DOCSLIB.ORG

Wilkes-Barre's Fugitive Slave Case of 1853

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Wilkes-Barre's Fugitive Slave Case of 1853 “In Immortal Splendor” WILKES-BARRE’S FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE OF 1853 William C. Kashatus n Saturday morning, September 3, 1853, U.S. Federal Marshal George Wynkoop of Philadelphia and two deputies, John Jen- O kins and James Crossen, sat down to breakfast in the dining room of the Phoenix Hotel on River Street in the Luzerne County seat of Wilkes-Barre. At the far end of the room was a handsome, powerfully built mulatto named Bill (or, according to various newspaper accounts, known as Britt or Bitt), who was busily clearing dishes from a table. Sud- denly, the three federal agents sprang from their chairs and rushed to- ward him. One of the officers seized Bill by the waist and threw him to the floor, certain that he was none other than the fugitive William Thomas, a runaway slave. When he scrambled to his feet, Thomas was brandishing a fork in one hand and a carving knife in the other in a frantic attempt to defend himself. LUZERNE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY 24 PENNSYLVANIA HERITAGE Spring 2008 www.paheritage.org WILKES-BARRE’S FUGITIVE SLAVE CASE OF 1853 CINCINNATI ART MUSEUM “Why don’t you shoot him?” News of the standoff spread rapidly someone cried out. and a large crowd of spectators gath- Wilkes-Barre’s Phoenix Hotel in 1895 (facing page), where the fugitive slave case began a “We don’t want a dead Negro,” ered along the Susquehanna. Many of little more than forty years earlier. Charles T. shouted another. the community’s black residents came Webber dramatically captured the struggle of Jenkins managed to wrest the knife to see if they could assist the fugitive. freedom in his 1893 painting, The Underground from the panic-stricken fugitive as the “Drown yourself, Bill, drown Railroad (above). Although Webber portrayed others delivered blow after blow to his yourself,” shouted Rex, a black barber. runaway slaves in Indiana, similar scenes body. In an attempt to handcuff the “Don’t let them take you!” occurred in Pennsylvania. fugitive, Wynkoop was able to only The agents began shooting their shackle his prey’s right wrist. Desperate revolvers into the air to intimidate to escape, Thomas swung the unfas- Thomas, but some of the white own escape down River Street. The New tened shackle wildly through the air residents who had gathered pleaded, York Tribune reported that Thomas like a pin-wheel. He struck Crossen on “Don’t hurt him!” With his head waded some distance upriver and was the head, inflicting a deep gash on the covered in blood from a wound from found face down in a cornfield by deputy’s temple, stun- an apparent bullet graze several women who carried him to ning him momentarily. and water up to his neck, safety and tended to his wounds. Wynkoop and Jenkins “You can others reportedly scolded Thomas vowed afterwards that he would flung themselves at the officers. “Shame!” have died contented and taken two or Thomas in a futile shoot me, they shouted. three pursuers with him rather than attempt to restrain The sympa- submit to slavery again. him, but he was too but you can’t thies of the William Thomas eventually found strong. He pried growing crowd, refuge in Canada. The federal officers himself loose and made a both white and were arrested for “inciting a riot,” but wild run for the nearby take me!” black, were with their prosecution was overturned by a Susquehanna River. Thomas. As he began to make his way federal circuit court that rejected the Bloodstained, his clothing in around a bridge abutment and along prosecution’s claim of state sovereignty. tatters, and with the officers doggedly the shoreline above Union Street, the Known as the Wilkes-Barre Fugitive chasing him, Thomas ran into the crowd hampered the efforts of the Slave Case, or Maxwell v. Righter et al., river. Standing on the river bank, the federal officers to pursue him any U.S. Supreme Court (1853), the incident federal officers brandished their farther. Even Wilkes-Barre’s sheriff reflected the growing ambivalence of revolvers and ordered Thomas to come refused to give them any assistance. A northeastern Pennsylvania’s Wyoming out of the water, or they would shoot. group of black men seeking vengeance Valley towards slavery and created a “You can shoot me,” Thomas yelled, set upon the agents, who scurried to national controversy in the enforcement “but you can’t take me!” their carriage and barely made their of the federal fugitive slave law. www.phmc.state.pa.us PENNSYLVANIA HERITAGE Spring 2008 25 by a U. S. federal marshal, magistrates were compelled to return the slave to bondage. The Thomas case was not the first Even though undam- challenge to the fugitive slave law. On aged during the September 11, 1851, at Christiana, in 1851 Christiana Lancaster County, a bloody gun battle Riots, during the fol- erupted between a band of free blacks, lowing half century, who were harboring three fugitives, the abandoned Wil- and Edward Gorsuch, a Baltimore liam Parker farm- slaveholder, and his posse. Gorsuch was house collapsed into rubble. The bitter- killed and the fugitives fled to Canada, ness lasted longer. along with William Parker, a free black who was protecting them. The incident MOORES MEMORIAL LIBRARY/CHRISTIANA RESISTANCE COLLECTION heightened the resolve of antislavery Regional agreements among free abolition law. However, there was one groups to fight the law and emboldened colonies requiring the return of fugitive victory for abolitionists. The court ruled Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), the slaves date to as early as 1643. Article 4, that state magistrates could participate famous African American newspaper Section 2, of the U. S. Constitution of in the return of slaves, “unless prohib- editor and abolitionist. A former 1787 provides, “No person held to ited by state legislation.” The phrase fugitive, Douglass had been committed Service or Labour in one State . “unless prohibited” meant that, despite to a peaceful resolution of the slavery escaping into another, shall . be Southern objections, Pennsylvania’s law issue, but he argued the “rightfulness of discharged from such Service or Labour, prohibiting state and local officials from forcible resistance.” Urging free blacks But shall be delivered upon Claim of assisting in the recovery of slaves was to arm themselves, Douglass insisted the Party to whom such Service or left standing. that the “only way to make the Fugitive Labour may be due.” While Article 4 Thomas had escaped from slavery in Slave Law a dead letter is to make a half does not mention the word slave, the late 1840s, setting his sights on dozen or more dead kidnappers.” Southern slave states assumed it was Pennsylvania. The exact date or the Antebellum Wilkes-Barre was implied. The first federal legislation means by which he escaped remains divided over the issue of slavery. Of the specifically addressing fugitive slaves unknown. Since 1780, when the state community’s 2,723 residents, only 121 was enacted in 1793, prompted by legislature passed the Pennsylvania Act were blacks. Many were lured by the Pennsylvania’s attempt to extradite for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, opportunity for employment in the three men from Virginia who kid- the Keystone state’s southern border— anthracite mining industry or on napped a runaway slave in Pennsylva- the Mason-Dixon Line—was the nearby farms. In 1848, free blacks nia named John Davis and returned boundary between the free states of the established the Bethel African Method- him to Virginia. Pennsylvania, like North and the slave states of the South. ist Episcopal (A.M.E.) Church in other free states, strongly opposed Word quickly spread that Pennsylvania Wilkes-Barre. Like other A.M.E. federal legislation that voided personal offered sanctuary for fugitive slaves. churches throughout the North, the liberty laws. Thomas’s owner, Isham Keith of church formed a close-knit network Another key decision by the U. S. Fauquier County, Virginia, would not Supreme Court, Prigg v. Pennsylvania be denied his property. Assuming that (1841), amounted to a setback for the Thomas had fled to Pennsylvania, antislavery movement. In 1832, Marga- Keith hired an agent to find Thomas ret Morgan escaped from John Ashmore, and took out a warrant for his arrest. a Maryland slaveholder, and was living After Congress passed the Fugitive in York County. In 1837, Edward Prigg, Slave Act in 1850 as a compromise with a slave catcher hired by Ashmore’s heirs, the South, all citizens, both in the kidnapped Morgan and her children, North and the South, were required to including one born in Pennsylvania. assist in the enforcement of the act, or The heirs intended to sell them at be “subject to a fine not exceeding one- auction. Pennsylvania authorities thousand dollars, and imprisonment arrested Prigg and three accomplices. In not exceeding six months.” In addition, 1839, Prigg was convicted by the Court the act did not require a jury trial, of Quarter Sessions of York County eliminating the possibility of sympa- under Pennsylvania’s 1826 law prohibit- thetic treatment for the alleged fugitive. ing the abduction and transport of slaves Instead, cases were heard by local found in the Commonwealth. The U. S. magistrates, who were obliged by federal Supreme Court overturned the convic- law to review the warrant of arrest and tion, negating the 1826 law, and de- papers detailing proof of ownership. If LIBRARY OF CONGRESS clared unconstitutional a 1788 amend- those papers were in order and the slave Abolitionist Frederick Douglass. ment to Pennsylvania’s 1780 gradual owner, or his agent, was accompanied 26 PENNSYLVANIA HERITAGE Spring 2008 www.paheritage.org WWW.SONSOFTHESOUTH.NET/COURTESY PAUL MCWHORTER with fugitive slaves and became the In 1821, the family moved to Wilkes- Some slavery proponents claimed plantation center of Underground Railroad Barre where the elder Gildersleeve slaves lived contented lives, but the truth activity in the Wyoming Valley.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Underground Railroad Free Press, January 2012
    ® Underground Railroad Free Press Independent reporting on today’s Underground Railroad January, 2012 urrfreepress.com Volume 7, Issue 34 McGill Slave Cabin Overnight Stays Propel Restoration As one travels through the countryside of the difference vividly are the stark dissimilarities urrFreePress.com South, the dwindling number of plantations between a plantation's "big house" and its remaining from a time gone by now more slave cabins if the latter still exist at all. strongly beckon tourists, writers, archeolo- gists and the curious for the hidden stories Editorial they tell. Generations of African-Americans International Underground found these places unpleasant and seldom Railroad a Modern Necessity visited but now that is changing with a rising The Underground Railroad and age group far enough removed from slavery, Civil War ended most but not all Jim Crow and segregation to be increasingly slavery in the United States. An inquisitive about the actual locales where estimated 27 million people live American slavery was concentrated. in slavery today, 40,000 of them As old plantations become more open to the in the United States, mainly in public, visitors see first hand the contrast be- agriculture , sweatshops and pro- tween enslaver and enslaved. Portraying the Please see McGill, page 3, column 1 stitution. This modern horror has prison New Underground Railroad Museum Draws Thousands slaves in China producing goods By Peter Slocum, North Country Underground which feature stories of runaways who es- at zero labor cost for world mar- Railroad Historical Association caped to Canada on the Champlain Line of kets, Saharan children "bonded" the Underground Railroad.
    [Show full text]
  • African American Literature in Transition, 1850–1865
    Cambridge University Press 978-1-108-42748-7 — African American Literature in Transition Edited by Teresa Zackodnik Frontmatter More Information AFRICAN AMERICAN LITERATURE IN TRANSITION, – The period of – consists of violent struggle and crisis as the United States underwent the prodigious transition from slaveholding to ostensibly “free” nation. This volume reframes mid-century African American literature and challenges our current understand- ings of both African American and American literature. It presents a fluid tradition that includes history, science, politics, economics, space and movement, the visual, and the sonic. Black writing was highly conscious of transnational and international politics, textual circulation, and revolutionary imaginaries. Chapters explore how Black literature was being produced and circulated; how and why it marked its relation to other literary and expressive traditions; what geopolitical imaginaries it facilitated through representation; and what technologies, including print, enabled African Americans to pursue such a complex and ongoing aesthetic and political project. is a Professor in the English and Film Studies Department at the University of Alberta, where she teaches critical race theory, African American literature and theory, and historical Black feminisms. Her books include The Mulatta and the Politics of Race (); Press, Platform, Pulpit: Black Feminisms in the Era of Reform (); the six-volume edition African American Feminisms – in the Routledge History of Feminisms series (); and “We Must be Up and Doing”: A Reader in Early African American Feminisms (). She is a member of the UK-based international research network Black Female Intellectuals in the Historical and Contemporary Context, and is completing a book on early Black feminist use of media and its forms.
    [Show full text]
  • The Underground Railroad in Tennessee to 1865
    The State of State History in Tennessee in 2008 The Underground Railroad in Tennesseee to 1865 A Report By State Historian Walter T. Durham The State of State History in Tennessee in 2008 The Underground Railroad in Tennessee to 1865 A Report by State Historian Walter T. Durham Tennessee State Library and Archives Department of State Nashville, Tennessee 37243 Jeanne D. Sugg State Librarian and Archivist Department of State, Authorization No. 305294, 2000 copies November 2008. This public document was promulgated at a cost of $1.77 per copy. Preface and Acknowledgments In 2004 and again in 2006, I published studies called The State of State History in Tennessee. The works surveyed the organizations and activities that preserve and interpret Tennessee history and bring it to a diverse public. This year I deviate by making a study of the Under- ground Railroad in Tennessee and bringing it into the State of State History series. No prior statewide study of this re- markable phenomenon has been produced, a situation now remedied. During the early nineteenth century, the number of slaves escaping the South to fi nd freedom in the northern states slowly increased. The escape methodologies and ex- perience, repeated over and over again, became known as the Underground Railroad. In the period immediately after the Civil War a plethora of books and articles appeared dealing with the Underground Railroad. Largely written by or for white men, the accounts contained recollections of the roles they played in assisting slaves make their escapes. There was understandable exag- geration because most of them had been prewar abolitionists who wanted it known that they had contributed much to the successful fl ights of a number of slaves, oft times at great danger to themselves.
    [Show full text]
  • Final Dissertation
    SSStttooonnnyyy BBBrrrooooookkk UUUnnniiivvveeerrrsssiiitttyyy The official electronic file of this thesis or dissertation is maintained by the University Libraries on behalf of The Graduate School at Stony Brook University. ©©© AAAllllll RRRiiiggghhhtttsss RRReeessseeerrrvvveeeddd bbbyyy AAAuuuttthhhooorrr... From the Plantation Zone: The Poetics of a Black Matrilineal Genealogy for the Americas A Dissertation Presented by Eileen S. Chanza Torres to The Graduate School in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in English Department (Transamerican Studies) Stony Brook University May 2013 Copyright by Eileen S. Chanza Torres 2013 Stony Brook University The Graduate School Eileen S. Chanza Torres We, the dissertation committee for the above candidate for the Doctor of Philosophy degree, hereby recommend acceptance of this dissertation. Susan Scheckel – Dissertation Advisor Associate Professor, English Department E. Anthony Hurley – Dissertation Advisor Chair, Africana Studies Department Helen M. Cooper – Chairperson of Defense Emerita Professor, English Department Dawn P. Harris – Outside Reader Assistant Professor, Africana Studies Department This dissertation is accepted by the Graduate School Charles Taber Interim Dean of the Graduate School ii Abstract of the Dissertation From the Plantation Zone: The Poetics of a Black Matrilineal Genealogy for the Americas by Eileen S. Chanza Torres Doctor of Philosophy in English (Transamerican Studies) Stony Brook University 2013 In the Humanities, studies on the legacy of enslaved Black women are often split along ethnic, cultural, linguistic and national lines. My dissertation brings together literatures and visual arts from Puerto Rico, Martinique, Suriname, the Dominican Republic and the U.S. representing a myriad of linguistic and cultural traditions that turn to the legacy of the historical Black female body as their myth of creation.
    [Show full text]
  • Afua Cooper, "Ever True to the Cause of Freedom – Henry Bibb
    Ever True to the Cause of Freedom Henry Bibb: Abolitionist and Black Freedom’s Champion, 1814-1854 Afua Cooper Black abolitionists in North America, through their activism, had a two-fold objective: end American slavery and eradicate racial prejudice, and in so doing promote race uplift and Black progress. To achieve their aims, they engaged in a host of pursuits that included lecturing, fund-raising, newspaper publishing, writing slave narratives, engaging in Underground Railroad activities, and convincing the uninitiated to do their part for the antislavery movement. A host of Black abolitionists, many of whom had substantial organizational experience in the United States, moved to Canada in the three decades stretching from 1830 to 1860. Among these were such activists as Henry Bibb, Mary Bibb, Martin Delany, Theodore Holly, Josiah Henson, Mary Ann Shadd, Samuel Ringgold Ward, J.C. Brown and Amelia Freeman. Some like Henry Bibb were escaped fugitive slaves, others like J.C. Brown had bought themselves out of slavery. Some like Amelia Freeman and Theodore Holly were free-born Blacks. None has had a more tragic past however than Henry Bibb. Yet he would come to be one of the 19th century’s foremost abolitionists. At the peak of his career, Bibb migrated to Canada and made what was perhaps his greatest contribution to the antislavery movement: the establishment of the Black press in Canada. This discussion will explore Bibb’s many contributions to the Black freedom movement but will provide a special focus on his work as a newspaper founder and publisher. Henry Bibb was born in slavery in Kentucky around 1814.1 Like so many other African American slaves, Bibb’s parentage was biracial.
    [Show full text]
  • Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas
    University of Louisville ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository Faculty Scholarship 2-2020 Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas Tyler D. Parry University of Nevada, Las Vegas Charlton W. Yingling University of Louisville, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.library.louisville.edu/faculty Part of the History Commons Original Publication Information Parry, Tyler D. and Charlton W. Yingling. "Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas." 2020 Past & Present 246: 69-108. https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtz020 ThinkIR Citation Parry, Tyler D. and Yingling, Charlton W., "Slave Hounds and Abolition in the Americas" (2020). Faculty Scholarship. 441. https://ir.library.louisville.edu/faculty/441 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. It has been accepted for inclusion in Faculty Scholarship by an authorized administrator of ThinkIR: The University of Louisville's Institutional Repository. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/past/article-abstract/246/1/69/5722095 by University of Louisville user on 19 March 2020 SLAVE HOUNDS AND ABOLITION IN THE AMERICAS* I INTRODUCTION In 1824 an anonymous Scotsman travelled through Jamaica to survey the island’s sugar plantations and social conditions. Notably, his journal describes an encounter with a formidable dog and its astonishing interaction with the enslaved. The traveller’s host, a Mr McJames, made ‘him a present of a fine bloodhound’ descended from a breed used for ‘hunting Maroons’ during Jamaica’s Second Maroon War almost three decades earlier.1 The maroons had surrendered to the British partly out of terror of these dogs, a Cuban breed that officials were promoting for use in Jamaica on account of their effectiveness in quelling black resistance.2 Unfamiliar with the breed, the traveller observed its ‘astounding ...aversion ...to the slaves’.
    [Show full text]
  • The Fugitive Slave Act Resources
    Essential Civil War Curriculum | H. Robert Baker, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 | September 2015 The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 By H. Robert Baker, Georgia State University Resources If you can read only one book Author Title. City: Publisher, Year. Lubet, Steven Fugitive Justice: Runaways, Rescuers, and Slavery on Trial. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2010. Books and Articles Author Title. City: Publisher, Year. Baker, H. Robert The Rescue of Joshua Glover: A Fugitive Slave, the Constitution, and the Coming of the Civil War. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2006, 26-57. ———. Prigg v. Pennsylvania: Slavery, the Supreme Court, and the Ambivalent Constitution. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2012. Brandt, Nat The Town That Started the Civil War. Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1990. Campbell, Stanley The Slave-Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1970. Finkelman, Paul An Imperfect Union: Slavery, Federalism, and Comity. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980, 236-84. Fehrenbacher, Don The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government’s Relations to Slavery. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001, 205-52. Essential Civil War Curriculum | Copyright 2015 Virginia Center for Civil War Studies at Virginia Tech Page 1 of 4 Essential Civil War Curriculum | H. Robert Baker, The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 | September 2015 Foner, Eric Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad. New York: W. W. Norton, 2015. Harrold, Stanley Border War: Fighting Over Slavery Before the Civil War. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2010.
    [Show full text]
  • The Cultural Heritage Element a Strategy for Preserving Our Sense of Place April 2006
    Heritage The Cultural Heritage Element A Strategy for Preserving Our Sense of Place April 2006 envision The Comprehensive Plan for Lancaster County, Pennsylvania Lancaster County Table of Contents Introduction Key Message . 3 Our Challenge . 3 Purpose of This Plan . 4 Heritage: An Element of the Lancaster County Comprehensive Plan . 5 Need for the Plan . 7 Approach . 7 Contents of This Plan . 7 Goals, Objectives, and Strategies . 8 Existing Conditions Historical and Cultural Overview of Lancaster County . 13 Native American / American Indian Settlement . 13 Penn’s Woods and the Establishment of Lancaster County . 16 Settlement Patterns . 18 Religious Traditions in 18th-Century Lancaster County . 19 18th-Century Built Environment . 27 Agriculture in the 18th Century . 27 18th-Century Industries . 27 Revolutionary War and Early Republic . 28 Development of Free African Communities . 29Growing Transportation Network 30 of Contents Table Arts and Education in the 18th and 19th Centuries . 33 Slavery, the Civil War, and the Underground Railroad . 34 Agriculture in the 19th and 20th Centuries . 38 Manufacturing in the Late 19th and Early 20th Centuries . 39 Arts in the 20th Century . 41 20th Century to Today . 41 Preservation Planning In Lancaster County . 43 Past Efforts . 43 Present Efforts . 50 Preservation Trends . 53 Introduction . 53 Positive Trends . 56 Mixed Results . 61 Negative Trends . 66 Planning Process Guiding Principles . 73 Stakeholder Involvement . 73 Sustainability . 73 Integration of Supporting Studies . 73 Achievable Recommendations . 74 Research and Assessment . 74 Public Involvement Strategy . 75 Lancaster County Cultural Heritage Plan Task Force . 75 Regional Meetings . 76 Public Workshop: There’s No Place Like Home . 76 Public Involvement Findings .
    [Show full text]
  • Researching the Underground Railroad in Delaware
    Researching the Underground Railroad in Delaware A Select Descriptive Bibliography of African American Fugitive Narratives by Peter T. Dalleo Sponsored by The Underground Railroad Coalition of Delaware & The City of Wilmington James M. Baker, Mayor Peter D. Besecker, Director, Department of Planning June 2008 City of Wilmington Louis L. Redding City/County Building 800 N. French Street Wilmington, Delaware 19801 www.WilmingtonDE.gov John W. Tillman served as a Private in Co. C, 127th Regiment, U.S. Colored Infantry. Image courtesy of Delaware Historical Society On the cover: Historic Map Digital Globe: From the Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) ArcGIS Explorer Resource Center. Authored using “The World on Mercator’s Projection” from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. The original map was published in 1812 and drawn by L. Hebert Neele under the direction of John Pinkerton. Acknowledgments Solomon Bayley, Freedom Seeker on the Delmarva Peninsula, 1799 I would like to thank the Underground Railroad Coalition for inspiring me to follow through on some of my research ideas and encouraging me to produce something tangible that others might use; the Camden Historical Society (CHS) for providing a forum at which to present my thoughts about research and sources about Delaware’s Underground Railroad, which led to the development of this booklet; and finally, the City of Wilmington’s Planning Department for its tremendous assistance, without which this booklet would not have been printed. Foremost among the specific individuals to whom I wish to express my gratitude are Debra Campagnari Martin for her dual role as coordinator of both this phase of the Underground Railroad Coalition’s undertakings and of the Wilmington’s Planning Department efforts to produce this booklet.
    [Show full text]
  • FREEDOM, OR the MARTYR's GRAVE" Black Pittsburgh's Aid to the Fugitive Slave R
    a FREEDOM, OR THE MARTYR'S GRAVE" Black Pittsburgh's Aid to the Fugitive Slave R. J. M.Blackett When the sun comes back and the first quail calls, Follow the drinkiri gourd, For then the old man is a-waitin' for to carry you to freedom, Ifyou follow the drinkin' gourd FOLLOW THE DRINKIN* GOURD history of antebellum northern black urban communities is Theone of resistance to racial oppression and the development of in- stitutions to cater to the needs of blacks in a rapidly expanding indus- trial economy. Between 1830 and 1860, black communities from Boston to Cincinnati forged, nurtured, and sustained their own insti- tutions in their battle to survive in what, in many instances, were extremely hostile environments. They created their own churches as a protest against segregation in white churches and founded black newspapers to air their views, literary societies to improve skills, temperance and moral reform societies, masonic lodges, and secret societies to protect their communities from outside encroachment. By mid-century, these institutions were well developed through decades of involvement in the Negro Convention, abolitionist and anti- colonization movements, and local efforts to improve the lot of black communities. Just as well that they were, for on September 18, 1850, President Millard Fillmore signed into law the infamous Fugitive Slave Law, which guaranteed to southern slave interests the return of their escaped chattels. Black communities rose to the occasion and with the support of white abolitionists stood four-square against at- tempts to enforce the new law. This article willexamine the efforts employed by the black community in Pittsburgh to aid fugitives and to resist the Fugitive Slave Law.
    [Show full text]
  • The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 and the Christiana Riot of 1851: a Juxtaposition of Two Illuminating Events on Race Relations in Pennsylvania
    The Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793 and the Christiana Riot of 1851: A Juxtaposition of Two Illuminating Events on Race Relations in Pennsylvania William “Wes” Skidmore II Mars Hill College, 2010 Mr. Skidmore plans to attend the University of Delaware this fall for graduate studies in Early American History (Early Republic through the Antebellum Period) where he hopes to one day earn his PhD. Personal fascination with historical studies grew substantially after taking his first history course at Mars Hill College with Dr. Kathy Newfont (Environmental History), in which his “true passion for history” was discovered. Soon after this course, Mr. Skidmore began studying the Early Republic and Antebellum periods in American history, periods for which his interest grew dramatically following experiences with the SHEAR/Mellon Undergraduate Fellowship. The SHEAR/Mellon Undergraduate Fellowship Program, founded in 2005, is dedicated to providing talented, motivated undergraduate scholars the opportunity to pursue original primary source research in some of the finest archival collections relevant to early American history. This fellowship coupled with the Mars Hill History Department, cultivated a true passion for Early American History. In September 1793, a solicitation appeared in the local Philadelphian newspapers calling on African Americans to come forward and assist the “distressed, perishing, and neglected” whites suffering from the yellow fever outbreak in Philadelphia in 1793. Richard Allen and Absalom Jones, two black abolitionists, led the first wave of black “benevolent” workers into the streets of Philadelphia, providing services wherever needed. Allen recalled in his autobiography, “The Lord was pleased to strengthen us, and remove all fear from us, and disposed our hearts to be as useful as possible.1 In offering their services to sick whites, African Americans like Allen and Jones were motivated partially by their belief that they would be seen as “respectable” and accepted as equals in society.
    [Show full text]
  • FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW of 1850 Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia
    THE FUGITIVE SLAVE LAW OF 1850 Wikimedia Commons Wikimedia Senator Henry Clay of Kentucky introducing the Compromise of 1850 in the United States Senate. In 1850, Southerners succeeded in getting a new federal law South to guide about 70 slaves to freedom. “I was free, passed to return fugitive slaves who had escaped to the North. and they should be free,” she said. The U.S. government enforced this law, but some Northern Abolitionists argued that once slaves touched states passed laws to resist it. Sometimes, free blacks and sym- pathetic whites joined to rescue captured fugitive slaves. the soil of a non-slave state, they were free. Some Northern states prohibited county sheriffs from as- The idea of returning fugitive slaves to their own- sisting slave hunters or allowing county jails to hold ers originated at the Constitutional Convention in their captives. 1787. At that time, the Constitution stated: In 1842, the U.S. Supreme Court in Prigg v. No Person held to Service or Labor in one State, Pennsylvania found the Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 under the Laws thereof, escaping into another, constitutional. However, enforcement of the law was shall, in Consequence of any Law of Regulation the responsibility of the federal government, held the therein, be discharged from such Service or Labor, court, not the states. The Supreme Court also decided but shall be delivered up on Claim of the Party to that slave holders had “the complete right and title of whom such Service or Labor may be due. (U.S. ownership in their slaves, as property, in every state Const.
    [Show full text]