Fugitive Slaves Part 9

[Sidenote: Castner Hanway. John Brown.]

=-- 60. Christiana case (1851).=--Occasionally the rescue of fugitives was not accomplished by a sudden unorganized movement, but by a deliberate armed defence on the part of the slaves and their friends. In the Christiana case the affair was marked by violence and bloodshed, while the fact that the Quakers Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis were afterward prosecuted made it notorious; and the further fact that the charge was not, as usual, that of aiding a fugitive, but of treason, gave it still greater interest.

In and about Christiana, Pennsylvania, there were many negroes who had formerly been slaves, descriptions of whom were frequently furnished to kidnappers by a band of men known throughout the country as the "Gap Gang." A league for mutual protection had therefore been formed by the colored people, and prominent among them for intelligence and boldness was William Parker. Soon after the pa.s.sage of the law of 1850, Edward Gorsuch and a party came from Maryland to Christiana for a fugitive slave. With United States officers from Philadelphia they went immediately to the house of William Parker, where the man they were seeking was sheltered. When their demand was refused, they fired two shots at the house. This roused the people, and a riot ensued in which the fugitive escaped. Mr. Gorsuch was killed, his son desperately wounded, and the rest put to flight. Castner Hanway at the beginning of the struggle was notified of the kidnappers' presence, and, though feeble in health, hastened to the scene. When ordered by Marshal Kline to aid him in accordance with the law, he refused; yet, far from leading in the affair, he tried in every way to prevent bloodshed and bring about peace.

After it was over, Parker, with two other colored men, knowing that arrest must follow, secreted themselves under piles of shavings in an old carpenter's shop. At night they sent four wagons in different directions as decoys for the detectives, and were carried safely away by a fifth.

Many negroes hid that night in the corn shocks, and under the floors of houses, until escape could be made in safety.[212]

Castner Hanway was arrested, and arraigned before the United States court on the charge of treason; but no proof of a conspiracy to make a general and public resistance to the law could be found, and he was acquitted.

Afterward it was desired to try Hanway and Lewis for "riot and murder,"

but the grand jury ignored the bill, and all prisoners were released.

With these prosecutions the end of the affair was apparently reached, though perhaps its influence may be traced in a succeeding case.

=-- 61. Miller case (1851).=--A noted kidnapper from Maryland, in 1851, seized a free negro girl living at the house of Mr. Miller, in Nottingham, Pennsylvania, and took her to Baltimore. Mr. Miller followed them, and succeeded in getting her freed. He then started back, but never reached home. Search was made, and his body found upon the way. It was thought that the murder was committed in revenge for the part he had taken in the Christiana riot.[213]

=-- 62. John Brown in Kansas (1858).=--It was during this period also that John Brown was endeavoring to put into execution his famous plan for freeing the slaves. This is interesting, not only as typical of organized efforts to free the slaves on the plantations, but also because of its connection with other phases of the slavery question, into which we shall not attempt to enter here. His idea was first to gather as large a force as possible, then, when his men were properly drilled, to run off the slaves in large numbers; to retain the brave and strong in the mountains, and to send the weak and timid to the North by the "Underground Railroad."[214]

In December, 1858, Brown divided his forces into two divisions, and went into Missouri. Here he succeeded in freeing eleven slaves, and, though pursued by a far superior number of Missourians, took them safely into Kansas. The affair, by its boldness, created great excitement throughout the South. The Governor of Missouri offered three thousand dollars reward, and the President of the United States two hundred and fifty dollars, for Brown's capture; within a very short time he had succeeded in conveying himself and his eleven fugitives safely into Canada, and the horses which he had appropriated from the slaveholders in order to carry his proteges out of Kansas were afterward publicly sold by him in Ohio.[215]

[Footnote 169: Mr. Quincy also states, that "about a fortnight elapsed, when I was called upon by Rufus Green Amory, a lawyer of eminence at the Boston bar in that day, who showed me a letter from a Southern slaveholder, directing him to prosecute Josiah Quincy for the penalty under the law of 1793, for obstructing the agent of the claimant in obtaining his slave under the process established by that law. Mr. Amory felt, no less than myself, the folly of such a pretence; and I never heard from him, or from any one, anything more upon the subject of prosecution. This fact, and the universal gratification which the fact appeared to give to the public, satisfied my mind, that, unless by accident, or stealth, or in some very thin settled part of the country, the law of 1793 would be forever inoperative, as the event has proved in Ma.s.sachusetts."--Meeting at Faneuil Hall to protest against the Fugitive Slave Law, letter read from Josiah Quincy, Boston Atlas, Oct. 15, 1850; Goodell, Slavery and Antislavery, 232; Appendix D, No. 12.]

[Footnote 170: Appendix D, No. 13.]

[Footnote 171: Appendix D, No. 19.]

[Footnote 172: Appendix D, No. 16.]

[Footnote 173: Appendix D, No. 42.]

[Footnote 174: Appendix D, No. 26.]

[Footnote 175: Appendix D, No. 20.]

[Footnote 176: Appendix D, No. 22.]

[Footnote 177: Appendix D, No. 35.]

[Footnote 178: See post, -- 81.]

[Footnote 179: _Ante_, -- 25.]

[Footnote 180: Appendix D, No. 28; see _post_, -- 81.]

[Footnote 181: Appendix D, No. 34.]

[Footnote 182: _Ante_, -- 25.]

[Footnote 183: Appendix D, No. 21.]

[Footnote 184: Appendix D, No. 24.]

[Footnote 185: Appendix D, No. 37.]

[Footnote 186: Appendix D, No. 25.]

[Footnote 187: Appendix D, No. 40.]

[Footnote 188: Appendix D, No. 31.]

[Footnote 189: Liberator, Aug. 15, 1845, "The Branded Hand."]

[Footnote 190: Von Holst, IV. 10, 11.]

[Footnote 191: J. F. Clarke, Antislavery Days, 92.]

[Footnote 192: Appendix D, No. 43.]

[Footnote 193: Appendix D, No. 48.]

[Footnote 194: Liberator, April 17, 1851.]

[Footnote 195: Daily Morning Chronicle, April 26, 1851.]

[Footnote 196: Liberator, April 17, 1851.]

[Footnote 197: Appendix D, No. 57.]

[Footnote 198: Boston Journal, May 29, 1854.]

[Footnote 199: Personal statement of Mr. Elbridge Sprague, made to the writer. Col. T. W. Higginson suggests a few minor corrections in Mr.

Sprague's narrative. The first person to step in was an unknown negro: the beam used was found in Court Square; none were prepared beforehand; there was but one box of axes.]

[Footnote 200: Boston Daily Advertiser, 1854, Worcester Spy, May 31, 1854, Argument of Mr. R. H. Dana.]

[Footnote 201: Liberator, Aug. 22, 1854.]

[Footnote 202: Von Holst, V. 64.]

[Footnote 203: Appendix D, No. 57.]

[Footnote 204: Commonwealth, June 26, 1854.]

[Footnote 205: Appendix D, No. 58.]

[Footnote 206: See post, -- 81.]