Benjamin Drew (1812-1903) was an abolitionist who traveled to Canada and interviewed over 100 freedom seekers, whose stories he published in A North-Side View of Slavery.
ROLES: Abolitionist
Author: Cooper Wingert Page 16 of 38
Mary and Emily Edmonson were enslaved sisters who unsuccessfully attempted to flee Washington, DC aboard the Pearl in 1848. Abolitionists later helped raise funds to purchase the sisters’ freedom.
ROLES: Abolitionist // Freedom Seeker
Harriet Eglin was a freedom seeker from Maryland whom William Still interviewed in Philadelphia.
ESSAYS: Foner
ROLES: Freedom Seeker
Rufus Elmore ran a wholesale shoe shop in Springfield, Massachusetts and employed freedom seeker James Lindsay Smith.
ESSAYS: Grover
ROLES: UGRR Operative
Chester English was a seaman involved in the escape of 77 freedom seekers from Washington, DC in 1848 aboard the Pearl.
ROLES: UGRR Operative
Olaudah Equiano was an enslaved man who later relocated to England, where he authored an influential narrative of his life to rally British public support against the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade.
ESSAYS: Barker
ROLES: Abolitionist // Freedom Seeker
Calvin Fairbank (1816-1898) was a Methodist minister and Underground Railroad operative convicted in Kentucky for aiding the 1844 escape of Harriet and Lewis Hayden along with school teacher Delia Webster and then convicted again for a second offense in 1851. He ended up serving a total of seventeen years in Kentucky state prison before his release in 1864.
ESSAYS: Blackett // Baker // Larson // Miller // Pinsker // Sinha
ROLES: UGRR Operative
Calvin Fairbank served a total of seventeen years in Kentucky prison for “slave stealing” (House Divided Project)
Millard Fillmore served as the 13th president of the United States. Although a New Yorker, Fillmore supported the Compromise of 1850 and attempted to vigorously enforce the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.
ESSAYS: Blackett // Grover // Harrold
ROLES: Miscellaneous
Millard Fillmore (House Divided Project)
Nelson Ford was one of four freedom seekers who escaped from Maryland slaveholder Edward Gorsuch and resisted recapture during the Christiana resistance in 1851.
ESSAYS: Jackson // Oakes // Pinsker
ROLES: Freedom Seeker