xv, 540 p., [16] p. of plates : ill., maps ; 24 cm.
Notes
Includes bibliographical references (p. [440]-519) and index.
Contents
Beginnings: 1800 to 1830 -- Connections: The 1830s -- Confrontation: The 1840s -- Victory: The 1850s.
Summary
Against a backdrop of the country's westward expansion, which brought together Easterners who had engaged in slavery primarily in the abstract alongside slaveholding Southerners and their slaves, arose a clash of values that evolved into a fierce fight for nothing less than the country's soul. Beginning six decades before the Civil War, freedom-seeking blacks and pious whites worked together to save tens of thousands of lives, often at the risk of great physical danger to themselves. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only subverted federal law but also went against prevailing mores.Flawlessly researched and uncommonly engaging, Bound for Canaan, shows why it was the Underground Railroad and not the Civil Rights movement that gave birth to this country's first racially-integrated, religiously-inspired movement for social change. [from the publisher]
''Child Heroes of the Underground Railroad illuminates the vital contributions of specific, underappreciated child activists within the extremely local circumstances of their daily work. It also provides meaningful context to the actions of these young activists within the much broader social practice of resisting slavery, and offers fresh insight into the complicated question of who was responsible for ending slavery. Through a thorough examination of these subjects, author Jonathan Shectman proves his central thesis: in many specific cases, children were the essential lifeblood of the Underground Railroad's operational workforce." ( amazon.com )
Includes bibliographical references (p. 201-208) and index.
Contents
The dictates of humanity -- Knowledge unfits a child to be a slave -- Ran away from the subscriber -- Tell them I love them all -- Let not the sun go down on your anger, my boy -- Up like bucks: the Rankin boys -- States of matter divide the states -- Deeds of bold daring -- Many years under the yoke -- The conductor was, himself, presently enslaved.
Part I. Radical, young, and quaker: child pioneers of the underground -- Part II. Up like bucks: the line through Ripley -- Part III. Taking their freedom: young free blacks and fugitive children.
On September 11, 1851, at Christiana, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, the African-American community rose up in arms against attempted enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. While attempting to save four men from the federal posse charged to re-enslave them, rioters killed the Maryland farmer who was trying to reclaim his "property."
The Pennsylvania Abolition Society & the Pennsylvania Black : two hundredth anniversary exhibition, April 17, 1974-July 17, 1974, at the Historical Society of Pennsylvania : from its collections, those of Charles L. Blockson, and others
C. Peter Ripley, editor ; co-editors, Roy E. Finkenbine, Michael F. Hembree, Donald Yacovone.
ISBN
0807820725 (cloth : alk. paper)
0807844047 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Place of Publication
Chapel Hill
Publisher
University of North Carolina Press,
Date of Publication
c1993.
Physical Description
xxiv, 306 p. : ill. ; 25 cm.
Notes
Chapter 37 is titled: William Whipper's letters.
Includes bibliographical references (p. [279]-289) and index.
Contents
The rise of black abolitionism : the colonization controversy; the growth of black abolitionism; the rise of immediatism; moral reform; prejudice; two abolitionisms -- African Americans and the antislavery movement : blacks as advocates; slave narratives; black women abolitionists; antislavery and the black community; problems in the movement -- Black independence : a new direction; the African American press; in the common defense; antislavery politics; black antislavery tactics; by all just and necessary means -- Black abolitionists and the national crisis : the slave power; the fugitive slave law; black emigration; black nationality; blacks and John Brown -- Civil war : debating the war; the emancipation proclamation; blacks and Lincoln; the black military experience; the movement goes south; reconstruction.
