Bound for Canaan (65 page)

“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.

C
HAPTER
4: T
HE
H
AND OF
G
OD IN
N
ORTH
C
AROLINA

“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:
Ibid., 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.

C
HAPTER
5: T
HE
S
PREADING
S
TAIN

“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.