes of Black people not having any history to draw from nor any excellence to strive to[wards]” in his work, according to Stievermann.
Despite these politics being progressive so far, Pennington did not support women’s rights as well as the Protestant movement, Steivermann said. Pennington was an ardent abolitionist but also a conservative evangelical to Stievermann.
Pennington toured Europe in 1843 and went abroad for two years to evade capture. To circumvent this, some abolitionist women bought Pennington’s freedom for $150. He then moved from Hartford to New York City in 1848 and became the appointed pastor of Prince Street Church.
Pennington was once a peace activist who wanted to make war no longer viable as a political tactic.
“His commitment to the peace cause became more and more complicated,” Stievermann said. He eventually saw certain forms of resistance and violence as necessary and good. As an example, Pennington wrote an article in support of the radical abolitionist John Brown after he was captured for rallying a group of abolitionists to raid an arms factory and kill those who were pro-slavery.
“Why did Pennington’s career decline? And why was he forgotten?” Stievermann asked the audience.
Garrisonians, or more radical abolitionists who wanted liberation for the enslaved without enslaver compensation, criticized how Pennington let enslavers attend service at the Presbyterian church he preached at. Others spread rumors about Pennington’s life, and he received ridicule from many people for various reasons. For example, people thought he had extramarital affairs or that he drank a lot. Stievermann said that these rumors were likely false.
“Pennington became a victim of what would be called a smear campaign,” Steivermann said.
Pennington was then blackmailed by an enslaver for his nephews’ freedom. One of his nephews, Stephen, had a manumission price of $1375, which is $52,880 in 2025, and Pennington failed to liberate them.
“In the late 1850s, he was deep in debt,” Stievermann continued. He became bedridden for weeks, likely due to declining mental health or a breakdown of some sort. He no longer preached and “struggled with poverty and broken health for the rest of his life” according to Stievermann.
Pennington died on Oct. 22, 1870 in Jacksonville, Florida.
“When he died, he was alone. His wife had already died,” Stievermann said.
When asked on the religious or spiritual cosmology of enslaved people, Stievermann said “His first real experience with Christianity was with the Quakers in the Underground Railroad. Many enslaved people found comfort in the justice that Christianity implies as well as a sense of autonomy according to him, saying that they believed ‘God is the author of all of history.’”
When asked what being poor meant in the 1800s, Stievermann said that class plays into respectability and to lose that wealth means to lose that respectability. When asked about Harriet Pennington, James Pennington’s wife, he said that all that we know about either of his wives is their names due to how Pennington wrote them down without saying more about them.