Runaway slaves like Bradley fought for a single breath of freedom like a drowning person fought for air, yet the catchers snatched away their last hope that liberty and justice was truly for all. And somehow the federal government justified this cruelty, ruling that slaves were property instead of people with rights. Their masters could do whatever they pleased with their property—sell them, beat them, kill them—as if these beloved children of God were hogs or cattle instead of souls enveloped in rugged flesh and blood.
The story had sickened Anna, as did every story about slaves who were abused by their owners. But Daniel Stanton had taken a stand and both condemned the owner for his cruelty and applauded Bradley for running north. Anyone courageous enough to write in opposition of slavery—and put their name on their articles—was a brave soul.
Henry didn’t turn to the second page of the newspaper, but if he had, he would have read about Delia Wharton, a young woman in North Carolina who had been sentenced to death for helping five slaves escape. Henry probably would have applauded the courts for upholding the law.
She had never known anyone put to death by the courts or even jailed in Indiana for assisting a fugitive, although plenty of people had been tarred and feathered and run out of town for their work on the Underground Railroad. A few had even been killed by the opposition, but there had never been enough evidence to indict the killers for murder.
“Where did this Daniel Stanton come from?” Matthew asked.
“Isaac said he was a lawyer.” Her father took a long sip of water. “From someplace in Ohio, I believe.”
Henry set down his fork. “You’d better tell Isaac to be careful about what his new man writes.”
A smile slipped across Edwin’s face. “Why don’t you tell Isaac yourself?”
Anna stifled her own smile. Henry may lambaste abolition around town, but he usually withheld his opinion from Isaac Barnes; the publisher of the Liberty Era was also the town banker and held the deed for the Nelsons’ elegant home.
“You may think this is funny, Edwin, but there are serious repercussions for editors intent on riling up anger.”
The smile on her father’s face disappeared. “The press has freedom in our country.”
“Didn’t do much good for men like James Birney and Elijah Lovejoy.”
Anna shivered at the mention of the two abolitionist editors—one whose printing press had been destroyed and dumped into the river and the other who had been murdered.
Her father didn’t seem phased by the names. “I hope you don’t start making threats, Henry.”
The man waved his hand across his ham and beans. “I’m not threatening anyone, but someone has got to speak up for the truth and our country’s laws.”
Anna glanced over at Matthew, but his eyes were focused on his father. The opposition in their small town seemed mild in comparison to the bigger cities, though many people in their county hated abolition. They were afraid of slaves and of what would happen if the federal government decided to abolish the institution that imprisoned them.
“I’ve had a long journey,” her father said as he pushed back his plate. “Let’s leave the discussion of politics for another day.”
Henry and Matthew both stood up, and Henry pointed back at the paper. “You might want to burn that.”
Her father shook his head. “I’m not afraid of words.”
Anna wasn’t afraid of words either, but she had a powerful fear of story, especially stories that moved people to compassion or anger.
Her father may not burn the paper tonight, but she would pitch it into the fire.
Anna watched from the window ledge in the parlor to make sure the Nelsons left their property. Henry Nelson hopped on his horse first and then Matthew followed, both of them galloping back down the hill in the moonlight.
She drew the curtain over the front window and moved to the dining room. Her father was still sitting at the table, staring at the plate in front of him, but he didn’t lift his fork again. Except for a couple of bites of ham and a biscuit, he hadn’t eaten anything on his plate. Just a year ago her father had been a large man, but his clothes now hung on his body. His grey eyes were tired, and strands of white had woven themselves through his brown hair.
He may have aged a decade in the past twelve months, but she still well remembered the youthful man, the one who used to trot around the kitchen with her mother even though dancing was considered to be disorderly conduct. He had never failed to be kind to either her or her mother. Never failed to love her even when he was grieving for his wife.
Her father looked at her, and she savored the kindness that still played in his eyes. He may have lost his youth—and some of the sharp wit from his tongue—but she knew he loved her.
“How many are there?” he asked.
“Six. A girl arrived tonight with a newborn baby.”
“Her child?”
“That’s what she said, but his skin is as white as mine.”
“You think she’s lying?” Edwin asked.
It wasn’t unheard of to have a white slave pass through the Underground homes of Indiana, but they had never hosted one in their house. As the female slaves in the South bore children for their masters, slaves were becoming lighter- and lighter-skinned. The color of skin—or the patronage—didn’t matter to the state or the slave hunters. A white-looking child born to a slave woman was considered a slave for life.
Anna reached for the platter that contained potatoes and beans and slid it into the dumbwaiter. Marie had clung to Peter like any mother trying to protect her child, and then she had raced to hide him. “I believe she’s telling the truth.”
“Then we will send her and her baby up the line as soon as we’re able.”
Anna leaned down and hugged her father’s shoulders. Even if Marie’s story proved false, her father was erring on the side of compassion, and she loved him for it.
Edwin pushed back his chair and stood beside her. He picked up the bowl of blackberries and cream and put it on the dumbwaiter beside the rest of the food; then he heaved the small elevator upward until it stopped moving.
Together they walked up the main steps to the second floor and into the guest chamber at the end of the hallway. The room held a four-poster bed along with a rocking chair and a round table in one corner. Under the square window at the other side of the room was a built-in cupboard made of red oak. They usually stored blankets and pillows in the cupboard, but tonight the pillows and blankets were on the bed.
Edwin locked the door to the room, and Anna ducked down in front of the cupboard door. She crawled through the small enclosure and slid open a panel on the left side. On the other side of the panel was a tiny room with a ladder.
Slowly she climbed the ladder, toward the flickering light above. Her boot snagged the edge of her skirt, and she teetered on the rung as she tried to free herself.
A dark face peered through the opening above her and broke into a smile. “You okay, Miss Anna?”
“I am, George, but it would be a lot easier to climb ladders if I had a pair of trousers.”
George reached out his hands to her, and she hoisted her skirt to climb the remaining three rungs with his help.
Inside the hiding place were two other middle-aged men named Roger and Paul, along with an elderly woman they called Auntie Rae. Charlotte sat beside Marie and Peter on the floor, showing the girl how to swaddle Peter in a blanket.
The room was only four feet across, but its brick walls stretched the length of the attic. A slave hunter could search every corner in the house for fugitives, but unless he cleaned out the pillows and crawled far back into the cupboard, he wouldn’t find their guests. Not even his ax would penetrate the attic wall to this space.
Many nights, if they had only a guest or two, they would let their friends sleep in the guest room below with easy access to the ladder. But on nights like this, when people such as the Nelsons visited the house, it was safer to harbor their guests up here—es
pecially if Matthew hadn’t believed her ruse about the baby wolf.
Anna pulled the platters of food off the dumbwaiter and began setting them around on the floor. Edwin’s head popped into the room, and he handed George a pitcher of milk before pulling himself up. “We’re sorry dinner is so late.”
“We’re grateful for it anytime,” George said as he plucked tin cups off hooks along the wall. The others left the talking to George, and he seemed to enjoy his role as spokesperson. “We heard you had a mite of company.”
Her father poured milk into the cups. “It wasn’t anyone you’d want to meet.”
“I figured.” George reached for a biscuit and devoured it. “There ain’t many white folk I want to meet.”
“It will be different when you get to Canada, my friend.”
“I hope so, Massa Edwin. I sure hope so....”
Edwin placed his hand on the broad shoulder in front of him. “You follow the Light, George, and He will lead you to friends who know you are already free.”
A timid voice spoke out from the other side of the room. “When can we go to Canada?”
Edwin squinted into the darkness, and Anna introduced her father to Marie and the baby.
“As soon as the moon begins to darken again.”
“But when will that be?”
“In a little over a week.”
She choked. “He’ll come before then.”
While the others ate, Anna crossed the floor with a plate of food and sat down beside Marie. Reaching out her arm, she tried to comfort the girl, but Marie scooted away. Anna handed Marie the plate and then folded her hands in her lap.
“You need to rest for now,” she said softly. “We’re going to protect you.”
Marie devoured the food before she spoke again. “Ain’t no one can protect me from him, Miss....”
“Please call me Anna,” she said, smiling at the girl.
“I ain’t never called a white girl anything but Miss.”
“I know it seems strange, but we believe that all men and women should be addressed by the name their parents gave them.”
Marie stumbled over her first name. “Miss Anna, Massa Owens is gonna find me here.”
“No one knows where you are except us and Ben.”
She fidgeted with a thread on Peter’s blanket. “Somethin’ else I gots ta tell you.”
“You don’t have to worry about telling me anything.”
Marie hesitated. “Afore I got here’s tonight, I knocked on ’nother door down the creek. Had a quilt on the line like Ben said.”
Anna leaned closer. “Was anyone home?”
“Yessum. A man and his wife, seems to me. They was as surprised ta see me as I was ta see ’em.” Marie smoothed her hand over Peter’s chest. “I ran fast, knowin’ they ain’t gonna be kind ta me like some folks been.”
Anna took a deep breath. There were five houses in the woods between their home and the river. She didn’t know a single person in those homes who was sympathetic toward runaways.
“Did they get a good look at you?”
Marie bowed her head. “Yessum. And a good look at Peter, too.”
If that family reported seeing fugitive slaves in their county, none of them would be able to travel right now.
“You’ll still be safe here,” Anna said as she unfolded two blankets for Marie. The girl collapsed on the wool with the baby at her side, but before she closed her eyes, Peter stirred. Then he began to cry again.
“Shut that baby up,” one of the men barked from across the room.
Marie cuddled Peter close to her, but he didn’t stop crying.
“I can take him downstairs and rock him,” Anna offered.
“No...” Fear flashed through Marie’s eyes, and she pulled Peter to her. “My baby should sleep with me.”
She patted the floor beside Marie. “I could sit here, right beside you, and rock him while you sleep.”
Charlotte walked over to Marie and handed her a gum ring, the end coated with sugar.
“Please...” Marie looked over at the four other runaways, gathered with Edwin around their meal. “Please don’t be takin’ him away from me.”
“I won’t,” Anna replied as she reached for Peter.
Marie watched her and Peter from the floor until her body succumbed to exhaustion. The baby cradled in her arms, Anna let him suck on the gum ring until he began to rest as well. She rocked him gently for hours, late into the night.
Chapter Four
Fog draped over the shops in Liberty, and the scent of morning rain replaced the stench of manure on the streets. A pig brushed against Daniel Stanton’s newly pressed trousers when he stepped out of his boardinghouse, and he shoved the wet animal away with his boot. The pig snorted in retort and then shuffled down the planks of the sidewalk in search of breakfast.
His own stomach rumbled as he turned off Main Street and onto the quieter one where his sister and brother-in-law lived. Orange and red leaves lined the dirt road, and fallen buckeyes were scattered across the street and wide lawns.
Daniel took his watch out of his pocket and checked the time. His sister didn’t serve breakfast until precisely eight o’clock, and it was a quarter till.
He hopped up the steps to the veranda and sat down on the bench beside the Cooleys’ front door. When he had first come to Liberty last month, his sister had invited him to breakfast on Seventh Day. He’d arrived a half hour early, and for the next thirty minutes, he’d listened to her rant while she and her poor housekeeper tried to follow a new gravy recipe from Godey’s Lady’s Book. He had told her he didn’t need fancy gravy over his eggs and biscuits, didn’t really need any gravy at all, but she had insisted on perfecting the sauce.
Every Seventh Day since, he had arrived fifteen minutes early and waited outside with his paper while Joseph dressed and the women fussed over the food.
Daniel blew into his hands and rubbed them together to ward off the chill from the morning air. Then he leaned forward and began to read the headlines of Union County’s competing newspaper.
Unlike Daniel’s paper, the editor of the Union County News didn’t even mention the slave who had been chained in Bloomington and driven west like he was an animal. Instead, the editor spent the entire first page touting the benefits of the proposed law being debated right now in Congress—the Fugitive Slave Act.
In 1842, the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled that states did not have to aid in the hunting or recapturing of runaway slaves, but if this new law passed, it would repeal the Supreme Court’s decision. A law that forced Yankees to hunt and capture slaves would turn Indiana and other Northern states into battlegrounds. Some people would comply. Others would rebel. And the rebellious ones would be tagged as criminals.
The fact that their Congress was even considering this type of law was unfathomable to him. If it passed, it would turn those who sacrificed to love their fellow man into lawbreakers. It would be a crime to even assist a wounded runaway.
Milton Kent, the editor of the Union County News, declared the law critical to uphold the Union of the States. It seemed as if that was what everyone was most concerned about—keeping the country together at all costs instead of actually protecting the people who lived within its borders.
Daniel quickly turned the page and skimmed the market reports and editorials. At the bottom of the page were boxed advertisements for stoves, shoes, and runaway slaves. The third advertisement caught his eye.
$1,000 REWARD. Ran away from the subscriber, the fifteenth of June, living in Knoxville, Tennessee, my Negro girl, MARIE, about sixteen years of age, light complexion, pretty features, either pregnant or traveling with newborn. A red scar runs down the back of Marie’s neck, approx. three inches long, two inches wide. She may be resistant if approached.
Marie was last seen near Madison, Indiana, in August.
I will pay the above reward for both Marie and her child, or five hundred dollars for either of them.
Noah Owens
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No. 45 Pearl Street
Knoxville
Daniel slumped back against the slats of the bench. Of course this girl would be resistant if a slave hunter approached her. Wouldn’t most innocent people resist if they were forced into imprisonment for life?
Here was a young woman, pregnant, running north for almost three months, with her master on her trail. She had risked everything to get away from this Noah Owens and his family. Was she still pregnant, or had she birthed her baby along the way?
Traveling on foot with a newborn would be treacherous—for both her and the child. Especially with such a steep reward on their heads. Money like that might even set some of their more respectable citizens searching for the girl; a thousand dollars could buy someone a nice house in Liberty on a sizable piece of land.
He slammed the paper shut and set it on the bench beside him. How could men like Milton Kent fund their papers by selling advertisements like these? Kent was paying for his printing press by selling out innocent blood.
He would never agree to running advertisements for fugitive slaves in the Liberty Era. The only reason he had agreed to take on this newspaper was because Isaac personally paid for the printing costs and Daniel’s salary. They received just a pittance from subscriptions, but they didn’t need to rely on the blood money of slave owners to finance the news.
He leaned his head back against the window. In four hours, he was scheduled to debate Milton Kent on the steps of the courthouse—Daniel’s introduction into gritty Hoosier politics. Kent’s disciples may tar and feather him, but he’d speak the truth.
The front door creaked open, and Esther peaked her head outside. “It’s freezing out here, Daniel.”
He looked up at his sister. Her ribboned bonnet covered her light blond hair, and her face was freshly powdered. She wore a jacket trimmed with black braids and a lacy, hooped skirt he assumed was fashioned from a pattern in Godey’s Lady’s Book.
He folded his newspaper and tucked it under his arm. His sister didn’t concern herself with stories about runaway slaves. Her every move was directed by a silly ladies’ magazine she extolled as the crème de la crème of proper etiquette, fashion, and food. He’d never actually opened one of the magazines, but she had yet to discuss Godey’s take on issues like poverty or slavery or abolition. How could anyone be concerned about the color and fit of their dress when there were thousands of people enslaved not forty miles away?
Love Finds You in Liberty, Indiana Page 3