Northern Support for Slavery

On August 21, 1835, a group of prominent Lowellians, including Kirk Boott, agent of the Merrimack Mills and ally of big-money textile interests in Boston, called for a meeting at Lowell’s Town Hall to proclaim anti-abolitionist sentiments. With these actions, Boott and others were expressing their support for their cotton-growing, slave-owning business partners in the southern United States. Enslaved labor and cheap cotton made Lowell's cotton textile industry profitable.

Primary Document