Examination of the records of the Baltimore City and County Jail dockets for 1831 through 1864 showing records of prisoners who were identified as runaway slaves in addition to deserting seamen, runaway indentured servants, deserting soldiers, and runaway apprentices.
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]
"Forever Free project : Peter O. Almond & Stephen B. Brier, senior producers ; Christine Doudna, editor."
Originally published: Knopf, 2005.
Includes bibliographical references (p. 239-244) and index.
Contents
The peculiar institution -- True likenesses -- Forever free -- Re-visions of war -- The meanings of freedom -- Altered relations -- An American crisis -- The tocsin of freedom -- On the offensive -- The facts of reconstruction -- Countersigns -- The abandonment of reconstruction -- Jim Crow -- The unfinished revolution.
Summary
Draws on a wide range of documents to offer a new interpretation of the Emancipation and Reconstruction years and the lasting impact they had on the nation's history.
Journal of the Lancaster County Historical Society, 110, no. 2 (Summer 2008) .
Notes
Bibliography: p. 59 - 61.
Summary
The Gap gang was blamed for virtually every crime committed in this part of southeastern Pennsylvania - with good reason. From petty theft, armed robbery, arson, to counterfeiting, the loose-knit group terrorized the community, particularly its African - American members after 1850. This article focuses on the gang's pursuit of run-away slaves for profit.With the Fugitive Slave Act in 1850, slave owners were emboldened in pursuing slaves who had escaped across the Mason-Dixon line into Pennsylvania. The law required civilians to assist in returning slaves to their owners, and it became profitable for the Gap Gang to sell former slaves in Pennsylvania back across the Mason Dixon line to slave owners. The gang developed a reputation for pursuing this line of business. This article also speaks of the formation of an African American Self Defense League in Lancaster County which meant to resist attempted captures of run-away slaves.
Originally published: Lancaster, Pa. : Office of the Journal, 1883.
Includes index.
African American resources at Lancaster County Historical Society.
Summary
This book was written in 1883 by Robert Clemons Smedley, a Chester County Pennsylvania physician who interviewed participants in the underground railroad. He was not a historian and was not unbiased. But he is considered to have been conscientious in his efforts to record the stories he was told. He wrote about events as described to him by person who themselves were involved, both those fleeing slavery and those assisting them.Topics in chapters 1 & 2 include William Wright and Columbia, PA. Chapter 8 is about the "Christiana Tragedy".
"This historical novel, set in 1860 and 1861, follows the adventures of a young woman on the Underground Railroad. It explores the attitudes of people in the North and the South during the critical months leading up to the Civil War, and is a tale of the meaning of love and affection. It continues through the riots in Baltimore and the Siege of Washington in April 1861 and the First Battle of Bull Run. " [from Amazon.com]
Just over the line: Chester County and the underground railroad. A catalogue to accompany an exhibition organized by the Chester County Historical Society
"This catalogue accompanies an exhibition held at Chester County Historical Society February 7, 2002 to December 31, 2002."-- T.p. verso.
Summary
Although this resource is described as a "catalogue", its contents are a series of articles about the underground railroad in Chester County.
"Relates the exciting tales of the legendary Underground Railroad in Chester County, Pennsylvania, an area on the front lines of the antebellum struggle over slavery and black freedom. Examines the spectrum of opinion among Quakers, the prominence of black activists, and the interracial cooperation essential to the Underground Railroad's success." [from Worldcat.org]
Letter to Daniel Givens in Bird-in-Hand from Stephen Smith
Description
Letter to Daniel Givens in Bird-in-Hand from Stephen Smith in Columbia regarding the status and location of three enslaved persons who were reportedly captured south of Lancaster.
Black History Collection (MG0240) https://collections.lancasterhistory.org/en/permalink/2b3d42c6-a313-4ebc-966f-516114048136
Notes
Preferred Citation: Title or description of item, date (day, month, year), Black History Collection (MG0240), Series 2, Object ID, LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania. URL. Date accessed (day, month, year).
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Credit
Courtesy of LancasterHistory, Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
Other Numbers
MG-240, Series 2
Other Number
MG-240, Series 2, Folder 13, Insert 2
Classification
MG0240
Description Level
Item
Custodial History
Transferred from Document Collection, 15 March 2012. Added to database on 28 March 2022.
Digitization of this document was funded by the Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission, PHMC Appl ID # 202010016624, 2020-2023.
