Introduction: The Fugitive Slave Issue on the Edge of Freedom -- South Central Pennsylvania, Fugitive Slaves, and the Underground Railroad -- Thaddeus Stevens' Dilemma, Colonization, and the Turbulent Years of Early Antislavery in Adams County, 1835-39 -- Antislavery Petitioning in South Central Pennsylvania -- The Fugitive Slave Issue on Trial : The 1840s in South Central Pennsylvania -- Controversy and Christiana : The Fugitive Slave Issue in South Central Pennsylvania, 1850-51 -- Interlude: Kidnapping, Kansas, and the Rise of Race-Based Partisanship : The decline of the Fugitive Slave Issue in South Central Pennsylvania, 1852-57 -- Revival of the Fugitive Slave Issue, 1858-61 -- Contrabands, "White Victories," and the Ultimate Slave Hunt : Recasting the Fugitive Slave Issue in Civil War South Central Pennsylvania -- After the Shooting : South Central Pennsylvania after the Civil War -- Conclusion: The Postwar Ramifications of the Fugitive Slave Issue "On the Edge of Freedom" -- Appendix A: Selected Fugitive Slave Advertisements, 1818-28 -- Appendix B: 1828 South Central Pennsylvania Petition Opposing Slavery in the District of Columbia -- Appendix C: 1847 Gettysburg African American Petition -- Appendix D: 1846 Adams County Petition -- Appendix E: 1861 Franklin County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix F: 1861 Adams County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix G: [Second] 1861 Adams County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix H: 1861 Doylestown, Bucks County Pro-Colonization Petition -- Appendix I: 1861 Newtown, Bucks County Pro-Personal Liberty Law Petition.
The author in the introduction describes the 18th century system by which people came to the American colonies through the "indenture" or "redemptioner" process. The remainder of the book features copies of advertisements placed in publications seeking indentured servants who have run away from their masters.
Introduction / Dr. Leroy T. Hopkins, Jr. -- Foreword / June Burk Lloyd -- Slavery in Pennsylvania and the early abolitionist movement -- The early growth of the Underground Railroad -- Prigg v. Pennsylvania -- An open pathway for fugitives -- From discord toward dissolution -- The bloody road to emancipation -- Afterword / James McClure -- Appendix A : Reported Underground Railroad conductors in York County -- Appendix B : The slaveholder's prayer.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-284) and index.
Contents
pt. 1. False dawn -- Newcomers -- Settlers and squatters -- Expansion -- Fraud -- A hunger for land -- pt. 2. Theatre of bloodshed and rapine -- Braddock's defeat -- Pennsylvania goes to war -- Negotiations -- Westward journeys -- Conquest -- pt. 3. Zealots -- Indian uprising -- Rangers -- Conestoga Indiantown -- Lancaster workhouse -- Panic in Philadelphia -- pt. 4. A war of words -- The Declaration and Remonstrance -- A proper spirit of jealousy and revenge -- Christian white savages -- Under the tyrant's foot -- pt. 5. Unraveling -- Killers -- Mercenaries -- Revolutionaries -- Appendix : Identifying the Conestoga Indians.
Summary
"William Penn established Pennsylvania in 1682 as a "holy experiment" in which Europeans and Indians could live together in harmony. In this book, historian Kevin Kenny explains how this Peaceable Kingdom--benevolent, Quaker, pacifist--gradually disintegrated in the eighteenth century, with disastrous consequences for Native Americans ... Based on extensive research in eighteenth-century primary sources, this ... history offers an eye-opening look at how colonists--at first, the backwoods Paxton Boys but later the U.S. government--expropriated Native American lands, ending forever the dream of colonists and Indians living together in peace."--Jacket.
Laws enacted in the second sitting of the tenth General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania : which commenced at Philadelphia, on the twenty-first day of February, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-six
Place of publication and name of printer from colophon.
Signatures: C-Y² [Z]².
Sideglosses.
Includes acts and laws numbered Chap. V-XXXII signed and enacted in the months of February through April by Thomas Mifflin, speaker [of the Pennsylvania state House of Representatives] and Samuel Bryan, clerk of the General Assembly.
Pagination continues: Laws enacted in the first sitting of the tenth General Assembly, of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, which commenced at Philadelphia, on Monday the twenty-fourth day of October, in the year of our Lord one thousand seven hundred and eighty-five, Philadelphia, [1786] (Evans 19885).
Handwritten index precedes text.
Jasper Yeates's Colonial Law Library.
Yeates's signature at top of title page.
Book number 588 as assigned by Yeates.
With: Pennsylvania. Laws enacted in the third sitting of the tenth General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia : T. Bradford, [1786] --Pennsylvania. Laws enacted in the first sitting of the eleventh General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia : T. Bradford, [1786] --Pennsylvania. Laws enacted in the second sitting of the eleventh General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Philadelphia : [T. Bradford, 1786].
