Reproduction of a picture depicting a fugitive slave that is typical of the images that appeared on handbills of southern slave owners searching for escaped slaves. The image was collected by Ohio State University professor Wilbur H. Siebert (1866-1961). Siebert began researching the Underground Railroad in the 1890s as a way to interest his students in history.
Local history records that the
“Crossing at Scioto County” was an important stop in the
Underground Railroad where William McClain, riverboat captain, would
pick up runaways on the Kentucky side of the Ohio River and transport
them to Portsmouth. McClain resided with his wife Sarah Ann
(Thompson) in a court between Fifth and Sixth Street. They risked
facing federal charges for aiding and abetting these fugitives;
however, their means of transport was simple yet practically clever
and secretive.
McClain would dock his boat at
Portsmouth and employ a horse-drawn cart to transport barrels filled
with fugitives up the Ohio bank to the brewery crossing at Front and
Second Street. Once inside the local brewery, the runaways were taken
to the cellar where they would wait to begin the next stage of their
journey to freedom. From there, others would deliver them safely to
the Portsmouth stations of Joseph Ashton and Milton Kennedy or
northeast to J. J. Minor in South Webster. Canada was their ultimate
goal.
* Historical Note – William
and Sarah Ann McClain are interred in Greenlawn Cemetery. Historian
William Cullen writes that the Riverboat Man symbol used by the
Portsmouth Brewing Company today likely honors those like the
McClains who bravely helped slaves escape.
In addition to the McClains, James
Preston Poindexter, an African-American barber and local resident,
would pick up fugitives in Kentucky and row them across the river to
Portsmouth and deliver them to John Adams in his home on Chillicothe
Street near Eleventh.
Poindexter (1819-1907) later became
pastor of Second Baptist Church in Columbus in 1858. He was an
articulate speaker and prolific writer, speaking out against slavery
and discrimination in his many speeches. He became a member of the
Columbus City Council, the Columbus Board of Education, the State
Forestry Board of Directors, the Columbus Pastor's Union, an Ohio
School for the Blind and Wilberforce University trustee, and a
contributor to the Ohio State Journal. Poindexter received many
honorary degrees and served Second Baptist Church for 40 years.
These stories of freedom still inspire
us and remind us of a time not so long ago when slavery existed in
the South. The Ohio River was a watery dividing line between bondage
and freedom. Yet, Scioto County, Ohio was not a place of safety for
runaway slaves. Indeed, it was a perilous location for those seeking
asylum. Runaway slaves more often than not were taken as swiftly as
possible to the next station north of town because they risked being
returned to confinement.
Slavery was abolished in Ohio by the
state's original constitution (1802). But at the same time, Ohio,
with slave-state Kentucky across the river, took the lead in
aggressively barring black immigration. It was evident Ohio’s
opposition to slavery did not represent pro-Black advocacy.
Many Northerners did not welcome a
fugitive invasion. They sought solutions other than permanent
settlement. The American Colonization Society (1816) proposed to
raise funds from public and private sources to send blacks “back to
Africa.” The society secured Liberia on the West Coast of Africa as
a place for relocation. Of course, most slaves had never been there –
which makes it impossible to take them “back.” But, Northerners
feared colonization efforts would ignite a much greater flood of
immigrants into their states.
* Historical Note – In 1822,
the American Colonization Sciety established a colony that in 1847
became the independent nation of Liberia. By 1867, the society had
sent more than 13,000 emigrants. Beginning in the 1830s, the society
was harshly attacked by abolitionists, who tried to discredit
colonization as a slaveholder's scheme. And, after the Civil War,
when many blacks wanted to go to Liberia, financial support for
colonization had waned. During its later years the society focused on
educational and missionary efforts in Liberia rather than emigration.
In 1913 and at its dissolution in 1964, the society donated its
records to the Library of Congress.
What happened in Ohio when slaves
sought settlement? You may be surprised. When Virginian John
Randolph, Roanoke tobacco plantation owner and member of the
Democratic-Republican Party died in 1833 and emancipated his 518
slaves while giving them land near Carthagena, Ohio, so they could
begin their own lives as free people, the population rose up in
indignation. In fact, an Ohio congressman warned that if the attempt
were made, "the banks of the Ohio ... would be lined with men
with muskets on their shoulders to keep off the emancipated slaves."
It was not until the 1840s that the
former slaves tried to make their way to Carthagena. Randolph's
brother had disputed the will and declared that John was insane when
he wrote it. After thirteen years, the court ruled in John's favor
and granted his slaves their freedom. When the African Americans
reached Carthagena, white mobs confronted them and drove them away.
The former slaves were forced to scatter. They settled in a number of
other Ohio communities, including Piqua, Sidney, and Xenia.
* Historical Note – Exact
totals vary, but a large sum of Randolph's money was designated for
the purchase of between 2,000 and 3,200 acres of land in Mercer
County in the free state of Ohio. Any male slave among the 383
emancipated people who was above the age of 40 would receive “not
less than ten acres of land each.” Carthagena was already the site
of a functioning black community established in 1835 by Augustus
Wattles, an Eastern Quaker – a place with blacksmiths, shop owners,
churches, sawmill operators, and teachers.
The incident at Carthagena illustrates
that prejudice existed in Ohio during the years before the American
Civil War. Ohio was a state that did not allow slavery. Nevertheless,
that did not mean that whites were open to granting African Americans
equal rights. Free African Americans found that it was difficult to
get fair treatment.
There were also anti-immigration laws
that could be invoked to harass Negro residents in Ohio. On January
5, 1804, Elias Langham and Nathaniel Massie, Speaker of the House and
Speaker of the Senate respectively, created an act designed to limit
the actions of Black people in the North. These so called “Black
Laws” demanded that any Person of Color caught without freed papers
would be sent to the South, regardless of whether they had ever been
enslaved before.
Furthermore, those papers had to be
recorded by the Clerk of Courts in the Ohio county in which they
resided. This also required a fee of twelve and a half cents per
family, costly for those who had spent much of their lives toiling
for free.
Ohio enacted other Black Laws in 1807
that required black people to prove that they were not slaves and to
find at least two people who would guarantee a surety of five hundred
dollars for the African Americans' good behavior. The laws also
limited African Americans' rights to marry whites and to
gun-ownership, as well as to several other freedoms that whites held.
Historian Leon F. Litwack wrote: "No
extensive effort was made to enforce the bond requirement until 1829,
when the rapid increase of the Negro population alarmed Cincinnati.
The city authorities announced that the Black Laws would be enforced
and ordered Negroes to comply or leave within thirty days."
Fugitive Slave Act and Dred Scott
Decision
Slave owners pursued fugitive slaves
into Ohio. Important legislation supported their evil work. In
reality, laws required those north of the Mason-Dixon to become
compliant with slave catchers who entered free territories to capture
runaways.
In 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive
Slave Act, which allowed slave owners and their authorized agents to
“pursue and reclaim” escapees on free soil. A pursuer could swear
out an arrest warrant that a United States marshal was obliged to
enforce. The act also permitted slave owners to kidnap people and
force them into federal court. After a short hearing, a commissioner
would determine the status of the person in custody. Commissioners
were paid ten dollars upon ruling that a person was a slave, but only
five dollars if they determined that he or she was free. Anyone
interfering with the recapture of a fugitive faced prison and
thousands of dollars in fines.
The Fugitive Slave Law brought the
Southern viewpoint, that a black person was assumed a slave until
proven otherwise, into the northern states, where all people, white
and black, were assumed free until proven otherwise. It
required neither the alleged fugitive slave nor the alleged
slaveowner to appear in person to testify.
Even the Cleveland Plain Dealer,
noted for its vehement anti-abolitionist opinions, complained that
the law was not “confined to the slave States,” but was enforced
“wholly in the free States… by free men. The service it requires
is not the kind we owe to either God, man, or the devil.”
Lewis Tappan, the abolitionist New York
merchant and key benefactor of Oberlin College, minced no words: “It
(the act) constitutes at the North, in our neighborhoods, and by our
firesides, the most anomalous, overshadowing, insulting, and despotic
police that perverted mind can contrive, or guilty power sustain –
a police which guilty power cannot sustain, until honor, and purity,
and freedom have fled from among us, and we have consented to be the
most drivelling, and base, and worthless slaves that ever crawled at
the foot of tyranny.”
Over the next few years scores of
blacks were arrested under this law, with the vast majority being
remanded to slavery. But other than a handful of rescues, Northerners
were powerless to do anything about it.
Then, six years later, the Supreme
Court went one step further than Congress. In the Dred Scott
decision, the Court ruled that, slave or free, members of the
“unhappy black race,” “separated from the white by indelible
marks,” were not citizens of the United States. According to Chief
Justice Roger Taney, although the words of the Declaration of
Independence “would seem to embrace the whole human family, . . .
the enslaved African race were not intended to be included.”
The decision was a hard blow against
abolitionists and a triumphant victory for slave owners. Now,
according to the Supreme Court, slaveholders could take their slaves
with them anywhere within the United States they chose without the
slaves automatically earning their freedom.
Even though there were brief victories
of the Free Soilers, the Ohio state government was back to its old
ways, and it expelled a black reporter from a freedman's newspaper
from the Senate press galley because his presence there violated "the
laws of nature and the moral and political well-being of both races."
When the Republicans arose as the
Northern political party in Ohio, as in Pennsylvania, they kept their
distance from abolitionists and blacks to assure their success. "The
'negro question,' " one state leader of the party wrote as
Lincoln's election approached, "as we understand it, is a white
man's question, the question of the right of free white laborers to
the soil of the territories. It is not to be crushed or retarded by
shouting 'Sambo' at us. We have no Sambo in our platform. ... We
object to Sambo. We don't want him about. We insist that he shall not
be forced upon us."
Of Local Interest
Imagine pre-Civil War days and reflect
upon the climate of social acceptance in Scioto County during that
time. Examining the past allows us to better understand how a
turbulent era truly affected our lives today. Local history is
up-close and personal. Allow me to share a few accounts of interest.
Greenup Slave Revolt
Records confirm in the “1850 Slave
Schedule” that Greenup County, Kentucky had 135 slave owners, 443
black slaves, 163 mulatto slaves, and 44 free blacks. The county will
long be remembered as a place where a foiled attempt for freedom made
history.
The Greenup Slave Revolt would inspire
Boston’s leading abolitionist David Walker, who recounted it in his
electrifying anti-slavery pamphlet the “Appeal.” Walker, unlike
better known abolitionists like William Lloyd Garrison and Frederick
Douglass, advocated slaves rise up violently against slaveholders
when they had an opportunity to free themselves.
The “Appeal” was arguably the most
radical of all anti-slavery documents. It caused a great stir when it
was published in September of 1829 with its call for slaves to revolt
against their masters. Walker wrote, ". . .they want us for
their slaves, and think nothing of murdering us … therefore, if
there is an attempt made by us, kill or be killed … and believe
this, that it is no more harm for you to kill a man who is trying to
kill you, than it is for you to take a drink of water when thirsty."
Andrew Lee Feight, Ph.D. writes of the
Greenup uprising that occurred in August 1829:
“A negro driver, by the name of
Gordon, who had purchased in Maryland about sixty negroes, was taking
them, assisted by an associate named [Gabriel] Allen [of Paris,
Kentucky], and the wagoner who conveyed the baggage, to the
Mississippi …
“About 8 o’clock in the morning,
while proceeding on the state road leading from Greenup to Vanceburg,
(modern-day US Route 23) two of them dropped their shackles and
commenced a fight, when the wagoner (Petit) rushed in with his whip
to compel them to desist. At this moment, every negro was found to be
perfectly at liberty; and one of them seizing a club, gave Petit a
violent blow on the head, and laid him dead at his feet; and Allen,
who came to his assistance, met a similar fate, from the contents of
a pistol fired by another of the gang.”
Here is a further account of the revolt
by Nick Douglas, author of Finding Octave: The Untold Story of Two
Creole Families and Slavery in Louisiana:
“Early in the morning on the road
near Greenup, Kentucky, the male slaves managed to free themselves.
The three helpers attempted to resist but each was killed with a
club. The slaves held Gordon and attempted to shoot him in the head.
The bullets only grazed him but the slaves then beat Gordon with a
club, leaving him for dead. The slaves pillaged the wagon that they
had been traveling with and 16 slaves escaped into the woods.
“Gordon had not been killed and,
helped by a female slave, mounted a horse and fled. One of the freed
slaves chased him on horseback with a loaded pistol. Gordon was able
to get to a nearby plantation and ask for help. When the slave that
had been chasing Gordon saw him arrive at the plantation he returned
to the site of the revolt.
“The community was alerted and
eventually about 40 of the slaves were recaptured. Eight men and one
woman were tried for murdering Gordon’s three helpers, but only
four were hanged. When a crowd gathered in Greenup to see them
hanged, the slaves shouted that they were completely justified in
killing men who were depriving them of their freedom. Julius Bingham
of the Western Times reported that they told the crowd 'they
had done no more than their judges and executioners would have done
under similar circumstances; and that too, with solemn appeal to the
Judge of heaven and earth, for the integrity of their motives, and
the justice of their cause.'
“On the cart as they were about to be
hanged, one of the four exclaimed to the crowd: “’Death! Death,
any time, in preference to slavery!’
“Black Friday”
On Friday, January 21st, 1831, the
following notice appeared in the Portsmouth paper:
“The citizens of Portsmouth are
adopting measures to free the town of its colored population. We saw
a paper, yesterday, with between one and two hundred names, including
most of the house-holders, in which they pledged themselves not to
employ any of them who have not complied with the law. The
authorities have requested us to give notice that they will hereafter
enforce the law indiscriminately.”
This enforcement led to the “Black
Friday” forced expulsion of approximately eighty black people from
town. At the time, this accounted for much of the city's black
population. Historian Nelson Evans noted: “They were not only
warned out, but they were driven out … The town authorities had
been worked up to the point of agreeing to enforce the savage and
brutal ‘Black Laws’ of Ohio.”
A Slave Coffle
Here is a report of an incident in 1834
on the public landing in Portsmouth involving a slave coffle. A
coffle is now a little-known term defined as “a line of
animals or slaves fastened or driven along together.” What a
demeaning reference to the past.
“On a visit to this city, Colonel
William Gilmore, of Chillicothe, then a boy of 10 years old, relayed
his story. He was on the river bank and a flatboat had just landed,
when loud cursing and a fight caught his attention. With a boy’s
curiosity, he neared the crowd of people and saw 'three Negro men,
handcuffed and tied to a rope, one Negro woman and four Negro men,
tied to a rope but not handcuffed, and five Negro girls, from twelve
to fifteen years of age, following and carrying heavy bundles on
their heads.'
“Three white men were in charge. One
carried a double-barreled shotgun and the others carried whips and
pistols. One was cruelly beating a slave that was handcuffed and
swearing with each hit. One of the other white men cursed and
threatened the black citizens watching, that they may not talk to
anyone in the coffle or they would get shot. The slave coffle was
confined to the Portsmouth jail for the night, and until they could
be on their way on another boat down the river.”
I believe it is very important for
residents to understand the direct effect of history upon their
lives. I think people should read about the perils faced by local
abolitionists and fugitives and consider those times not to chastise
present-day inhabitants for sins of long ago, but instead to judge
rationally the state of our commitment to freedom. Our American Dream
of equality is ever evolving. It is not yet a reality. The Free State
of Ohio comes closer to fulfilling its promise of 1802 when we
examine our progress in terms of our own local history.
Sources
“African-American
Mosaic.” Library of Congress.
https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam002.html
Appendix to the "Congressional
Globe,"30 Cong. 1 Sess., p.727.
William
Cullen. A History of Brewers in Portsmouth, Ohio with an Emphasis
on the Portsmouth Brewing Company. 2017.
Nick
Douglas. “Know Your Black History: Slave Revolts, Part 3.”
Afropunk. November 3, 2015.
“Early Scioto County African American
History.”
Andrew
Lee Feight, Ph.D. “The Greenup Slave Revolt & “Walker’s
Appeal.” https://sciotohistorical.org/items/show/67.
Nelson
Wiley Evans. A History of Scioto County, Ohio: Together with a
Pioneer Record of Southern … 1903.
George W. Knepper. Ohio and Its
People. Kent State. 2003.
“Race In Ohio.”
http://slavenorth.com/ohio.htm Litwack, North of Slavery, Chicago,
1961
Life Membership Certificate for
American Colonization Society, ca. 1840. Certificate. American
Colonization Society Papers, Manuscript Division, Library of Congress
(3)
No comments:
Post a Comment