In 1784 Jefferson: Thomas Jefferson, “Report of a Plan of Government for the Western Territory,” in The Portable Thomas Jefferson, Merrill D. Peterson, ed. (New York: Penguin Books, 1975), p. 255.
Had Jefferson’s plan: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, pp. 27–28.
Anxiety about slavery: Merton L. Dillon, The Abolitionists: The Growth of a Dissenting Minority (De Kalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1974), pp. 40–41.
A Vermont judge: Horatio T. Strother, The Underground Railroad in Connecticut (Middletown, Conn.: Wesleyan University Press, Middletown, 1962), p. 22.
By the last decade: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 120.
The president of Yale: Strother, Underground Railroad in Connecticut, p. 22; “Connecticut as a Slave State,” Connecticut Western News, May 23, 1916.
In New York: Edwin G. Burrows and Mike Wallace, Gotham: A History of New York to 1898 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 285. 39 a spate of state legislation: Kenneth M. Stampp, The Peculiar Institution: Slavery in the Ante-Bellum South (New York: Vintage, 1956), p. 25.
most Northern states: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 218; and Kolchin, American Slavery, p. 78.
Quaker and Methodist lobbying: Gary B. Nash, Forging Freedom: The Formation of Philadelphia’s Black Community 1720–1840 (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1988), p. 138.
In Delaware: Kolchin, American Slavery, p. 241.
“However well disposed”: quoted in McDougall, Fugitive Slaves, p. 36.
“The spirit of the master”: Jefferson, “Notes on the State of Virginia,” pp. 288–89.
The handiwork of a Yankee: Material on Eli Whitney is based on David Cohn, The Life and Times of King Cotton (New York: Oxford University Press, 1956), pp. 7, 10–11; and Burton, Rise and Fall of King Cotton, pp. 61–63.
American cotton exports: John C. Miller, The Federalist Era, 1789–1801 (New York: Harper & Row, 1960), p. 177; Dangerfield, Awakening of American Nationalism, p. 104; Cohn, Life and Times of King Cotton, pp. 44–45; and Sydnor, Slavery in Mississippi, pp. 183–84.
Georgia would tally: Lane, introduction to South-Side View of Slavery, by Nehemiah Adams, p. xi.
Slave traders made fortunes: Kolchin, American Slavery, p. 98; Sydnor, Slavery in Mississippi, pp. 186–88; and Coleman, Slavery Times in Kentucky, pp. 143–45.
“A plantation well stocked”: Sydnor, Slavery in Mississippi, p. 186.
a drop in the demographic bucket: Lowance, Against Slavery, p. 8.
As idealism collided: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 37; Kolchin, American Slavery, p. 91; Miller, Federalist Era, pp. 133, 139; Dillon, Abolitionists, pp. 46, 51.
“we shall be the murderers”: quoted in Miller, Federalist Era, p. 133.
“brave sons of Africa”: quoted in Dillon, Abolitionists, p. 48.
a “Negro war”: Ibid.
the rebels’ plan: Ibid., p. 59.
“Where there is any reason”: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 127.
In the aftermath: Kolchin, American Slavery, p. 90.
In North Carolina: Stephen B. Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Press, 1896), p. 222.
also be reenslaved: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, pp. 87–88.
Between 1765 and 1800: Nash, Forging Freedom, pp. 38, 143.
In New York: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, p. 347.
“on the Pennsylvania road”: Nash, Forging Freedom, p. 138.
an unnamed mulatto: Burrows and Wallace, Gotham, pp. 347–48.
CHAPTER 3: A GADFLY IN PHILADELPHIA
A genial New Jersey farm boy: Lydia Maria Child, Isaac T. Hopper: A True Life (Boston: John P. Jewett & Co., 1853), pp. 33–35, 248; and Margaret Hope Bacon, Lamb’s Warrior: The Life of Isaac T. Hopper (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1970), pp. 7–9.
Nowhere in the United States: Billy G. Smith, ed., Life in Early Philadelphia: Documents from the Revolutionary and Early National Periods (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1995), pp. 3–11, 34–36; Child, Isaac T. Hopper, p. 147; Gary B. Nash, First City: Philadelphia and the Forging of Historical Memory (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2002), pp. 108, 122–29.
C. F. Volney reported: quoted in Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 87.
African Americans were excluded: Kolchin, American Slavery, p. 241; and William C. Kashatus, Just over the Line: Chester County and the Underground Railroad (West Chester, PA: Chester County Historical Society, 2002), pp. 8–10.
word spread rapidly: Nash, Forging Freedom, pp. 139–42; and Kashatus, Just over the Line, p. 25–26.
king of Italy enjoyed: Child, Isaac T. Hopper, p. 248; Christopher Densmore, curator, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, interview with author, Swarthmore, Pa., June 21, 2002.
“had abundant reason to dread”: Ibid., p. 206.
embraced his new faith: Ibid., pp. 47, 218.
He was appointed: Bacon, Lamb’s Warrior, pp. 37–43.
a slave to Pierce Butler: Child, Isaac T. Hopper, pp. 99–103.
a persecuted minority: Hugh Barbour et al., eds., Quaker Crosscurrents: Three Hundred Years of Friends in the New York Yearly Meetings (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995), pp. 5, 9–10; and Nash, Forging Freedom, pp. 24–29.
a “meddlesome Quaker”: Child, Isaac T. Hopper, p. 17.
threats of assassination: Ibid., p. 146.
“We may perform”: Isaac T. Hopper, statement on the requirements of personal duty, dated March 3, 1845, Friends Historical Library, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA.
“It is most certain”: Samuel Sewall, “The Selling of Joseph: A Memorial,” in Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader, Mason Lowance, ed. (New York: Penguin, 2000), pp. 11–13.
Cotton Mather: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 256.
“Who can tell”: Cotton Mather, “The Negro Christianized,” in Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader, Mason Lowance, ed. (New York: Penguin, 2000), pp. 19–20.
Evangelical Methodists and Baptists: Kolchin, American Slavery, pp. 68–69.
Quakers had steadily examined: Dillon, Abolitionists, pp. 8–9; and Burton, Rise and Fall of King Cotton, p. 38.
“Now, tho’ they are black: Moore, Friends in the Delaware Valley, p. 18.
Quakers generally: A Narrative of Some of the Proceedings of North Carolina Yearly Meeting on the Subject of Slavery within its Limits (Greensborough, N. C.: Swaim and Sherwood, 1848), preface.
“vain customs”: Kashatus, Just over the Line, p. 37.
Quakers most often cited: Lucretia Mott, “Slavery and the ‘Woman Question’: Lucretia Mott’s Diary of Her Visit to Great Britain to Attend the World’s Anti-Slavery Convention of 1840,” Frederick B. Tolles, ed., Supplement No. 23 to the Journal of the Friends Historical Society, Friends Historical Association, Haverford, PA, 1952; Christopher Densmore, curator, Friends Historical Collection, Swarthmore College, e-mail to the author, June 14, 2004; Barbara Wright, “North Carolina Quakers and Slavery” (unpublished thesis, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, 1974), pp. 1 ff.
“The Colour of a Man”: John Woolman, “Some Considerations on the Keeping of Negroes,” in Against Slavery: An Abolitionist Reader, Mason Lowance, ed. (New York: Penguin, 2000), pp. 22–23.
Samuel Nottingham, a Quaker: Anthony Benezet, letter, to Moses Brown, May 9, 1774, Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.
“How would such a people”: Anthony Benezet, letter to John Fothergill, April 28, 1773, Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.
education was the answer: Nash, Forging Freedom, pp. 30–31.
Other meetings soon followed: Child, Isaac T. Hopper, pp. 263–64; and Narrative of Some of the Proceedings, p. 5.
“earnestly and affectionately”: Ibid., p. 12.
“labor with such Friends”: Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 218.
Nine Partners Meeting: Christopher Densmore et al., “Slavery and Abolition to 1830,” in Quaker Crosscurrents: Three Hundred Years of Friends
in the New York Yearly Meetings, Hugh Barbour, et al., eds. (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995), pp. 68–69.
Social pressure within: Wright, “North Carolina Quakers and Slavery,” p. 18.
“In the Christian warfare”: Narrative of Some of the Proceedings, preface.
the Pennsylvania Abolition Society: Kashatus, Just Over the Line, pp. 28, 43; Nash, Forging Freedom, p. 103.
man of instinct: Child, Isaac T. Hopper, p. 206.
“I am not willing”: Ibid., p. 187.
preferred a legal attack: Ibid., pp. 203–04, 150–55.
web of friends: Ibid., p. 131.
Ben Jackson: Ibid., pp. 54–55.
snatched a pistol: Bacon, Lamb’s Warrior, p. 45.
obtained a horse: Child, Isaac T. Hopper, p. 71.
also perfected ruses: Ibid., p. 62.
a free man named Samuel Johnson: Ibid., pp. 97–98.
Hopper’s brother-in-law John Tatem: Ibid., p. 253.
“Verily I say”: Ibid., p. 171.
As early as 1809: Robert C. Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester and the Neighboring Counties of Pennsylvania,” Journal (Lancaster, Pa.), 1883, pp. 323–25.
the fugitive John Smith: Child, Isaac T. Hopper, pp. 63–64.
Financial problems forced: Bacon, Lamb’s Warrior, pp. 82–83.
Timothy Rogers was: Christopher Densmore and Albert Schrauwers, eds., “The Best Men for Settling New Country: The Journal of Timothy Rogers” (Toronto: Canadian Friends Historical Association, 2000), pp. 3–6, 88–89; Densmore, “Slavery and Abolition to 1830,” pp. 71–72.
fewer than one hundred thousand: Christopher Densmore, e-mail to author, February 7, 2004.
Although their unfashionable dress: Addison Coffin, “Early Settlement of Friends in North Carolina: Traditions and Reminiscences” (unpublished manuscript, Quaker Collection, Guilford College, Greensboro, N. C.).
Vermont neighbor Joseph Hoag: Hugh Barbour, et al., “The Orthodox-Hicksite Separation,” in Quaker Crosscurrents: Three Hundred Years of Friends in the New York Yearly Meetings, Hugh Barbour et al., eds. (Syracuse, N. Y.: Syracuse University Press, 1995), pp. 113–14.
“I was led”: Joseph Hoag, Journal of the Life of Joseph Hoag (Philadelphia: Wm. H. Pile’s Sons, 1909), p. 182.
He had only contempt: Ibid., p. 187.
island of Nantucket: Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (Cincinnati: Western Tract Society, 1879), pp. 4–7.
By the 1800s: Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 243.
CHAPTER 4: THE HAND OF GOD IN NORTH CAROLINA
“A comfortable living”: N. P. Hairston, letter to John Hairston, December 4, 1821, Peter W. Hairston Papers, Southern History Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.
Wherever planters went: Dangerfield, Awakening of American Nationalism, pp. 105–6; Miller, Wolf by the Ears, p. 240; Frances D. Pingeon, “An Abominable Business: The New Jersey Slave Trade, 1818,” New Jersey History (Fall/Winter, 1991): 15–36.
“at least five droves”: H. M. Wagstaff, Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society, James Sprunt Historical Studies, vol. 22, nos. 1–2 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1934), p. 51.
an incident otherwise forgotten: Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, pp. 12–13.
A second incident: Ibid., pp. 18–20.
“How terribly we”: Ibid., p. 13.
family farms on the Northern pattern: Ibid., p. 6.
“All were friends”: Ibid., p. 11.
The North Carolina Yearly Meeting: Narrative of Some of the Proceedings, p. 12.
Quakers who freed: Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 222.
draconian state laws: Wright, “North Carolina Quakers and Slavery,” p. 5.
“in the care of”: John Howard, letter to Nathan Mendenhall, October 21, 1826, Mendenhall Papers, Letter #66, Friends Historical Collection, Guilford College, Greensboro, N. C.
Quakers attempted to solve: Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, pp. 225–27; Narrative of Some of the Proceedings, pp. 27–28; Wright, “North Carolina Quakers and Slavery,” pp. 8–11.
groups of Quaker “movers”: Coffin, “Early Settlement of Friends in North Carolina,” pp. 139–42.
North Carolina Manumission Society: Wagstaff, “Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society,” p. 39; Wright, “North Carolina Quakers and Slavery,” pp. 32–33; and Coffin, Reminiscences, p. 74.
commitment to gradual emancipation: Alice Dana Adams, The Neglected Period of Anti-Slavery in America (Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1964), pp. 127–39.
rancorous internal debate: Wagstaff, Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society, pp. 83–85.
Paul Cuffe, a prosperous: Nash, Forging Freedom, p. 184.
Less idealistic members: Dillon, Abolitionists, p. 11; and Wagstaff, “Minutes of the North Carolina Manumission Society,” p. 116.
Behind a smokescreen: Dangerfield, Awakening of American Nationalism, p. 138; Miller, Wolf by the Ears, pp. 264–66; and Merrill D. Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), pp. 284–85.
“Many of us were opposed”: Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, pp. 75–76; Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 237; and Coffin, “Early Settlement of Friends in North Carolina,” p. 70.
“long and exciting suit at law”: Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 22; Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 242; Coffin, Life and Travels of Addison Coffin (Cleveland: William G. Hubbard, 1897), pp. 19–21.
Ties between North Carolina and Pennsylvania: Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, pp. 227, 233; Wright, “North Carolina Quakers and Slavery,” p. 54; Narrative of Some of the Proceedings, p. 32; Edward Bettle, letter to Nathan Mendenhall, May 21, 1832, Mendenhall Papers, Letter #185, Quaker Collection, Guilford College, Greensboro, NC; Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, pp. 65–66.
“The [Benson] case naturally”: Coffin, Life and Travels of Addison Coffin, pp. 19–21.
“My sack of corn”: Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, pp. 20–21.
“took his first lessons”: Coffin, Life and Travels of Addison Coffin, pp. 19–21.
Hamilton’s Saul: Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 21.
fugitive slave named Jack Barnes: Ibid., pp. 32–66.
slaves belonging to the Yearly Meeting: Narrative of the Proceedings, p. 28.
“convoys” of blacks: Ibid., pp. 29–31; Weeks, Southern Quakers and Slavery, p. 229.
an Indiana man was hired: Thomas Kennedy, letter to Nathan Mendenhall, September 11, 1827, Mendenhall Papers, Letter #107, Quaker Collection, Guilford College, Greensboro, NC.
“A gang of ruffians”: Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 79.
“It seemed as if”: Borden Stanton’s letter to Friends in Georgia, in “Friends’ Miscellany,” vol. 12, no. 5 (May 1839), p. 217, Friends Historical Collection, Guilford College, Greensboro, N. C.
“Gradually the idea prevailed”: Coffin, “Early Settlement of Friends in North Carolina,” p. 120.
“If the question is asked”: Ibid., p. 115.
Indelible lines were being drawn: Quoted in Dangerfield, Awakening of American Nationalism, pp. 134 ff.
“Follow that sentiment”: Ibid., p. 135.
Henry Clay proclaimed: Peterson, The Great Triumvirate: Webster, Clay, and Calhoun, pp. 60–61.
If slavery was excluded: Dangerfield, Awakening of American Nationalism, p. 110.
three-fifths of a slave state’s population: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, pp. 221 ff.
Southerners rather grudgingly agreed: Ibid., p. 247.
He was paralyzed: Thomas Jefferson, letter to Edward Coles, August 25, 1814, in Thomas Jefferson: Writings, Merrill D. Peterson, ed. (New York: Library of America, 1984), pp. 1343–46; Miller, Wolf by the Ears, pp. 206–7.
Reversing his position: Miller, Wolf by the Ears, pp. 229, 232.
The federal government was: Ibi
d., pp. 125, 217.
“A geographical line”: Thomas Jefferson, letter to John Holmes, April 22, 1820, in Thomas Jefferson: Writings, pp. 1433–34.
“Hell is about”: Dillon, Abolitionists, p. 23.
CHAPTER 5: THE SPREADING STAIN
“jolly Christmas times”: Ibid., p. 20.
Henson’s self-liberation: Ibid., pp. 25–30.
Methodists had vigorously denounced: Donald G. Mathews, Slavery and Methodism: A Chapter in American Morality 1780–1845 (Princeton, N. J.: Princeton University Press, 1965), p. 8.
“buying or selling”: quoted in Siebert, Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom, p. 94.
a time of explosive growth: Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, p. 25; Nash, Forging Freedom, p. 111.
no longer subversive outcasts: Mathews, Slavery and Methodism, pp. 18, 41–43.
A similar, cynical process: Siebert, Wilbur H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom, pp. 95–96; John Rankin, “History of the Free Presbyterian Church in the United States,” Free Presbyterian, February 11, 1857.
“In Missouri”: Brown, “Narrative of William W. Brown,” p. 707.
a Sunday school: Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, p. 69.
Henson’s status: Henson, Uncle Tom’s Story, p. 23.
drivers typically being chosen: Kolchin, American Slavery, p. 103.
doubled the farm’s yield: Henson, Uncle Tom’s Story, p. 23.
William Grimes: William Grimes, “Life of William Grimes, the Runaway Slave,” in I Was Born a Slave: An Anthology of Classic Slave Narratives, vol. 1, Yuval Taylor, ed. (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1999), p. 193.
Charles Ball: Charles Ball, “A Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Charles Ball, a Black Man,” in I Was Born a Slave: An Anthology of Classic Slave Narratives, vol. 1, Yuval Taylor, ed. (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1999), p. 426.
“I had no reason”: Henson, Uncle Tom’s Story, p. 41.
the tight credit: Hiebert and MacMaster, Grateful Remembrance, p. 152.
“Partly through pride”: Henson, Uncle Tom’s Story, pp. 44–45.
Henson’s wife, Charlotte: Ibid., p. 42.
“[My] heart and soul became identified”: Ibid., pp. 47 ff.
“No poor man”: R. Carlyle Buley, The Old Northwest: Pioneer Period, 1815–1840, vol. 2 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1951), pp. 44–45.
Bound for Canaan Page 56