A True Story of the Christiana Riot PDF Download

Author: David R. Forbes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Fugitive slave law of 1850
Languages : en
Pages : 200

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Author: William Uhler Hensel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christiana (Pa.)
Languages : en
Pages : 170

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Author: DAVID R. FORBES
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781033215555
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Author: William Parker
Publisher: LM Publishers
ISBN: 2366598041
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages :

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The manuscript of the following pages has been handed to me with the request that I would revise it for publication, or weave its facts into a story which should show the fitness of the Southern black for the exercise of the right of suffrage. The narrative is a plain and unpretending account of the life of a man whose own right arm—to use his own expression—won his rights as a freeman. It is written with the utmost simplicity, and has about it the verisimilitude which belongs to truth, and to truth only when told by one who has been a doer of the deeds and an actor in the scenes which he describes. It has the further rare merit of being written by one of the "despised race"; for none but a negro can fully and correctly depict negro life and character. General Thomas—a Southern man, and a friend of the Southern negro—was once in conversation with a gentleman who has attained some reputation as a delineator of the black man, when a long, lean, "poor white man," then a scout in the Union army, approached the latter, and, giving his shoulder a familiar slap, accosted him with,— "How are you, ole feller?" The gentleman turned about, and forgetting, in his joy at meeting an old friend, the presence of this most dignified of our military men, responded to the salutation of the scout in an equally familiar and boisterous manner. General Thomas "smiled wickedly," and quietly remarked,— "You seem to know each other." "Know him!" exclaimed the scout. "Why, Gin'ral, I ha'n't seed him fur fourteen year; but I sh'u'd know him, ef his face war as black as it war one night when we went ter a nigger shindy tergether!" The gentleman colored up to the roots of his hair, and stammered out,— "That was in my boy days, General, when I was sowing my wild oats." "Don't apologize, Sir," answered the General, "don't apologize; for I see that to your youthful habit of going to negro shindies we owe your truthful pictures of negro life." And the General was right. Every man and woman who has essayed to depict the slave character has miserably failed, unless inoculated with the genuine spirit of the negro; and even those who have succeeded best have done only moderately well, because they have not had the negro nature. It is reserved to some black Shakspeare or Dickens to lay open the wonderful humor, pathos, poetry, and power which slumber in the negro's soul, and which now and then flash out like the fire from a thunder-cloud. ...

Author: David R. Forbes
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Riots
Languages : en
Pages :

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Author: David R. Forbes
Publisher: Theclassics.Us
ISBN: 9781230195391
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1898 edition. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER XV. THE VERDICT AND COMMENTS. 'HpHE JURY were out less than ten minutes--just long enough to ascertain that they were all of one mind--and the trial was brought to a conclusion by the verdict of "Not Guilty." Although everybody had anticipated the result, still the announcement of the verdict diffused a general feeling of joy among all classes, save the open partisans of slavery. The Government officials had been taught that Pennsylvania was not quite prepared to wear the shackles which the slave power had forged for her, and that public sentiment in the land of Penn was not so debased as to willingly allow the incursions of the slave hunter. It was no wonder, therefore, that the friends of freedom exulted, nor that the minions of slavery were filled with disappointment and rage. Men gathered in groups in stores and shops, or in the streets, to congratulate each other on the defeat of the Administration and its tools in their efforts to revive, in behalf of slavery, the exploded doctrine of Constructive Treason. The scene in court after the rendition of the verdict was deeply interesting. Mr. Ashmead said that the prisoner was also charged on four other bills for misdemeanor; but as he had passed through such an ordeal, he purposed entering a nolle prosequi on those bills. If the State does not hold him for anything else, I move for his discharge. Judge Grier said that, on motion, the prisoner was discharged. The friends of Mr. Hanway gathered around him in great numbers to congratulate him and his noble-hearted wife upon his escape from the clutches of the United States Government. The trial settled one point beyond all chance of reversal, viz.: That a company of blacks gathered spontaneously together and armed for the defense...

Author: William Uhler Hensel
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Christiana (Pa.)
Languages : en
Pages : 176

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Author: Thomas P. Slaughter
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0199923299
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 267

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When four young men, slaves on Edward Gorsuch's Maryland farm, escaped to rural Pennsylvania in 1849, the owner swore he'd bring them back. Two years later, Gorsuch lay dead outside the farmhouse in Christiana where he'd tracked them down, as his federal posse retreated pell-mell before the armed might of local blacks--and the impact of the most notorious act of resistance against the federal Fugitive Slave Law was about to be felt across a divided nation. Bloody Dawn vividly tells this dramatic story of escape, manhunt, riot, and the ensuing trial, detailing its importance in heightening the tensions that led to the Civil War. Thomas Slaughter's engaging narrative captures the full complexity of events and personalities: The four men fled after they were detected stealing grain for resale off the farm; Gorsuch, far from a brutal taskmaster, had pledged to release all his slaves when they reached the age of twenty-eight, but he relentlessly pursued the escapees out of a sense of wounded honor; and the African-American community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that provided them refuge was already effectively organized for self-defense by a commanding former slave named William Parker. Slaughter paints a rich portrait of the ongoing struggles between local blacks and white kidnapping gangs, the climactic riot as neighbors responded to trumpet calls from the besieged runaway slaves, the escape to Canada of the central figures (aided by Frederick Douglass), and the government's urgent response (including the largest mass indictment for treason in our history)--leading to the trial for his life of a local white bystander accused of leading the rioting blacks. Slaughter not only draws out the great importance given to the riot in both the North and the South, but he uses legal records reaching back over half a century to uncover the thoughts of average people on race, slavery, and violence. The Whiskey Rebellion, Slaughter's previous work of history, received widespread acclaim as "a vivid account" (The New York Times) and "an unusual combination of meticulous scholarship and engaging narrative" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). It was a selection of the History Book Club, and won both the National Historical Society Book Prize and the American Revolution Round Table Award. In Bloody Dawn, he once again weaves together the incisive insights of a professional historian with a gripping account of a dramatic moment in American history.

Author: Robert H. Churchill
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108489125
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271

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A new interpretation of the Underground Railroad that places violence at the center of the story.

Author: Steven Lubet
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674059468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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During the tumultuous decade before the Civil War, no issue was more divisive than the pursuit and return of fugitive slaves—a practice enforced under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. When free Blacks and their abolitionist allies intervened, prosecutions and trials inevitably followed. These cases involved high legal, political, and—most of all—human drama, with runaways desperate for freedom, their defenders seeking recourse to a “higher law” and normally fair-minded judges (even some opposed to slavery) considering the disposition of human beings as property. Fugitive Justice tells the stories of three of the most dramatic fugitive slave trials of the 1850s, bringing to vivid life the determination of the fugitives, the radical tactics of their rescuers, the brutal doggedness of the slavehunters, and the tortuous response of the federal courts. These cases underscore the crucial role that runaway slaves played in building the tensions that led to the Civil War, and they show us how “civil disobedience” developed as a legal defense. As they unfold we can also see how such trials—whether of rescuers or of the slaves themselves—helped build the northern anti-slavery movement, even as they pushed southern firebrands closer to secession. How could something so evil be treated so routinely by just men? The answer says much about how deeply the institution of slavery had penetrated American life even in free states. Fugitive Justice powerfully illuminates this painful episode in American history, and its role in the nation’s inexorable march to war.