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.
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.
Includes bibliographical references (pages 149-155) and index.
Contents
Lives on the frontier -- The Quaker colony -- Slavery and the Rise of South Central Pennyslvania -- Revolutionary Times -- Defying abolition -- "The General pressure of the Times" -- "No Doubt She Is Somewhere in Adams County" -- Sons of the Revolution, Fathers of Abolition -- "Come in and Take Thy Breakfast" -- Confederate Invasion -- "God Plead My Cause"
Summary
"Much like the rest of the nation, South Central Pennsyvlania struggled with slavery. The institution lingered locally for more than fifty years, although it was virtually extinct everywhere else within Pennsylvania. Gradually, antislavery views prevailed. The Appalachian Mountains and the Susquehanna River provided natural cover for fleeing slaves, causing an influx of travel along the Underground Railraod. Locals like WIlliam Wright and James McAllister assisted these runaways while publically advocating to abolish slavery." -- page [4] of cover.
Pennsylvania History: A journal of Mid-Atlantic studies ; v.83, no. 4
Summary
Abstract: In the early republic, Pennsylvania and the surrounding Mid-Atlantic region was a vital space for wanderers, runaways, and migrants. Both under the law as well as on the road, fugitive slaves, pauper migrants, and vagrants shared much by way of identity and occupation. This article considers three key components of this relationship: legal connections that limited the movements of these groups, inherently similar corporeal experiences of transient poverty, and linkage in the public mind. Charting the transiency that former slaves and servants often undertook after leaving bondage reinforces these similarities, especially in light of contemporary associations between race and transiency and the subsequent criminalization of the freedom of movement for persons of color in varying stages of freedom. The imposition of personal status inherent in the category of vagrancy is illustrated in the ways in which individuals defined their own identities and were defined by the laws they encountered.
