Robert Purvis

Robert Purvis
Purvis c.1840-1849
Born	1810 Charleston, South Carolina
Died	April 15, 1898
Nationality	American
Known for	Abolitionist, Underground Railroad
Spouse(s)	Harriet Forten Purvis Tacy Townsend

Robert Purvis (August 4, 1810 – April 15, 1898) was an American abolitionist in the United States. He was born in Charleston, South Carolina, and was educated at Amherst College in Massachusetts, but lived most of his life in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. In 1833 he helped found the American Anti-Slavery Society and the Library Company of Colored People. From 1845–1850 he served as president of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society and also traveled to England to gain support for the movement.

Of mixed race, Purvis and his brothers were three-quarters European by ancestry and inherited considerable wealth from their native English father after his death in 1826. Purvis's parents had lived in common law marriage, preventing them from marrying because his mother was a free woman of color, of Moroccan and Jewish descent (through each parent). The sons chose to identify with the black community and used their education and wealth to support abolition of slavery and anti-slavery activities, as well as projects in education to help the advance of African Americans.

Purvis was born in 1810 in Charleston, South Carolina. His maternal grandparents were Dido Badaraka, a former slave, and Baron Judah, a Jewish American native of Charleston. His mother Harriet Judah was therefore a free woman of color. Purvis's father was an English immigrant. As an adult, Purvis told a reporter about his family: his maternal grandmother Badaraka was kidnapped at age 12 from Morocco, transported to South Carolina on a slave ship, and sold as a slave in Charleston. He described her as a full-blooded Moor, dark-skinned with tightly curled hair. She was freed at age 19 by her master's will. Harriet's father was Baron Judah, born in Charleston of European-Jewish descent. Baron was the third of ten children born to Hillel Judah, a German-Jewish immigrant, and Charleston native Abigail Seixas, his Sephardic Jewish wife.