Timbuctoo pt. 1

Timbuctoo

In the middle of the 19^th century, with war on the horizon, native Adirondack abolitionist Gerrit
Smith used his position as a wealthy landowner to further the black cause. Even as a “free state,” or one that had already abolished slavery, New York was no exception to the discrimination and disenfranchisement that black people faced across the nation. To register to vote in the State, a black man (black men still had a better chance at voting than any women) had to own $250 worth of property. In 1846, the white Gerrit Smith however, gave 120,000 acres to any and all African-Americans that were willing to move up to his land in the Adirondacks in order to secure that historically fragile right of republican representation.

Gerrit Smith’s abolitionist haven, referred to as “Timbuctoo” by the other famous Adirondack abolitionist John Brown, resided in North Elba and largely failed. Smith aimed to give refuge to approximately three thousand migrants, in the hope that the remote land would reach the requisite value of $250. According to the Adirondack Museum’s website though, only thirteen black families made it in North Elba, and sadly the last surviving Timbuctoo migrant passed away in 1942. The Adirondacks are home to a notoriously difficult terrain and climate. The very obstacles and obscurity of the Adirondacks however, gave Smith his greatest inkling of hope. He was a champion of abolition through nonviolence, and he believed that blacks living off of the land in isolation was the ultimate vehicle of nonviolent protest (the proverbial middle finger) to racist New York state policy. It seems fitting that Smith’s audacious dream of freedom and prosperity was housed in the Adirondack Park: the ever-implausible co-existence of industrialized humanity and wilderness.

The failures in material success, however, shouldn’t necessarily affect our remembrance for Timbuctoo; more importantly, stories like Gerrit Smith’s hopefully help to paint the somewhat diluted picture of racism and oppression in the same North that fought to end slavery. Such blatant forms of racism and oppression may seem shocking to the modern (especially Northern) American conscience, but must not be ignored or forgotten.

The portraits at the end of this post [hopefully on pt.2], from the exhibit “Dreaming of Timbuctoo,[1]”  hopefully help to better the understanding of this powerful moment of history that happened right in the Adirondacks.

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/02/19/nyregion/north-elba-journal-recalling-timbuctoo-a-slice-of-black-history.html

http://www.adkmuseum.org/about_us/adirondack_journal/?id=63

http://www.nyfolklore.org/pubs/voic29-1-2/exhibit.html

https://adirondackgives.org/campaigns/give-timbuctoo-exhibit-permanent-home/  

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[1] Amy Godine, member of John Brown Lives and researcher and curator of the exhibit, “Dreaming of Timbuctoo.”