Hannibal Messenger, March 19, 1857 (Courtesy of the Historical Society of Missouri)

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Cooper Wingert between March 19-24, 2019.
• Keywords: slave and stampede.
• Totals: 3 hits

Top Results

• In March 1857, the Hannibal Messenger reported on a proposed railroad between Palmyra, Missouri and Quincy, Illinois, noting fears that “if a railroad connection from Missouri was made with that place [Quincy] we might expect a general stampede of all the negroes in the State.” (“Dr. Jeter’s Letter,” Hannibal Messenger, March 19, 1857)
• In December 1859, the paper reprinted part of a letter from the postmaster of Emerson, located in northwestern Marion County, Missouri. He noted that “a day or two since a lot of negroes in this neighborhood were making preparations for a general stampede, but the scheme was detected before they got off, and their plans defeated.” (Hannibal Messenger, December 6, 1859)
• The paper reprinted a widely circulated report of the Margaret Garner case, describing “a stampede of slaves from the border counties of Kentucky” in late January 1856. (Hannibal Messenger, February 2, 1856)

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General Notes

• The Hannibal Messenger is available to the public through the State Historical Society of Missouri’s digital newspapers collection.
• The paper also reported on one of our key timeline events, the escape of a large family of slaves from St. Louis in July 1856. Although frequently referred to as a “stampede” in the press, the Hannibal Messenger simply noted that “some nine negroes ranaway from Judge Walsh… in St. Louis. A reward of $1,500 is offered for their recovery.” (Hannibal Messenger, July 19, 1856)
  

  Hannibal Messenger, July 19, 1856

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Naji Thompson over the course of a few weeks between December 2018 and February 2019
• Key terms: stampede, slave + stampede
• Results: 200+

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Top Results

• In 1849 the North-Carolinian ran an article titled “Slave Stampede.” On Nov. 6th or the night of Nov. 5 the 50 slaves stampeded from the Missouri side of the river shared with Illinois. It describes a stampede of around 50 slaves of “all ages and sexes.” They were overtaken, their leader was killed, and the rest were captured.
• Anti-slavery Bugle reprinted an article from the Canton Reporter in Lewis County titled “The Great Slave Stampede in Missouri” on February 02, 1850. It tells the story of a slave stampede turned insurrection. It reads “A [sic] excitement prevails in Lewis county, in regard to the recent attempt of the negroes to run away and rise in insurrection; and as many negroes are in circulation in relation thereto, we deem it our duty to publish a true statement of the matter as it occurred.”
• Weekly National intelligencer reprinted from the St. Louis News on May 7 commenting on the number of slave stampedes from western Missouri ending into Kansas. It also writes of organizations “enticing” enslaved people to leave Missouri and then send “them down to Indian country “to be sold to the “Cherokees and Choctaws.” The article also tells the story of 50 runways from Lafayette County. The group stole wagons, horses, and a carriage. Finally, it says in a three-week time span around 300 slaves have run away from Lafayette county.

General Notes

• Many of the articles were not focused on actual stampedes but instead discussed slave holders’ anxiety surrounding potential stampedes. They offer insight to the rationalization of slavers, who blamed stampedes on abolitionists and the Underground Railroad. They claimed slaves were being “stolen” away.
• In addition, a considerable number of articles centered around John Brown and the planned stampede that was supposed to accompany the failed Harper’s Ferry raid.
• The use of advance search allowed for the considerable narrowing down of results by years and by words. One useful search method was “terms within five words of each other”. This allowed me to search for the words slave and stampede not only on the same page but also within close proximity to each other.

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Amanda Donoghue from March 4 – March 8, 2019
• Keywords: stampede, stampeded, stampeding, various combinations of synonyms of stampede + slave (slave + exodus, slave + escape, etc.)
• Total: 1 hit (but outside time frame)

Top Results

• “One thousand negro men stampeded from their employers in Georgia in spite of contracts, and crops are consequently precarious.” (“Gleanings,” Charleston MO Charleston Courier, May 18, 1866)

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Charleston MO Charleston Courier, May 18, 1866

General Notes

• The Charleston Courier was a newspaper run from 1859 to 1875 out of Charleston, MO in Mississippi County. It is accessible online through the State Historical Society of Missouri’s digital newspapers collection. 
• While the May 1866 article is outside the project timeline, its usage of the word “stampede” in reference to free black sharecroppers, rather than escaping slaves, suggests staying power for the term.
• In addition to the article search, I tested the accuracy of the database website’s text search function. Using the website’s advanced search, which allows users to search within specific newspapers, I searched for pre-selected terms found in a random selection of articles to check that each article was presented in the results of the search. Overall, it seemed that the function correctly found all the articles that contained the search terms.

Boonville MO Boonville Weekly Observer, December 13, 1856

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Amanda Donoghue from March 4 – March 8, 2019
• Keywords: stampede, stampeded, stampeding, various combinations of synonyms of stampede + slave (slave + exodus, slave + escape, etc.)
• Total: 1 hit

Top Results

• “The free negroes at [Murfreesboro], Tenn, took a compulsory stampede from that place last week. Their depredations had become insufferable to the citizens, and their pernicious influence among the slave population made them a serious grievance. Self-preservation compelled the whites to stringent measures to get rid of them, and a general stampede ensued during last week.” (Boonville MO Boonville Weekly Observer, December 13, 1856)

General Notes

• Boonville Weekly Observer was a newspaper run from 1854 to 1856 out of Booneville, MO in Cooper County, and is accessible online through the State Historical Society of Missouri’s digital newspapers collection. 
• The December 1856 article on Murfreesboro, TN featured above was originally printed in the New York Herald, explained in this post.
• An 1855 issue of this paper uses the word “stampede” to describe a forced migration of Kickapoo Native Americans (Boonville MO Boonville Weekly Observer, September 22, 1855)

Palmyra MO Whig, November 8, 1849 (Courtesy of the Historical Society of Missouri)

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Cooper Wingert between March 5-7, 2019.
• Keywords: slave and stampede, including variant “negro stampede.” The term “stampeding” did not yield relevant results.
• Totals: 8 hits

Top Results

• In November 1849, the Palmyra Whig provided detailed coverage of the sizable “negro stampede” near Canton, Missouri, in neighboring Lewis County. Some 27 “men, women and children” armed themselves with “guns, knives and bludgeons” and made their way towards freedom. When they were discovered near Canton, “an effort was made to take them, which they resisted.” After a slave who “appeared to be the master-spirit of the party” was killed, “the rest were taken without much trouble.” However, the paper warned slaveholders and readers in general to “keep a vigilant watch on their servants.” (“Negro Stampede,” Palmyra Whig, November 8, 1849)
• A week later, the paper reported that “the leaders in the stampede have been shipped to St. Louis and sold.” (“The Lewis County Affair,” Palmyra Whig, November 15, 1849)
• In February 1854, the paper published the proceedings of a public meeting held in Fabius Township, Marion County, “that particular portion of the county which suffered in the recent stampede of negroes” in November 1853. The stampede cost the slave owners of Fabius “some $15,000,” the paper reported. “They have been wantonly, wickedly robbed of their property,” the column declared. (“Prompt Proceedings,” Palmyra Whig, February 23, 1854)
• In October 1854, the paper reprinted a column from the Lexington, Missouri Weekly Express, which reported that “a stampede had taken place among the blacks in the neighborhood of Dover, [Missouri], and that it was suspected that whitemen were concerned in inducing slaves in that locality to leave their masters.” Local slaveholders accused “a party of Jewish peddlers” of providing the slaves with money and “maps, with the roads to be traveled marked out.” Several of the escaped slaves were recaptured after having crossed to the north side of the Missouri river, and one fugitive “resisted, and was shot before taken, but it is not thought to endanger his life.” (Lexington, MO Weekly Express, quoted in “Runaway,” Palmyra Whig, October 5, 1854)
• In October 1856, under the heading “Another Stampede,” the Palmyra Whig complained about the “frequent departures of slaves for parts unknown.” Reporting on group escapes had become “a sort of regular recurring duty imposed on the local press of this portion of Missouri.” The most recent “stampede” involved a free African-American named Isaac McDaniel, who “stole not only his wife, but some four or five other slaves in the neighborhood” of Hannibal, Missouri. McDaniel’s party also “stole a horse and buggy belonging to his wife’s master,” to effect their escape. (“Another Stampede,” Palmyra Whig, October 23, 1856)
• Quoting the Lexington, Kentucky Atlas, the Palmyra Whig carried a column about a “stampede” of “between forty and seventy negroes” from Kentucky. The incident ended after a violent clash and the recapture of many of the freedom seekers, along with a white college student who had assisted in their escape. (Lexington, KY Atlas, quoted in Palmyra Whig, August 24, 1848)
• In May 1851, the paper reprinted a column from the Maysville, Kentucky Post-Boy, which noted that “during the past week a leave-taking fever has prevailed among the slaves in this section. On Sunday night a woman and three children, the property of Miss Weeden of our city, left. On Wednesday night, nineteen in one gang, left their owners in Lewis… From Nicholas several have also left within a few days.” (Maysville, KY Post-Boy, quoted in, “Negro Stampede,” Palmyra Whig, May 5, 1851)

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General Notes

• The Palmyra Whig is available to the public through the State Historical Society of Missouri’s digital newspapers collection.
• Coverage is missing from late 1853, when a major stampede on our timeline occurred from Marion County.

Chicago, IL Western Citizen, November 13, 1849

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Cooper Wingert from February 8-March 1, 2019
• Keywords:  Microfilm research, with a focus on coverage of major timeline events
• Totals:  2 hits
• NOTE: We will update this post once we have completed the digitization of the Western Citizen.

Top Results

• The paper included a very brief report on the November 1849 stampede from Canton, Missouri, noting that “the slaves who stampeded” were “overpowered, after a desperate resistance.” (Chicago IL Western Citizen, November 13, 1849)

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Chicago, IL Western Citizen, September 28, 1852

General Notes

• Generally, the major stampedes on our timeline are not being covered by the Western Citizen.
• Coverage of November 1853 is missing.
• In December 1853, the paper changed its name to The Free West.

The Vincennes Gazette, April 4, 1863.

Search Summary

• A search conducted by Sarah Aillon between January 19, 2019 – February 13, 2019
• Keywords: “stampede” on its own, “negro stampede,” “slave stampede,” and “black stampede.”
• Total Hits: Approximately 50 hits.

Top Results:

• The Vincennes Gazette republished a column written by the North Missouri Courier in April of 1863 , which read, “some thirty or forty American citizens of African descent owned in and around this city, evidently wary of waiting for Congress and the Legislature to make Missouri a free state” fled Missouri, “therefore quietly abolishing themselves into Illinois.” (“Slave Stampede from Hannibal,” The Vincennes Gazette, Vincennes, Indiana, April 4, 1863, Accessible Archives)
• In early 1856, The Liberator wrote on the Cincinnati Commercial’s report of “another stampede of six slaves” from Boone County, Missouri; the article suspected that the group “took the icy bridge above California,” but that there were no reports of fugitive’s whereabouts. (“Slave Stampede,” The Liberator, Boston, MA, February 22, 1856, Accessible Archives)
• Some newspaper reports detailed the failed group escapes. On February 2, 1849, the North Star wrote, “we learn that about forty negroes had made arrangements to leave their masters in Woodford County [KY], on Saturday night last, but the plot was discovered just in time to defeat its execution.” The report continued, “the negroes all had free papers. According to the plan of operations, each was to steal a horse and cross the Ohio river before day. They were betrayed by a negro to whom the plot was disclosed and who was requested to join in it.”  (“Stampede Frustrated,” The North Star, Rochester, New York, February 2, 1849, Accessible Archives)

General Notes

• Some newspapers referenced “stampedes” in different contexts; in 1860, the Weekly Vincennes Western Sun described the phenomena under which slave owners left Virginia to go further south as a “stampede of slave owners.”  (“The Stampede of Slave Owners from Virginia,” The Weekly Vincennes Western Sun, Vincennes, Indiana, May 4, 1861, Accessible Archives)
• The Frank Leslie’s Weekly defined different American slang terms in 1859, writing, “[American’s] political parties are ‘barn-burners,’ ‘hard-shells,’ ‘soft-shells,’ ‘hunkers,’ ‘locofocos,’ ” and also provided quick definitions of terms, like   “to be angry is to be ‘riled,’ to confound is to ‘onfakilise,’ to defeat is to ‘chaw up,’ to apologise is to ‘cave,’ … An individual is called a ‘coon,’ a dilemma a ‘fix,’ a general run a ‘stampede’… and so on.” (“A Chapter on Slang,” Frank Leslie’s Weekly, April 2, 1859, Accessible Archives)
• Accessible Archive is a subscription database.that contains a number of collections, including the African American Newspapers Collection, America and World War I: American Military Camp Newspapers Collection, American County Histories Collection, the Civil War Collection, and the Women’s Suffrage Collection.
• Although 400 hits emerged when searching the database for the term “stampede” and its variants, the majority of hits did not reference to group slave escapes and instead, detailed stampedes of soldiers and livestock.

Relevant Coverage

• Canada West (Ontario): Provincial Freeman
• Massachusetts:   The Liberator
• New York:  Frederick Douglass’ Paper and The North Star
• Washington DC: The National Era

Plaquemine, LA Southern Sentinel, November 14, 1849 (Genealogy Bank Database)

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Cooper Wingert between December 12, 2018-January 9, 2019.
• Keywords: slave and stampede, including variants: “negro stampede,” “black stampede,” “general stampede” and “regular stampede.”
• Totals: Approximately 600 hits with concentrations of stampede attempts from Kentucky, Virginia, Maryland and Missouri
• NOTE:  Because of extensive results, this search was limited to the above terms.  We still need to attempt a wider array of search terms in GenealogyBank

Top Results

• In September 1852, the St. Louis Missouri Republican directed its readers’ attention to a “large reward for the apprehension of runaway negroes” involved in a “negro stampede” from St. Genevieve, Missouri. (“Negro Stampede-Large Reward,” St. Louis Daily Missouri Republican, September 11, 1852)
• In early November 1859, abolitionist papers cheered the “recent arrival at Detroit of a cargo of live freight consisting of twenty-six chattels all the way form Missouri.” (“The Detroit Underground Train,” New Lisbon, OH Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 12, 1859)
• A “negro stampede” in December 1859 included “thirty passengers, five from the vicinity of Richmond, Va., twelve from Kentucky and thirteen from Missouri.” The group arrived in Chicago, and later successfully journeyed to Canada. The Missouri fugitives “were sold to go down the river the very day they started,” and were prepared to fight off any pursuers. “A stalwart six-footer and a Sharpe’s rifle were the only guides.” (“Negro Stampede,” Raleigh North Carolina Standard, December 21, 1859)
• Multiple columns quoted a St. Genevieve, Missouri paper, which described a “stampede of negroes” from St. Genevieve County during the fall of 1862. The account detailed the decline of slavery throughout Missouri, including St. Louis, where “there were only 1400 slaves… two years ago, and the best judges now estimate that there are less than 500, and these principally old and decrepit home servants.” Overall, “negro property in Missouri has depreciated, and it is said to be nearly impossible to sell a slave anywhere in the country for one-fifth the ordinary price.” (“Slavery in Missouri,” New Orleans Daily Delta, November 13, 1862)
• In 1848, the Louisville Journal detailed an elaborate plan for a stampede of “about forty negroes” in Woodford County. Equipped with free passes, “each was to steal a horse and cross the Ohio river before day.” The stampede was “frustrated” when another slave revealed the plot. (“Stampede Frustrated,” Indianapolis Daily State Sentinel, October 21, 1848)
• A May 1850 column reported on a rumored slave insurrection near White Sulphur Springs, Virginia, suggesting instead that it was “simply a projected ‘stampede’ of slaves in the elegant frontier style of the day. These flights are becoming so frequent that they seem to be expected as a matter of course by the owners, nor does the offering of rewards seem usually to be attended with success.” (“Washington Correspondence,” Boston Recorder, May 23, 1850)
• Commenting on the frequency of stampedes, a Worcester, Massachusetts paper gleefully reported that “scarcely a day passes, on which we do not hear it stated, that there has been a stampede–a flight of slaves from the prison-house of Southern bondage…. These stampedes, from their inception to the issue of them, are the most heroic events in American history; and yet they are made the greatest of American political crimes.” (“Stampedes,” Worcester, MA Spy, November 17, 1852)
• In the aftermath of John Brown’s failed Harpers Ferry uprising, one abolitionist paper defended Brown’s plan to “run slaves, rather than free them by the slow process of legal and social reform.” “The Stampede is only a practical use of the Bill of Rights which God incorporated in the charter of human existence,” the paper argued. (New Lisbon, OH Anti-Slavery Bugle, November 26, 1859)
• A Charleston, South Carolina correspondent for the New York Tribune reported a stampede plot among the city’s slaves in the midst of the Secession Crisis in early 1861. “The idea which possessed the slaves seems to have been that the moment the first gun was fired in Charleston Harbor, they should make a stampede, taking with them all the property they could lay their hands upon.” He confidently predicted that this was “no singular case,” and that “the first gun fired against the United States Government will explode a powder magazine the vaults of which extend beneath the feet of the whole South.” (“From South Carolina,” New York Tribune, April 2, 1861)
• By the fall of 1863, newspapers in western Missouri were sounding the alarm about slave stampedes. “During the last two months the darkies have been leaving Platte county at the rate of about thirty or forty per day,” a paper in St. Joseph reported. “By the census of 1860 Platte county had a slave population of three thousand three hundred and thirteen, and our informant thinks that there are but two or three hundred left now. From all portions of North Missouri we have like information. The slaves are leaving by day and by night. Very few owners pretend to stay the exodus. Many pack up their duds and walk boldly off in broad day, while others quietly retire in the night.” (St. Joseph, Missouri Herald, quoted in “Slavery Passing Away in Missouri and Kentucky,” Worcester, MA Spy, September 9, 1863)
• The St. Louis Missouri Democrat reprinted columns from multiple papers to depict the mounting “negro exodus” from the state. Quoting the Kansas City Journal, the paper informed its readers of “some thirty or forty negroes” who left Clay County in western Missouri, bound for Kansas, “taking with them a quantity of stock…. The Emancipation Ordinance has made a perfect stampede among the negroes, who cannot draw nice distinctions…. The same process is going on all along the border, and Missouri will soon be rid of her slaves, in fact, if not in name. The barriers which fence in the slave system in this State are crumbling daily, and while our politicians are talking the negro is quietly acting, without any reference to statute books or ordinances.” (Kansas City Journal, quoted in “The Negro Exodus,” St. Louis Missouri Democrat, August 21, 1863)
• In late 1863, the Columbia Statesman in Boone County, Missouri, reported on a “stampede of negroes” to enlist in the U.S. Colored Troops. “Thirty negroes enlisted in Ray county last week. Ninety negro recruits were sent form St. Louis to Lexington…. thirty negroes left Pike county to enlist.” (Columbia Statesman, quoted in “Missouri Items,” St. Louis Daily Missouri Democrat, December 22, 1863)

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General Notes

• Genealogy Bank is a subscription database.
• Although not part of the database’s coverage, the St. Joseph, Missouri Herald, the Columbia Statesman from Boone County and an unspecified St. Genevieve paper were quoted for their reporting on stampedes.
• After the passage of the controversial Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, the term was used to describe the movement of fugitive slaves residing in the Northern free states, who were reportedly “stampeding” to Canada to evade recapture under the stringent new law. A widely-reprinted report from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, suggested that there was a “general stampede” of the city’s fugitive slave population, including “many… who were never suspected of being fugitives until the passage of this bill.” (“Excitement among the Colored Population,” Baltimore Sun, September 25, 1850) Many Southern papers remarked on the “regular stampede” of “fugitive negroes” from “Pennsylvania, New York and other free states.” (“Arrest of a Slave,” Montgomery Alabama Journal, October 7, 1850) An Easton, Maryland newspaper even ran the headline “Fred. Douglass in Danger,” while reporting on the “general stampede” of “runaway negroes” from Pittsburgh. (“Fred. Douglass in Danger,” Easton, MD Star, October 15, 1850)
• Editors of the abolitionist Pennsylvania Freeman employed the term to mock pro-slavery arguments, satirically remarking that if slaves were so “enamored of the lash, the dungeon, the paddle, [and] the auction stand… one might imagine a general stampede of the fugitives in Canada and throughout the North, hurrying back to slavery.” (“Going Back to Slavery,” Pennsylvania Freeman, January 1, 1854)
• A Georgia paper used the term to describe violence against suspected abolitionists. “One out of the four [abolitionists] was caught and ridden on a rail, the rest saved themselves by a stampede.” (Columbus, GA Times, quoted in Woodville, MS Republican, October 22, 1850)
• The term was also used to describe the movement of free African-Americans. Reports circulated of a “compulsory stampede” of “free negroes” from Murfreesboro, Tennessee, compelled by white citizens who were concerned about “their pernicious influence among the slave population.” (Nashville Patriot, quoted in “Stampede of Free Negroes,” New York Herald, December 8, 1856)
• In August 1857, “over a dozen” slaves stampeded from Washington, using a religious camp meeting as an opportunity for escape. Obtaining permission to travel to the gathering in Montgomery County, Maryland, they instead “embraced the opportunity to seek a more permanent camp in Canada.” (Newark, NJ Centinel of Freedom, September 9, 1857)
• Stampedes could also include literal rail travel. An 1857 report noted a “stampede” of five slaves, who travelled using “horses and vehickles [sic]” from Hagerstown, Maryland across the border to Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where they boarded the cars of the Cumberland Valley Railroad for Harrisburg. (“The Slave Stampede,” Easton, MD Star, June 2, 1857)
• In the south-west slaveholding states, the prospect of slave stampedes into Mexico troubled slaveholders. An Austin, Texas newspaper expressed concern about patrolling its enslaved population, worrying about a possible “insurrection, or a general negro stampede for Mexico.” (“Patrol,” Austin Texas State Gazette, July 22, 1854) Stampedes also occurred among slaves owned by members of the Cherokee Nation, in present-day Oklahoma. “A large stampede of negroes was attempted from the nation to Mexico,” a Tennessee paper reported in 1860, “but the chiefs having been informed, by a faithful negro, of the movement, collected their warriors, under the pretense of going on a war trail against the Camanches [sic], and arrested the fugitives.” (Athens, TN Post, January 20, 1860)
• The term was used to describe the escape of two Mississippi slaves owned by prominent Illinois senator Stephen Douglas. (“Stampede of two of Senator Douglas’ Slaves,” Wilmington Journal, September 17, 1858)

Most Relevant Coverage from Genealogy Bank Database

• MISSOURI:  St. Louis Missouri Republican – 1849-1852 (Whig, pro-slavery)
• MISSOURI:  St. Louis Weekly Pilot – 1855-1856
• MISSOURI:  St. Louis Missouri Democrat – 1862-1863 (Democratic, pro-slavery)
• ILLINOIS:  Quincy Whig – 1854 (Whig)
• MARYLAND:  Easton Star – 1849-1857 (Democratic, pro-slavery)
• MASSACHUSETTS:  Massachusetts Spy, Worcester, MA – 1847-1863 (Whig and Republican, anti-slavery)
• OHIO:  Anti-Slavery Bugle, New Lisbon, OH – 1848-1860 (anti-slavery)

Weekly Anglo-African, October 7, 1859

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Amanda Donoghue on Dec. 20
• Keywords:  stampede, exodus, group slave escape, Missouri escape
• Total results: Black Abolitionist Papers (BAP) = 6, Black Abolitionist Archive (BAA) = 1

Results

• “A Cincinnati paper of the 28th ult says: A stampede of slaves took place on the evening of the 27th-the whereabouts of several of the fugitives having been discovered here, officers at noon today proceeded to make arrests-upon approaching the house where the slaves were secreted, the latter fired, wounding two or three spectators, but not severely. One slave woman, finding escape impossible, cut the throats of her children, killing one instantly, and severely wounding two others: six of the fugitives were apprehended, and eight are said to have escaped.” (Editorial, Provincial Freedom, Toronto, February 2, 1856)
• “A number of fugitives, I have been informed-fifteen in number-have just passed through from Detroit into Canada. Quite a stampede.” (Our Detroit Letter,” Weekly Anglo-African, New York, NY, October 7, 1859, Black Abolitionist Papers)
• On Brown’s raid at Harper’s Ferry: “It seems to have been at the outset, an attempt to procure a large stampede of slaves, and to have grown, by force of circumstances, into an invasion of these United States and of the Commonwealth of Virginia.” (“The Emeute at Harper’s Ferry,” Weekly Anglo-African, New York, NY, October 22, 1859, Black Abolitionist Papers)
• “A colored man named Harris, and his wife and two children were arrested here this morning, on a warrant issued by the United States Commissioner Conneau, and sent by special train to Springfield, where they will be examined tomorrow. The man is claimed by Mr. Patterson, of St. Louis County, MO” (“A Carbonari Wanted,” Weekly Anglo-African, New York, NY, April 13, 1861, Black Abolitionist Archive)
• “[In 1843] Our next undertaking was a regular stampede from Maryland. We met at Banning’s Bridge, and mustered seventy strong at starting, but through some misunderstanding the wrong road was taken, and consequently they were tracked, and after a severe encounter, with the loss of three killed and many wounded, they were forced to surrender to superior numbers, who were well armed. When the return caravan passed through Washington a perfect panic prevailed among the slaves; and of the free colored people there were many who left for fear of the threats which were being made against them carried out.” (“Recollections from the Underground Railroad,” The Elevator, San Francisco, CA, September 22, 1865, Black Abolitionist Papers)
• BAP includes excerpts from Martin Delany’s unfinished novel Blake (1859, 1861-62) that includes a reference at the beginning of chapter 30 to slave stampedes:  “The absence of Mammy Judy, Daddy Joe, Charles, and little Tony, on the return early Monday morning of Colonel Franks and lady from the country, unmistakably proved the escape of their slaves, and the further proof of the exit of ‘squire Potter’s Andy and Beckwith’s Clara, with the remembrance of the stampede a few months previously, required no further confirmation of the fact, when the neighborhood again was excited to ferment.” [NOTE:  Delany serialized Blake at first in the Afro-American Magazine in 1859 –that was the version contained within BAP]

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General Notes

• Black Abolitionist Papers (BAP) is a subscription Pro-Quest database that is available to Dickinson College students.  Black Abolitionist Archive (BAA) is available to the public for free through University of Detroit Mercy [WEB].
• BAP is the larger, more comprehensive collection (over 15,000 items), but BAA director, Roy Finkenbine, was part of the editorial team at BAP, which includes a printed five-volume collection as well as a microfilm series (and now database).  BAP includes black abolitionist newspaper editorials, speeches, meeting and convention materials, and selective private correspondence. BAA offers about 800 published speeches and selected newspaper articles.  
• Five articles were found using the term “stampede” to refer to the “colonization” movement of free blacks moving to Haiti or Africa to escape the risk of being enslaved or re-enslaved.

The Liberator, June 10, 1853 (Courtesy of 19th-Century US Newspapers)

Search Summary

• Search conducted by Cooper Wingert during week of Nov. 26-30, 2018
• Keywords:  slaves and stampede(s) (both singular & plural) and stampeding, but found * (stamped*) didn’t work so well (too many false positives on the word, “stamped”), plus variants including negro, servile, fugitive, and exodus
• Totals:  About 160 hits with concentrations reported from Kentucky, northern Virginia, Maryland and eastern Missouri.

Top Results

• “Slaves are running away from Missouri, at the present time, in battalions,” reported the Alton (IL) Telegraph in the spring of 1853. Situated just miles from Missouri’s eastern border, the paper’s readers were already quite familiar with the term “Slave Stampedes,” which was the headline used for this and countless other articles. (Alton Telegraph, quoted in The Liberator, June 10, 1853)
•  A correspondent for the London Times took special note of the term, writing that stampede was “a word which the Americans have borrowed from their prairies, and applied most expressively to a general rush of negroes from slavery.” (London Times, June 19, 1861, quoted in “English Speculation on the War and its Issue,” New York Herald, July 2, 1861)
• Under the headline, “NEGRO STAMPEDE,” The Cleveland Daily Herald  reported (in its entirety) on November 19, 1859:  “The Chicago Journal says that on Thursday evening, the 17th inst., the underground railroad arrived there with thirty passengers, five from the vicinity of Richmond, Va., twelve from Kentucky, and thirteen from Missouri.  They are now all safe in Canada.  The thirteen from Missouri were sold to go down the river, the very day they started. A stalwart six-footer and a Sharp’s rifle were the only guides.” (Cleveland Daily Herald, November 19, 1859).
• The Democratic New York Herald once wrote of “servile stampedes,” while a Cincinnati newspaper describing the movements of Kentucky slaves used the terms “stampede” and “negro exodus” interchangeably. (“The South and Southern Safety–A New Presidential Programme,” New York Herald, December 4, 1859; “Kentucky Negro Exodus,” Daily Cleveland Herald, June 6, 1864)
• Many hits contained only brief mentions, such as an Ohio newspaper’s succinct remark that “stampedes of slaves, from Mason and Nicholas counties, Ky. seem of common occurrence.” (“Items,” The Daily Scioto Gazette, Chillicothe, OH, May 8, 1851)
• Then there was a New Hampshire newspaper, which in August 1850 ran a short article entitled “Slave Stampedes.” For a New England audience that was perhaps unfamiliar with the term, the editor conveniently took the time to offer up a definition: “an uprising and fleeing from bondage of a large number of slaves.” (“Slave Stampedes,” New Hampshire Statesman, Concord, NH, August 30, 1850)
• As early as 1849, newspapers began using the headline “Another Slave Stampede,” underscoring just how common stampedes were (see Mississippi Free Trader and Natchez Gazette, December 15, 1849).  A decade later, the editor of the Charleston Mercury underscored this point, writing that stampedes described slaves who escaped “in startling numbers” on a near “daily” basis. “They go off, one, two, three, or a dozen at a time.” (“Slavery in Kentucky,” Charleston Mercury, May 10, 1858). These types of headline and comments reappeared straight through into the Civil War “Almost every day we hear of a new stampede of slaves in our county,” groused an editor from Port Tobacco, Maryland in September 1863. “Indeed, so frequent have they become of late, that no surprise or comment is excited hereby.” (Port Tobacco Times, quoted in “”Emancipation in Maryland,” Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, September 17, 1863).

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General Notes

• 19th-Century Newspapers is a subscription database from Gale available to students only through the Dickinson College Library Database Finder
• The term took on a new life in the wake of John Brown‘s failed Harpers Ferry insurrection in October 1859. No less than 11 stampede-related articles dealt with Harpers Ferry. Barely a week after the botched uprising, the Democratic New York Herald published a batch of correspondence between Brown and fellow abolitionists, which was quickly picked up and reprinted by other papers. Among the correspondents was an English-born abolitionist named Hugh Forbes, a one-time ally of Brown who ultimately backed out of the plot. The search engine picked up on Forbes’s plan to instigate “a series of stampedes of slaves,” which he predicted would each “carry off in one night, and from the same place some 20 to 50 slaves.” (“News and Further Developments,” Newark Advocate, Newark, OH, November 4, 1859) In the wake of Harpers Ferry, slave stampedes were closely linked with other revolutionary acts, often appearing in conjunction with words such as insurrection, revolt and rebellion. A Jackson, Mississippi paper closely associated the term with armed revolt, complaining of “slave insurrections or slave stampedes.” (“Abolitionism of 1835 and of 1859,” Semi-weekly Mississippian, Jackson, MS, December 27, 1859) Similarly, citizens of Madison County, Kentucky, expressed suspicion that abolitionists were creeping into their community, “exciting insurrection and getting up stampedes among the slaves.” (“The Disturbances in Madison County, KY.,” Bangor Daily Whig & Courier, Bangor, ME, April 12, 1860)
• The coming of the Civil War saw a similar spike in usage, as countless Northern papers speculated on the war’s impact on Southern slaves. Many articles used the term “general stampede,” predicting that such “a general stampede” of slaves would occur “as the war is carried into the enemy’s country, and slavery will abolish itself.” (Springfield Republican, quoted in “Let us Learn to Wait,” New Hampshire Statesman, November 30, 1861) Even in the Confederacy’s capital, a Richmond paper admitted that the presence of “a Yankee army creates as complete a stampede among negroes as the approach of a locomotive among cattle.” (Richmond Dispatch, September 22, 1862, quoted in Philadelphia North American and United States Gazette, October 3, 1862)

Most Relevant Coverage from 19th-Century US Newspapers

• MISSOURI: Missouri Courier, Hannibal, MO – 1849-1853 (Democratic, pro-slavery)
• MISSOURI:  St. Louis Missouri Republican (but with major gaps) (Democratic, pro-slavery)
• ILLINOIS:  None from period 1840 – 1860
• MASSACHUSETTS: The Liberator, Boston, MA – 1852-1862 (anti-slavery)
• NEW YORK:  New York Herald  – 1861 (Democratic, pro-slavery)
• OHIO:  Cleveland Herald – 1848-1863 (Whig and Republican, anti-slavery)