The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America As runaway slaves fled from the South to escape bondage, slave catchers followed in their wake. The arrival of fugitives and slave catchers in the North set off violent confrontations that left participants and local residents enraged and embittered. Historian Robert H. Churchill places the Underground Railroad in the context of a geography of violence, a shifting landscape in which clashing norms of violence shaped the activities of slave catchers and the fugitives and abolitionists who defied them. Churchill maps four distinct cultures of violence: one that prevailed in the South and three more in separate regions of the North: the Borderland, the Contested Region, and the Free Soil Region. Slave catchers who followed fugitives into the North brought with them a Southern culture of violence that sanctioned white brutality as a means of enforcing racial hierarchy and upholding masculine honor, but their arrival triggered vastly different violent reactions in the three regions of the North. Underground activists adapted their operations to these distinct cultures of violence, and the cultural collisions between slave catchers and local communities transformed Northern attitudes, contributing to the collapse of the Fugitive Slave Act and the coming of the Civil War. . is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hartford. He is the author of Shaking Their Guns in the Tyrant’s Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement(2009). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 8.9.95.224, on 07 Jul 2020 at 14:56:31, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773997 The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America ROBERT H. CHURCHILL University of Hartford Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 8.9.95.224, on 07 Jul 2020 at 14:56:31, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773997 University Printing House, Cambridge 28, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108489126 : 10.1017/9781108773997 © Robert H. Churchill 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Churchill, Robert H., author. : The Underground Railroad and the geography of violence in antebellum America / Robert H. Churchill, University of Hartford, Connecticut. : Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. : 2019038168 (print) | 2019038169 (ebook) | 9781108489126 (hardback) | 9781108733465 (paperback) | 9781108773997 (epub) : : Underground Railroad. | Fugitive slaves–United States–History– 19th century. | Antislavery movements–United States–History–19th century. | Abolitionists– United States–History–19th century. | African Americans–History–19th century. | Slavery–United States–History–19th century. | Coffin, Levi, 1798–1877. : 450 .485 2020 (print) | 450 (ebook) | 973.7/115–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038168 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038169 978-1-108-48912-6 Hardback 978-1-108-73346-5 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 8.9.95.224, on 07 Jul 2020 at 14:56:31, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773997 The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America As runaway slaves fled from the South to escape bondage, slave catchers followed in their wake. The arrival of fugitives and slave catchers in the North set off violent confrontations that left participants and local residents enraged and embittered. Historian Robert H. Churchill places the Underground Railroad in the context of a geography of violence, a shifting landscape in which clashing norms of violence shaped the activities of slave catchers and the fugitives and abolitionists who defied them. Churchill maps four distinct cultures of violence: one that prevailed in the South and three more in separate regions of the North: the Borderland, the Contested Region, and the Free Soil Region. Slave catchers who followed fugitives into the North brought with them a Southern culture of violence that sanctioned white brutality as a means of enforcing racial hierarchy and upholding masculine honor, but their arrival triggered vastly different violent reactions in the three regions of the North. Underground activists adapted their operations to these distinct cultures of violence, and the cultural collisions between slave catchers and local communities transformed Northern attitudes, contributing to the collapse of the Fugitive Slave Act and the coming of the Civil War. . is Associate Professor of History at the University of Hartford. He is the author of Shaking Their Guns in the Tyrant’s Face: Libertarian Political Violence and the Origins of the Militia Movement(2009). Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 8.9.95.224, on 07 Jul 2020 at 14:56:31, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773997 The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America ROBERT H. CHURCHILL University of Hartford Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 8.9.95.224, on 07 Jul 2020 at 14:56:31, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773997 University Printing House, Cambridge 28, United Kingdom One Liberty Plaza, 20th Floor, New York, 10006, USA 477 Williamstown Road, Port Melbourne, 3207, Australia 314–321, 3rd Floor, Plot 3, Splendor Forum, Jasola District Centre, New Delhi – 110025, India 79 Anson Road, #06–04/06, Singapore 079906 Cambridge University Press is part of the University of Cambridge. It furthers the University’s mission by disseminating knowledge in the pursuit of education, learning, and research at the highest international levels of excellence. www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9781108489126 : 10.1017/9781108773997 © Robert H. Churchill 2020 This publication is in copyright. Subject to statutory exception and to the provisions of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press. First published 2020 Printed in the United Kingdom by TJ International Ltd, Padstow Cornwall A catalogue record for this publication is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data : Churchill, Robert H., author. : The Underground Railroad and the geography of violence in antebellum America / Robert H. Churchill, University of Hartford, Connecticut. : Cambridge, United Kingdom; New York, NY : Cambridge University Press, 2020. | Includes bibliographical references and index. : 2019038168 (print) | 2019038169 (ebook) | 9781108489126 (hardback) | 9781108733465 (paperback) | 9781108773997 (epub) : : Underground Railroad. | Fugitive slaves–United States–History– 19th century. | Antislavery movements–United States–History–19th century. | Abolitionists– United States–History–19th century. | African Americans–History–19th century. | Slavery–United States–History–19th century. | Coffin, Levi, 1798–1877. : 450 .485 2020 (print) | 450 (ebook) | 973.7/115–dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038168 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019038169 978-1-108-48912-6 Hardback 978-1-108-73346-5 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of URLs for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate. Downloaded from https://www.cambridge.org/core. IP address: 8.9.95.224, on 07 Jul 2020 at 14:56:31, subject to the Cambridge Core terms of use, available at https://www.cambridge.org/core/terms. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108773997 The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America As runaway slaves fled from the South