Stowe and Mrs. Mott had taken up the work for the
bondman, two other remarkable women had become interested in his
cause. Their history has some features that the most accomplished
novel-writer could not improve upon. They were sisters, known as the
Grimke sisters, Sarah and Angelina, the latter becoming the wife of
Theodore W. Weld, a noted Abolition lecturer. They were daughters of a
Judge of the Supreme Court of South Carolina, their early home being
in Charleston.
The family was of the highest pretension, being related to the Rhetts,
the Barnwells, the Pickenses, and other famous representatives of the
Palmetto aristocracy. It was wealthy, and of course had many slaves.
The girls had their colored attendants, whose only service was to wait
upon them and do their bidding. That circumstance finally led to
trouble.
At that time there was a statute in South Carolina against teaching
slaves to read and write. The penalties were fine and imprisonment.
The Grimke girls, however, had little respect for or fear of that
law. The story of their offending is told by Sarah.
Her attendant, when she was little more than a child, was a colored
girl of about the same age.
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