The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom. Wilbur Henry Siebert
By the abolitionists, at whom it was directed, this law was detested. A government, whose first national manifesto contained the exalted principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence, stooping to the task of slave-catching, violated all their ideas of national dignity, decency and consistency. Many persons, indeed, justified their opposition to the law in the familiar words: "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." The scriptural injunction "not to deliver unto his master the servant that hath escaped,"[44] was also frequently quoted by men whose religious convictions admitted of no compromise. They pointed out that the law virtually made all Northern citizens accomplices in what they denominated the crime of slave-catching; that it denied the right of trial by jury, resting the question of lifelong liberty on ex-parte evidence; made ineffective the writ of habeas corpus; and offered a bribe to the commissioner for a decision against the negro.[45] The penalties of fine and imprisonment for offenders against the law were severe, but they had no deterrent effect upon those engaged in helping slaves to Canada. On the contrary, the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 stimulated the work of secret emancipation. "The passage of the new law," says a recent investigator, "probably increased the number of anti-slavery people more than anything else that had occurred during the whole agitation. Many of those formerly indifferent were roused to active opposition by a sense of the injustice of the Fugitive Slave Act as they saw it executed in Boston and elsewhere. … As Mr. James Freeman Clarke has said, 'It was impossible to convince the people that it was right to send back to slavery men who were so desirous of freedom as to run such risks. All education from boyhood up to manhood had taught us to believe that it was the duty of all men to struggle for freedom.'"[46]
The desire for freedom was in the mind of nearly every enslaved negro. Liberty was the subject of the dreams and visions of slave preachers and sibyls; it was the object of their prayers. The plaintive songs of the enslaved race were full of the thought of freedom. It has been well said that "one of the finest touches in Uncle Tom's Cabin is the joyful expression of Uncle Tom when told by his good and indulgent master that he should be set free and sent back to his old home in Kentucky. In attributing the common desire of humanity to the negro the author was as true as she was effective."[47] To slaves living in the vicinity, Mexico and Florida early afforded a welcome refuge. Forests, islands and swamps within the Southern states were favorite places of resort for runaways. The Great Dismal Swamp became the abode of a large colony of these refugees, whose lives were spent in its dark recesses, and whose families were reared and buried there. Even in this retreat, however, the negroes were not beyond molestation, for they were systematically hunted by men with dogs and guns.[48] Scraps of information about Canada and the Northern states were gleaned and treasured by minds recognizing their own degradation, but scarcely knowing how to take the first step towards the betterment of their condition.
There can be no doubt that the form in which slavery existed in the South during the opening decade of the present century was comparatively mild; but it is quite clear that it soon exchanged this character for one from which the amenities of the patriarchal type had practically disappeared. With the rapid expansion of the industries peculiar to the South after the opening up of the Louisiana purchase, the invention of the cotton gin, and the removal of the Indians from the Gulf states, came the era of the slave's dismay. The auction block and the brutal overseer became his dread while awake, his nightmare when asleep. That his fears were not ill founded is proved by the activity of the slave-marts of Baltimore, Richmond, New Orleans and Washington from the time of the migrations to the Mississippi territory until the War. Alabama is said to have bought millions of dollars worth of slaves from the border states up to 1849. Dew estimated that six thousand slaves were carried from Virginia, though not all of these were sold to other states.[49]
The fear of sale to the far South must have stimulated slaves to flight. That the number of escapes did increase is deduced from the consensus of abolitionist testimony. Our sole reliance is upon this testimony until the appearance of the United States census reports for 1850 and 1860;[50] and the exhibits on fugitive slaves in these compendiums we are constrained by various considerations to regard as inadequate. However, the flight of slaves from the South was not what the new conditions would readily account for. We must conclude, therefore, that the deterring effect of ignorance and the sense of the difficulties in the way were reënforced after 1840 by increased vigilance on the part of the slave-owning class, owing to the rise in value of slave property. "Since 1840," says a careful observer, "the high price of slaves may be supposed … to have increased the vigilance and energy with which the recapture of fugitives is followed up, and to have augmented the number of free negroes reduced to slavery by kidnappers. Indeed it has led to a proposition being quite seriously entertained in Virginia, of enslaving the whole body of the free negroes in that state by legislative enactment."[51] Then, too, the negro's attachment to the land of his birth, and to his kindred, when these were not torn from him, must be allowed to have hindered flight in many instances; when, however, the appearance of the dreaded slave-dealer, or the brutality of the overseer or the master, spread dismay among the hands of a plantation, flights were likely to follow. This was sometimes the case, too, when by the death of a planter the division of his property among his heirs was made necessary. William Johnson, of Windsor, Ontario, ran away from his Kentucky master because he was threatened with being sent South to the cotton and rice fields.[52] Horace Washington, of Windsor, after working nearly two years for a man that had a claim on him for one hundred and twenty-five dollars, reminded his employer that the original agreement required but one year's labor, and asked for release. Getting no satisfaction, and fearing sale, he fled to Canada.[53] Lewis Richardson, one of the slaves of Henry Clay, sought relief in flight after receiving a hundred and fifty stripes from Mr. Clay's overseer.[54] William Edwards, of Amherstburg, Ontario, left his master on account of a severe flogging.[55] One of the station-keepers of an underground line in Morgan County, Ohio, recalls an instance of a family of seven fugitives giving as the cause of their flight the death of their master, and the expected scattering of their number when the division of the estate should occur.[56]
This picture of a poor fugitive is from one of the stereotype cuts manufactured in this city for the southern market, and used on handbills offering rewards for runaway slaves.
THE RUNAWAY
(Slightly enlarged from The Anti-Slavery Record, published in New York City by the American
Anti-Slavery Society.)
It has already been remarked that slaves began to find their way to Canada before the opening of the present century, but information in regard to that country as a place of refuge can scarcely be said to have come into circulation before the War of 1812. The hostile relations existing between the two nations at that time caused negroes of sagacious minds to seek their liberty among the enemies of the United States.[57] Then, too, soldiers returning from the War to their homes in Kentucky and Virginia brought the news of the disposition of the Canadian government to defend the rights of the self-emancipated slaves under its jurisdiction. Rumors of this sort gave hope and courage to the blacks that heard it, and, doubtless, the welcome reports were spread by these among trusted companions and friends. By 1815 fugitives were crossing the Western Reserve in Ohio, and regular stations of the Underground Railroad were lending them assistance in that and other portions of the state.[58]
After the discovery of Canada by colored refugees from the Southern states, it was, presumably, not long before some of them, returning for their families and friends, gave circulation in a limited way to reports more substantial than the vague rumors hitherto afloat. Among the escaped slaves that carried the promise of Canadian liberty across Mason and Dixon's line were such successful abductors as Josiah Henson and Harriet Tubman. In 1860 it was estimated that the number of negroes that journeyed annually from Canada to the slave states to rescue their fellows was about five hundred. It was said that these persons "carried the Underground Railroad and the Underground Telegraph into nearly every Southern state."[59] The work done by these fugitives was supplemented by the cautious dissemination of news by white persons that went into the South to abduct slaves or encourage them to escape, or while