Underground Railroad Online Handbook

From the National Park Service and Dickinson College

Author: Cooper Wingert Page 4 of 38

(1848) William and Ellen Craft Escape

By

On October 3, 2022

In Blackett, Grover

William and Ellen Craft pull off a race- and gender-bending escape from slavery, using masterful disguises to traverse the Deep South and reach freedom

Date(s): left Georgia on December 21, 1848, reached Philadelphia on December 25, 1848

Location(s): Macon, Georgia; Philadelphia; Boston; England

Outcome: Freedom

Summary:

engraving woman with bonnet

Ellen Craft (House Divided Project)

Enslaved couple William and Ellen Craft engineered a plan to deliver themselves (and their future children) from slavery in Georgia. William was unable to pass as white. However, Ellen was only one-quarter Black, and since she was frequently mistaken as a fully white woman, the couple hoped that it would be plausible for Ellen to act as William’s sickly male master while they crossed the Deep South. William gave his wife a more masculine haircut. Ellen immobilized her right arm in a sling and wrapped cloths around her face to avoid having to sign documents or speak. The Crafts traveled north by rail through multiple slave states, managing to avoid detection because of multiple strokes of good fortune. Still, the journey was stressful, and reaching Philadelphia on Christmas morning was the best gift either of the Crafts could have received. The couple moved to Boston under a month later, and settled into jobs as a cabinetmaker and seamstress, respectively. But pressure again began to mount two years later, when a group of slave catchers tracked the Crafts down to the home of Black abolitionists Lewis and Harriet Hayden. The Haydens asserted that they would rather blow their house up than allow the catchers to take the Crafts, and their determination shielded the Crafts until they were able to flee to England. While living in exile from the United States, William and Ellen honed their new literacy (introduced to them by Pennsylvania abolitionists) to publish their story, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860). After the Civil War, the Crafts returned to Reconstruction-era Georgia and opened schools for freedpeople.

engraving man in suit, tie, beard and sideburns

William Craft (House Divided Project)

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(1849) Harriet Tubman Escape

By

On November 12, 2022

In Barker, Blackett, Bordewich, Cohen, Crew, Foner, Larson, Newby-Alexander, Sinha

Harriet Tubman escapes from Maryland fearing that her slaveholder is planning to sell her. Tubman returns to the Eastern Shore throughout the 1850s to rescue other enslaved people, becomes active on the antislavery lecture circuit, and takes up residence in New York and Canada.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

(1849) Henry “Box” Brown Escape

By

On October 27, 2022

In Crew, Foner, Sinha

Henry “Box” Brown’s daring escape reveals that state-level slave-stealing statutes prove far more draconian than federal fugitive slave legislation

Date(s): 1849

Location(s): Richmond, Virginia; Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Outcome: Freedom

Summary:

Brown detail head

Henry “Box” Brown (House Divided Project)

Henry Brown made up his mind to escape after another slaveholder sold his wife and children away to North Carolina. The freedom seeker determined to mail himself via the new Adams Express service all the way from Richmond to Philadelphia. Brown’s daring escape plan involved help from antislavery activists in both Virginia and Pennsylvania. In Richmond, Samuel Smith mailed Brown and advised Philadelphia vigilance leaders James Miller McKim and William Still to be on the lookout for the crate in Philadelphia. It took Brown 26 hours inside the box to reach Philadelphia, and he traveled with only a bladder filled with water and a few biscuits to eat. Afterwards, Brown became a highly demanded speaker on the antislavery lecture circuit, before eventually relocating to England, where he presented lectures and performed magic and hypnotism to his audiences. Importantly, Brown’s escape underscored that Underground Railroad activists in Northern states faced far fewer risks than activists in the South, where state-level slave stealing statutes proved far more punitive. None of the Philadelphia-based activists who assisted Brown were ever charged with violating the federal 1793 Fugitive Slave Act. But Virginia authorities arrested Smith and sentenced him to six years in the state penitentiary.

box brown engraving

Philadelphia’s vigilance committee opens the box containing freedom seeker Henry Brown (House Divided Project)

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(1850) Cazenovia Convention

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On November 12, 2022

In Oakes, Uncategorized

Abolitionists rally at the Cazenovia Convention in upstate New York on August 21 to protest the proposed Fugitive Slave Act. Over 2,000 abolitionists and 50 freedom seekers attend, as Frederick Douglass and other speakers vow to resist slave catchers with force.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

(1850) Fugitive Slave Act

By

On October 3, 2022

In Baumgartner, Blackett, Finkelman, Oakes, Pinsker, Sinha

Citation

1850 Fugitive Slave Act, September 18, 1850, FULL TEXT via The Avalon Project, Yale Law School

Excerpt

cartoon showing people fighting, caricatures

Political cartoon attacking the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law (Library of Congress)

SECTION 7. And be it further enacted, That any person who shall knowingly and willingly obstruct, hinder, or prevent such claimant, his agent or attorney, or any person or persons lawfully assisting him, her, or them, from arresting such a fugitive from service or labor, either with or without process as aforesaid, or shall rescue, or attempt to rescue, such fugitive from service or labor, from the custody of such claimant, his or her agent or attorney, or other person or persons lawfully assisting as aforesaid, when so arrested, pursuant to the authority herein given and declared; or shall aid, abet, or assist such person so owing service or labor as aforesaid, directly or indirectly, to escape from such claimant, his agent or attorney, or other person or persons legally authorized as aforesaid; or shall harbor or conceal such fugitive, so as to prevent the discovery and arrest of such person, after notice or knowledge of the fact that such person was a fugitive from service or labor as aforesaid, shall, for either of said offences, be subject to a fine not exceeding one thousand dollars, and imprisonment not exceeding six months, by indictment and conviction before the District Court of the United States for the district in which such offence may have been committed, or before the proper court of criminal jurisdiction, if committed within any one of the organized Territories of the United States; and shall moreover forfeit and pay, by way of civil damages to the party injured by such illegal conduct, the sum of one thousand dollars for each fugitive so lost as aforesaid, to be recovered by action of debt, in any of the District or Territorial Courts aforesaid, within whose jurisdiction the said offence may have been committed.

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(1851) Christiana Resistance

By

On November 5, 2022

In Finkelman, Jackson, Oakes, Pinsker, Sinha

Vigilance leaders and freedom seekers resist the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act at Christiana, killing a Maryland slaveholder and evading punishment from federal authorities

Date(s): escaped 1849, resistance September 11, 1851

Location(s): Christiana, Pennsylvania

Outcome: Freedom, slaveholder Edward Gorsuch killed

Summary:

In 1849, four enslaved men, Noah Buley, Nelson Ford, George Hammond, and Joshua Hammond, escaped from Maryland slaveholder Edward Gorsuch and settled near Christiana in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Two years later in September 1851, Gorsuch discovered the whereabouts of his runaways with the help of a local spy and made arrangements in Philadelphia with the fugitive slave commissioner to organize a posse that would try to apprehend the four freedom seekers under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. But operatives from the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee learned of these plans and quickly notified a vigilance group in Christiana, led by Black couple William and Eliza Parker.

Colorized Christiana

Illustration of the 1851 Christiana Resistance, colorized by Gabe Pinsker (House Divided Project)

Gorsuch’s posse arrived at the Parker stone farmhouse (where at least some of the runaways were hiding) just after dawn on September 11, 1851, but William Parker stubbornly refused them entrance.  Eliza Parker then blew a horn to help alert their neighbors and local vigilance supporters to the unfolding confrontation. Violence erupted.  Black activists shot Gorsuch dead and wounded his son.  The federal officers fled the scene. Pro-slavery forces from across the country immediately denounced the resistance but government officials moved too slowly and the Parkers and the four young freedom seekers escaped to Canada.  Federal prosecutors eventually charged 38 local men with treason, to send a stern political message, but the trial, held in Philadelphia in late November and early December, proved to be a political catastrophe for the Fillmore Administration.  The jury acquitted the first defendant, a white farmer named Castner Hanway, in about fifteen minutes.  Prosecutors then released the rest of the accused.    There were other violent fugitive slave rescues in 1851, most notably in Boston, Massachusetts and Syracuse, New York, but the Christiana resistance was the most dramatic and decisive victory for the abolitionist forces in their escalating campaign to undermine the federal Fugitive Slave Law.

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The Parker “riot” house in Christiana, as it was originally known, is no longer standing, but there are some existing structures and historic sites within the NPS Network to Freedom which can help commemorate this episode, including the Gorsuch Tavern in Verona, Maryland, Eliza Parker’s escape site at Belle Vue Farm in Havre de Grace, Maryland, and Zercher’s Hotel in the town of Christiana, Pennsylvania, where government authorities first conducted the inquest in the aftermath of the violence on September 11, 1851.  To view more details about these sites and their level of accessibility to the public, consult our various Network to Freedom maps in this online handbook.

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(1851) Jerry Rescue

By

On November 12, 2022

In Barker, Finkelman, Foner, Sinha

Jerry Rescue occurs in Syracuse, New York on October 1, when Black and white activists storm a federal hearing room to rescue Missouri freedom seeker Jerry Henry. The dramatic rescue further embarrasses the US government’s efforts to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act, as Henry escapes to Canada and federal prosecutors only manage to convict one of the abolitionists.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

(1852) Daniel Kaufman Case

By

On October 3, 2022

In Foner

Slaveholders notch a rare legal victory against a Pennsylvania abolitionist, but the case proves the exception rather than the rule and does not deter Underground Railroad activists

Date(s): escaped October 1847, final trial in 1852

Location(s): Williamsport, Maryland; Boiling Springs, Cumberland County, Pennsylvania

Outcome: Freedom, $4,000 judgement against abolitionist Daniel Kaufman

Summary:

old man seated, holding cane, wooden chair in background

Daniel Kaufman (House Divided Project)

Fearing they were about to be sold, 13 people enslaved by widow Mary Oliver escaped from Williamsport, Maryland and headed for Pennsylvania on the night of October 9 or 10, 1847. A free Black Underground Railroad operative named George Cole guided the group from Chambersburg to the Boiling Springs farm of white abolitionist Daniel Kaufman, who regularly sheltered freedom seekers. Later that same night, Kaufman and other local Underground Railroad activists transported the freedom seekers by wagon safely beyond the reach of slave catchers. Unable to recapture the freedom seekers, the Olivers went after Kaufman instead. The Olivers pressed charges under section four of the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act, which allowed slaveholders to sue Underground Railroad operatives who harbored freedom seekers for the value of their lost human property. The case began in state courts, where an initial trial  found Kaufman guilty and ordered him to pay $2,000 in damages. But Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court argued that the abolitionist could not be tried for breaking  federal fugitive slave legislation in state courts and overturned Kaufman’s initial conviction. The case resumed in federal court, where the second trial resulted in a hung jury, only for a third and final trial in 1852 to go the slaveholders’ way. It was the last case tried under the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act (Congress had passed a much tougher Fugitive Slave Act in 1850) and marked a rare but fleeting victory for slaveholders. Slaveholders did not win many penalty cases, and even when they did the punishments were hardly enough to deter Underground Railroad activism. Kaufman was one of the few Underground Railroad operatives ever forced to pay penalties for his clandestine aid to freedom seekers, and even then fellow abolitionists (and his brother-in-law) helped Kaufman foot the final $4,000-plus judgement.

Related Sources

Newspaper reports of Kaufman’s trials, accessible at the House Divided search engine, [WEB]

(1852) Uncle Tom’s Cabin

By

On November 12, 2022

In Blackett, LaRoche, Larson, Sinha

Citation

Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Or Life Among the Lowly (Cleveland, OH: Jewett, 1852), FULL TEXT via Project Gutenberg

Excerpt

title page Uncle Tom's

Uncle Tom’s Cabin (House Divided Project)

A thousand lives seemed to be concentrated in that one moment to Eliza. Her room opened by a side door to the river. She caught her child, and sprang down the steps towards it. The trader caught a full glimpse of her just as she was disappearing down the bank; and throwing himself from his horse, and calling loudly on Sam and Andy, he was after her like a hound after a deer. In that dizzy moment her feet to her scarce seemed to touch the ground, and a moment brought her to the water’s edge. Right on behind they came; and, nerved with strength such as God gives only to the desperate, with one wild cry and flying leap, she vaulted sheer over the turbid current by the shore, on to the raft of ice beyond. It was a desperate leap—impossible to anything but madness and despair; and Haley, Sam, and Andy, instinctively cried out, and lifted up their hands, as she did it.

The huge green fragment of ice on which she alighted pitched and creaked as her weight came on it, but she staid there not a moment. With wild cries and desperate energy she leaped to another and still another cake; stumbling—leaping—slipping—springing upwards again! Her shoes are gone—her stockings cut from her feet—while blood marked every step; but she saw nothing, felt nothing, till dimly, as in a dream, she saw the Ohio side, and a man helping her up the bank.

“Yer a brave gal, now, whoever ye ar!” said the man, with an oath.

Eliza recognized the voice and face for a man who owned a farm not far from her old home.

“O, Mr. Symmes!—save me—do save me—do hide me!” said Elia.

“Why, what’s this?” said the man. “Why, if ’tan’t Shelby’s gal!”

“My child!—this boy!—he’d sold him! There is his Mas’r,” said she, pointing to the Kentucky shore. “O, Mr. Symmes, you’ve got a little boy!”

“So I have,” said the man, as he roughly, but kindly, drew her up the steep bank. “Besides, you’re a right brave gal. I like grit, wherever I see it.”

When they had gained the top of the bank, the man paused.

“I’d be glad to do something for ye,” said he; “but then there’s nowhar I could take ye. The best I can do is to tell ye to go thar,” said he, pointing to a large white house which stood by itself, off the main street of the village. “Go thar; they’re kind folks. Thar’s no kind o’ danger but they’ll help you,—they’re up to all that sort o’ thing.”

“The Lord bless you!” said Eliza, earnestly.

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(1852) William Smith Killed

By

On December 11, 2022

In Foner, Jackson

Maryland slave catcher kills freedom seeker William Smith at Columbia, Pennsylvania on April 29, after Smith resists arrest under the Fugitive Slave Act. Smith may be the only freedom seeker killed by a slave catcher on Northern soil under the federal law.

[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]

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