Philadelphia abolitionists organize their own vigilance committee in August modeled after Ruggles’s New York organization. Initially led by Black activist Robert Purvis, the group goes underground for much of the 1840s before returning to the public eye under the leadership of Black abolitionist William Still in 1852.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Date(s): arrested June 1844, convicted December 3, 1844
Location(s): Washington, DC; Baltimore, Maryland
Outcome: Conviction
Summary:
Charles Torrey (House Divided Project)
Massachusetts-born Charles Torrey first came to Washington, DC in 1842 as an antislavery reporter. Torrey’s journalism made plenty of enemies, but it was his covert work assisting freedom seekers that most disturbed slaveholders. Together with formerly enslaved man Thomas Smallwood and his wife Elizabeth Smallwood, Torrey coordinated escapes from the nation’s capital. After several close calls with authorities, Torrey relocated with his wife and children to Albany, New York, while Smallwood fled to Canada. But Torrey continued to return to the capital area, and Maryland authorities arrested him in Baltimore in June 1844. A jury convicted Torrey after deliberating only twenty minutes, sentencing the abolitionist to six years in the Maryland state penitentiary. Torrey’s died behind bars of tuberculosis on May 9, 1846, the same day Maryland governor Thomas Pratt pardoned him due to his failing health.
Pearl mass escape rattles Washington, DC slaveholders on April 15, as 77 freedom seekers attempt to flee the nation’s capital by boat. Armed whites overtake the group, and slaveholders sell many of the freedom seekers south. Later, local authorities convict two white allies, Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres, on charges of slave stealing. Unable to pay their fines, Drayton and Sayres remain in jail until President Millard Fillmore pardons them in 1852.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
John Brown launches his abortive Harpers Ferry insurrection on October 16-18 before US marines surround Brown and his followers. Virginia authorities execute Brown in December, but his death transforms him into a martyr among many antislavery Northerners.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
District of Columbia Compensated Emancipation Act is signed into law by President Lincoln on April 16, freeing the capital’s enslaved residents and reimbursing slaveholders.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Emancipation Proclamation is issued by President Lincoln on January 1, declaring free all enslaved people held in the Confederate states and authorizing the enlistment of Black soldiers. The sweeping directive, however, exempts Union-occupied Tennessee and parts of Union-occupied Virginia and Louisiana, designating them as under control of civil laws and not war measures.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
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