Serious Doubts on the Slavery Question

After his return to Kentucky, Ben Major becomes deeply involved in the nascent Christian Church (Disciples of Christ); its founders, Alexander Campbell and Barton W. Stone, stridently oppose slavery. Ben had long harbored doubts about slavery. Now, driven by his new faith and memories of the brutal New Orleans slave markets, he decides to free his enslaved people. He becomes a life member of the American Colonization Society but learns that emancipation is not a simple process. Ben creates a multi-year plan that includes teaching his slaves to read and write. He also makes plans to move his own family from the slave state of Kentucky to the free state of Illinois and purchases land in Tazewell County, Illinois. When a colonization society agent, G. W. McElroy, travels through southwestern Kentucky, Ben’s slaves are turned over to him for transport to New York.