The Emancipator, a newspaper published and funded by Quaker Elihu EMBREE, began circulation on April 30, 1820, from Jonesborough, Tennessee. The newspaper was printed in Jacob HOWARD’s print shop located on the corner of Main Street and First Avenue. The Emancipator was the first periodical dedicated exclusively to the cause of abolitionism. The newspaper had seven editions, over 2,000 subscribers, and readership extending to Boston and Philadelphia.

Raised in the Quaker faith in Virginia and then in Washington County, Tennessee, Elihu EMBREE spent his teenage years in a stone house his father, Thomas EMBREE, built for the family in Telford, Tennessee. In 1808, Elihu EMBREE married widowed Elizabeth WORLEY CARRIGER in Carter County, Tennessee. Elizabeth owned several enslaved people from her first marriage. Once Elihu and Elizabeth were married, her property became his property, and EMBREE became an enslaver, too. By 1817, Embree supported the cause of abolitionism and became the secretary of the local Manumission Society, which had over 474 members and 16 chapters in Tennessee. Embree expressed his shortcomings in the August 1820 edition of The Emancipator. He printed a letter from one of his readers addressing rumors that the founder of the abolitionist newspaper “owned a number of slaves.” In response, Embree acknowledged the truth of the rumors... “To my shame, I have owned slaves.” Despite these shortcomings, his paper helped influence and champion the cause of abolitionism.

Elihu EMBREE passed away in December 1820, and at the time of his passing he owned slaves. However, Embree was not their sole owner—they were tied up as collateral in a loan with his wife's family, a detail mentioned in his will. His will manumitted his enslaved woman Nancy and her five children.