Biography

Mentioned in FMS 1835 diary, but content of the letter she wrote is unknown.

Born a free Black in Connecticut. He moved to New York City in 1827 after New York State abolished slavery. He worked as a mariner before opening a grocery store, which he later turned into the first black bookshop in the US. He became involved in the city’s abolitionist movement, writing hundreds of antislavery editorials, letters and pamphlets advocating “practical abolitionism,” which included civil disobedience and self-defense. He operated the first black-owned printing press and published many of his views in his magazine Mirror of Liberty, the first periodical published by an African American. His home also became a stop on the Underground Railroad and he estimated between 400-600 slaves or more passed through his home, including Frederick Douglass. Ruggles was also a founding member of the Garrison Literary and Benevolent Association of New York, a group that helped educate the city‘s young Black men. He organized and was the secretary of the New York Committee of Vigilance, a radical organization that told enslaved Africans brought to New York by Southern masters about state laws declaring them emancipated after nine months of residence. Because of his prominent position as an abolitionist, he was physically assaulted many times and his business was burned down. There were also at least two attempts to kidnap him and sell him into slavery.  The stress and beatings took a strong toll on Ruggles; he was nearly blind and suffered from severe intestinal disorders. In 1842 he moved to Massachusetts, where he continued to assist in the abolitionist movement until his death.