The Provincetown Abolition Society began in November of 1837 as the Anti Slavery Society in Provincetown, Massachusetts, meeting formally, usually once a year in December, until 1842. The name changed in 1839, when the group became an auxiliary of the Massachusetts Abolition Society. Proponents of emancipation, they met in the vestry of the Methodist Meetinghouse “to take into consideration the subject of slavery,” according to the minutes, which are now held in the collection of the Boston Athenaeum. John Adams, President; Ebenezer Atkins, Vice President; and John Atkins, Secretary, drafted the organization’s constitution. Each meeting was opened with a prayer, led by the Methodist Episcopal pastor, who, at the founding of the organization, was Reverend Ira McLeod Bidwell. “Rev. Mack,” as he was known, who served at the Provincetown Methodist Episcopal Church from 1837-1838, and in Wellfleet in 1839, represented a radical element in the national Church organization, as its official position at the time was pro-slavery.
The Society’s constitution established the object of the society as to “petition congress to put an end to the domestic slave trade and abolish slavery in all those portions of our common country.” They later voted to petition congress specifically “to stop traffic in human beings,” and requested “the Ladyes of this town,” in their separate “female Anti Slavery Society” to petition congress as well.
At their meeting held in December of 1838, they voted to take up quarterly collections and to have monthly lectures on subject of slavery. They also established plans for a library to house “Anti Slavery publications” and chose the first librarian, Rufus Conant. When the Society disbanded officially in 1842, some of the members took their anti-slavery activities underground. Nathan Freeman, the Society’s last librarian, later funded the construction of a building to serve as the town’s public library. Society members later became involved in working with Wendell Phillips to help fugitive slaves escape, and Captain Isaac Mayo in 1852 adopted Bernardo, a young fugitive slave, as his son, and took him along on voyages.
Historical Amnesia, Without Remedy, Becomes Cultural Slippage 