Garnet, Henry Highland (gär`nĭt), 1815–82, American abolitionist clergyman, b. Kent co., Md. Born a slave, he escaped in 1824 and was educated at the Oneida Institute, Whitesboro, N.Y. He was an eloquent speaker, but his radicalism, particularly in a speech at Buffalo in 1843, in which he called upon slaves to rise and slay their masters, caused his influence to decline. He was opposed and superseded in leadership by the more moderate Frederick Douglass Douglass, Frederick (dŭg`ləs), c.1817–1895, American abolitionist, b. near Easton, Md.
..... Click the link for more information. . Garnet served as a Presbyterian pastor in Troy, N.Y., in New York City, and in Washington, D.C. In 1881 he was appointed minister to Liberia, but he died two months after his arrival there.

Bibliography

See study by E. Ofari (1972).

Garnet, Henry Highland

(born 1815, New Market, Md., U.S.—died Feb. 13, 1882, Liberia) U.S. clergyman and abolitionist. Born a slave, he escaped in 1824 to New York, where he became a Presbyterian minister. He joined the American Anti-Slavery Society and agitated for emancipation; in a 1843 speech at a national convention of freedmen he called on slaves to revolt and murder their masters. The convention refused to endorse his radicalism, and he gradually turned more toward religion, serving as pastor in a number of Presbyterian pulpits during the next two decades. Late in life he favoured emigration of U.S. blacks to Africa. He was appointed U.S. minister to Liberia in 1881 but died within two months of his arrival in the African nation.