The ''Manumission Intelligencier'' was an

abolitionist Abolitionism, or the abolitionist movement, is the movement to end slavery. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism was a historic movement that sought to end the Atlantic slave trade and liberate the enslaved people. The British ...

newspaper founded by Elihu Embree, a Quaker, in 1819. It was later renamed ''The Emancipator''. In 1819, after securing the approval and cooperation of the Manumission Society of Tennessee, of which he was an active member, Embree began the publication of a weekly anti-slavery paper at

Jonesborough, Tennessee Jonesborough (historically also Jonesboro) is a town in, and the county seat of, Washington County, Tennessee, in the Southeastern United States. Its population was 5,860 as of 2020. It is "Tennessee's oldest town". Jonesborough is part of the ...

, under the name of the ''Manumission Intelligencier'', the first issue of which appeared in March. Very little is known concerning this paper. Of the fifty or more issues that were published, less than a dozen copies are known to have survived to the twentieth century. In April 1820, the paper switched from a weekly to a monthly format and changed its name to ''The Emancipator'', though it remained under the same editorship. The object of the paper as set forth in an address to the general public in the first issue was to "advocate the abolition of slavery, and to be a repository of tracts on that interesting and important subject." In the paper, slavery and slaveholders were condemned in the strongest terms, and the evils of the system of slavery were forcefully pointed out. Despite being an outspoken abolition paper published in a

slave state In the United States before 1865, a slave state was a state in which slavery and the internal or domestic slave trade were legal, while a free state was one in which they were not. Between 1812 and 1850, it was considered by the slave states ...

, ''The Emancipator'' achieved remarkable popularity. At the time of Embree's early death it could boast of 2,000 paying subscribers, which was probably as large as that of any newspaper in either Tennessee or Kentucky. This was likely due to the strong anti-slavery sentiment that prevailed in East Tennessee at the time. On the other hand, the paper also encountered considerable opposition, both from those who supported slavery and those who condemned anti-slavery agitation. ''The Emancipator'' had an existence of only eight months due to the death of Embree, aged 38, on December 4, 1820,Martin dates Embree's death to December 12, 1820, although other sources give December 4. from "

bilious fever Bilious fever was a medical diagnosis of fever associated with excessive bile or bilirubin in the blood stream and tissues, causing jaundice (a yellow color in the skin or sclera of the eye). The most common cause was malaria. Viral hepatitis and b ...

". A full collection of the journal, comprising one hundred and twelve pages, was reprinted in 1932 by B. H. Murphy. The holdings of the paper were sold to another Quaker,

Benjamin Lundy Benjamin Lundy (January 4, 1789August 22, 1839) was an American Quaker abolitionist from New Jersey of the United States who established several anti-slavery newspapers and traveled widely. He lectured and published seeking to limit slavery's expa ...

, and the publication was renamed ''The

Genius of Universal Emancipation The ''Genius of Universal Emancipation'' was an abolitionist newspaper founded by Benjamin Lundy in 1821, in Mount Pleasant, Ohio. History The newspaper was originally Elihu Embree's '' The Emancipator'' in 1820, before Lundy purchased it t ...

''.

Extant holdings, reprints, and digital facsimiles

* ''The Emancipator'' (

, 1820) ** Available free online
Vol. 1 no. 1 — Vol. 1 no. 7
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* Vaughn, Stephen L. (editor) ''Encyclopedia of American Journalism'' (Routledge, 2009) p. 4 Abolitionist newspapers published in the United States Publications established in 1819 1819 establishments in the United States {{Tennessee-newspaper-stub

Extant holdings, reprints, and digital facsimiles

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