{"id":3671,"date":"2023-06-30T19:11:10","date_gmt":"2023-06-30T19:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/?p=3671"},"modified":"2023-08-05T20:01:48","modified_gmt":"2023-08-05T20:01:48","slug":"rebels-on-the-border-by-dr-aaron-astor","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/rebels-on-the-border-by-dr-aaron-astor\/","title":{"rendered":"Rebels on the Border by Dr. Aaron Astor"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"

‘Rebels on the Border’ Cover, from Target Bookstore<\/p><\/div>\n

In the summer of 1848, dozens of enslaved Kentuckians set out on the dangerous path to freedom.\u00a0 According to Aaron Astoer, \u201cThe largest plot in the Bluegrass\u2026involved [reportedly] seventy-five slaves<\/a> who had escaped Fayette and Bourbon countries with the help of a white abolitionist at Danville\u2019s Centre College and numerous free blacks.\u201d 1<\/sup>\u00a0 The freedom seekers had armed themselves and had been traveling in the direction of the Ohio River before being recaptured in the city of Cynthiana. \u00a0Astor only uses the term \u2018stampede\u2019 in his 2012 book Rebels on the Border: Civil War, Emancipation, and the Reconstruction of Kentucky and Missouri<\/em> twice, and does not use it to refer to such organized group escapes.\u00a0 The author mentions that locals of Lexington were particularly flabbergasted by this event, as \u201cmost of the participating slaves were \u2018trusted house servants of Lexington\u2019s most socially prominent families.\u2019\u201d2<\/sup><\/p>\n

In the beginning of Astor’s narrative, he describes some other antebellum examples of enslaved people rebelling against slaveholders.\u00a0 \u201cOne large slave \u2018conspiracy\u2019 in the western border states occurred not in the Bluegrass but in western Kentucky\u2019s Hopkinsville, where a foiled Christmas insurrection in 1856 spurred panic and \u2018excitement\u2019 throughout the entire state,\u201d Astor writes, noting that even rumors of this sort of activity were terrifying to the slaveholders, who were extremely averse to the suggestion that their power over the people they had enslaved could be challenged.3<\/sup><\/p>\n

\"\"

Enslaved Persons’ Rebellion, from ThoughtCo<\/p><\/div>\n

Even though the journey out of bondage was perilous and sometimes unsuccessful, it was also an obvious reclamation of power by the freedom seekers.\u00a0 Astor acknowledges that \u201c[o]ther than outright insurrection, running away was the slave\u2019s gravest political act of resistance.\u00a0 It directly usurped the master\u2019s authority\u2026\u201d4<\/sup>\u00a0 White enslavers experienced a growing anxiety over the threat of enslaved people running away or arming themselves en masse, especially as the tensions which led to the Civil War heightened.\u00a0 It got to the point that untrue rumors of rebellion circulated amongst the townspeople routinely: \u201cThe appearance of slave conspiracies during seminal events\u2026underscores the latent political power vested in the \u2018apolitical\u2019 slave population.\u201d 5<\/sup>\u00a0 Astor notes that even though many of the feared insurgent plots seemed to have been conjured up entirely in the minds of slaveholders, the enslaved were able to observe their enslavers\u2019 panic and use it against them. \u00a0Enslaved people\u2019s different forms of rebellion shattered the wishful illusion that this system was morally neutral and could continue without consequences.<\/p>\n

During wartime, Astor notes the examples of stampedes behind Union lines, and how the “rush of slaves off the farms of Little Dixie and the Bluegrass stunned white conservatives and Union military officials alike.\u00a0 Sporadic violence against enlistees hardly stemmed the tide of black men –and often black women as well– who stampeded into the army of liberation.\u201d6<\/sup>\u00a0 Astor refers to black people as \u2018stampeding\u2019 into the army twice in his book.\u00a0 Fighting in the Civil War for the right of all enslaved people to be freed was the ultimate revolution in which freedom seekers could have taken part, and the use of the word \u201cstampede\u201d to describe their fervor for enlistment is apt.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

[1] Aaron Astor, Rebels on the Border: Civil War, Emancipation, and the Reconstruction of Kentucky and Missouri<\/em> (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012), 67-68.<\/p>\n

[2] Astor, 68.<\/p>\n

[3] Astor, 68.<\/p>\n

[4] Astor, 69.<\/p>\n

[5] Astor, 70.<\/p>\n

[6] Astor, 144.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the summer of 1848, dozens of enslaved Kentuckians set out on the dangerous path to freedom.\u00a0 According to Aaron Astoer, \u201cThe largest plot in the Bluegrass\u2026involved [reportedly] seventy-five slaves who had escaped Fayette and Bourbon countries with the help of a white abolitionist at Danville\u2019s Centre College and numerous free blacks.\u201d 1\u00a0 The freedom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":133,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21280],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-scholarship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/133"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3671"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3845,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3671\/revisions\/3845"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/stampedes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}