Bound for Canaan (72 page)

Ashore, they mingled:
Gary Collison,
Shadrach Minkins: From Fugitive Slave to Citizen
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), p. 47; Cecelski,
Waterman's Song
, p. 136; Jeffrey W. Bolster,
Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail
(Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1997), pp. 214, 194–97.

Escape by sea held:
Merton L. Dillon,
Slavery Attacked: Southern Slaves and Their Allies 1619–1865
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1990), pp. 185–86;
First Annual Report of the New York Committee of Vigilance
; John M. Taylor,
William Henry Seward: Lincoln's Right Hand
(Washington, D. C.: Brassey's, 1991), p. 47.

“No sooner, indeed”:
Daniel Drayton,
Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner (for Charity's Sake) in Washington Jail
(New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), pp. 20–22.

Moses Roper:
Roper, “Narrative of the Adventures and Escape of Moses Roper,” p. 515.

William Grimes:
Grimes, “Life of William Grimes,” p. 220.

Charles Ball:
Ball, “Narrative of the Life and Adventures,” pp. 481–82.
273 assistance was almost always indispensible:
William Still,
The Underground Railroad
(Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1970), pp. 162–63.

underground work usually hinged:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 20–22; J. C. Furnas,
Goodbye to Uncle Tom
(New York: William Sloane Associates, 1956), pp. 216–17; Cecelski,
Waterman's Song
, p. 126; McDougall,
Fugitive Slaves
, p. 41.

expected to be paid well:
Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 162–63; Collison,
Shadrach Minkins
, pp. 49–50;
Provincial Freeman
, December 22, 1855.

Only around Norfolk:
Cecelski,
Waterman's Song
, pp. 121–24, 135; Collison,
Shadrach Minkins
, pp. 46–50; Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester,” p. 355; William H. Robinson,
From Log Cabin to Pulpit, or Fifteen Years in Slavery
(Eau Claire, Wis.: James H. Tifft, 1913), pp. 29–35.

Henry Gorham, a fugitive:
Cecelski,
Waterman's Song
, p. 133.

Jacobs spent her entire life:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. 5 ff; John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,”
Leisure Hour: A Family Journal of Instruction and Recreation
(London), Stevens and Co., February 7, 1861.

“a sad epoch”:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. 27 ff; Jean Fagan Yellin,
Harriet Jacobs: A Life
(Cambridge, Mass.: Basic Civitas Books, 2004), pp. 16–22.

It is hard to understand:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, p. 95; and 265, n. 2.

she chose the single expedient:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. 53 ff, 91; Yellin,
Harriet Jacobs
, pp. 26–28.

On a June night:
Jacobs, “True Tale of Slavery.”
277 When Norcom discovered:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, p. 97; Yellin,
Harriet Jacobs
, p. 45.

they arranged for her to hide:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. 100–3; and 275, n. 3.

Harriet's brother John:
Jacobs, “True Tale of Slavery.”
278 A more permanent hiding place:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. 110–13; and 276, n. 4.

a hiding place in the attic:
Ibid., pp. 114–19; John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,”
The Leisure Hour: A Family Journal of Instruction and Recreation
(London), Stevens and Company, February 14, 1861.

Her isolation tested her faith:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. 121–23.

none of this would touch Harriet:
Ibid., pp. 125, 134–35, 141, 280–81; Jacobs, “True Tale of Slavery,” February 14, 1861.

“Sir—I have left you”:
John S. Jacobs, “A True Tale of Slavery,”
The Leisure Hour: A Family Journal of Instruction and Recreation
(London), Stevens and Company, February 21, 1861.

Stowing away was:
Furnas,
Goodbye to Uncle Tom
, pp. 218–20; Bolster,
Black Jacks
, p. 212;
Colored American
, June 12, 1841.

Captain Gilbert Ricketson:
Grover,
Fugitive's Gibraltar
, p. 185.

Frederick Douglass reported: North Star
, March 31, 1848.

It was harder than it had ever been:
Bolster,
Black Jacks
, pp. 194, 200; Collison,
Shadrach Minkins
, p. 50; Cecelski,
Waterman's Song,
p. 134.

Jacobs's friend Peter:
Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. 148–59.

Jeremiah Durham, a minister:
Ibid., pp. 159–62; Yellin,
Harriet Jacobs
, pp. 65–68.

Jacobs's life in the North:
Jean Fagan Yellin, Introduction to Jacobs,
Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl
, pp. xvii ff.

on the night of June 19:
Walker,
The Trial and Imprisonment
, pp. 10–14; and introduction, pp. xxviii–xxix; Oickle,
Jonathan Walker
, pp. 47–49.

In 1821 shipwrecked sailors:
Nathan Philbrick,
In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex
(New York: Penguin Books, 2000), pp. 99, 179.

Pensacola was in an uproar:
Oickle,
Jonathan Walker
, p. 52.

The night fell away:
Walker,
The Trial and Imprisonment
, pp. 13, 36–39; Oickle,
Jonathan Walker
, pp. 56–59.

in the
calabozo: Walker, pp. 15–22, 72; and introduction, p. xxi; Oickle,
Jonathan Walker
, p. 70.

Walker's first trial:
Walker, pp. 33 ff.

The three slaves:
Ibid, Introduction, p. lxxxix.

The sentence was carried out:
Ibid., pp. 39–43, 64; Oickle,
Jonathan Walker
, p. 102.

The first notice:
Walker,
The Trial and Imprisonment
, introduction, pp. xlvi–xlix, xxxiv–xxxvix; Oickle,
Jonathan Walker
, p. 77.

The notoriety of Walker's punishment:
Walker,
The Trial and Imprisonment
, pp. 86, 98–99, and introduction, pp. lvii, xlix, lix.

the reaction of the territorial government:
Ibid., pp. 87–92.

Walker was hailed:
Ibid., introduction, lxviii–lxxiii; “The Fair,”
North Star
, February 4, 1848; Jonathan Walker and John S. Jacobs,
North Star
, March 31, 1848.

C
HAPTER
14: A D
ISEASE OF THE
B
ODY
P
OLITIC

William Chaplin and Daniel Drayton:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 25–11; Stanley Harrold,
Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D. C., 1828–1865
(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2003), p. 128;
North Star
, August 10, 1848.

one long hard-luck story:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 16–20.

He would be well paid:
Ibid., pp. 24–25, 28.

Much, if not most:
Ibid., pp. 5–11; Harrold,
Subversives
, pp. 127–28; Stowe,
Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
, pp. 156–59; Grover,
Fugitive's Gibraltar
, pp. 192–93; William Chaplin, letter to Gerrit Smith, March 25, 1848, Smith Papers, Bird Library, Syracuse University;
North Star
, December 8, 1848.

Back in Philadelphia:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 24–27.

Soon after dark:
Ibid., pp. 28–31, 39, 46; Harrold,
Subversives,
pp. 116–21; Hilary Russell,
Final Research Report: The Operation of the Underground Railroad in Washington, D. C., c. 1800–1860
(Washington, DC: Historical Society of Washington and the National Park Service, July 2001);
North Star
, April 28, 1848, May 12, 1848, August 10, 1848.

Just after dawn:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 39–40, 43; Harrold,
Subversives
, pp. 122–23.

Rows of one-story structures:
Charles Dickens,
American Notes for General Circulation
(New York: Harper & Row, 1965), pp. 125–39; David Herbert Duncan,
Lincoln
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995), pp. 119–20.

A free African American:
Thomas Smallwood,
A Narrative of Thomas Smallwood (Coloured Man
):
Giving Account of His Birth—The Period He Was Held in Slavery—His Release—and Removal to Canada, etc. Together with an Account of the Underground Railroad
(Toronto: James Stephens, 1851), p. 16.

Mrs. Ann Sprigg's popular boardinghouse:
Duncan,
Lincoln
, p. 135.

Some of the largest slave-trading establishments:
Frederic Bancroft,
Slave Trading in the Old South
(New York: Frederick Ungar, 1959), pp. 47, 49, 52, 61; Peterson,
Great Triumvirate
, p. 455; Duncan,
Lincoln
, pp. 119–20; Russell,
Final Research Report
, pp. 12, 17.

the Quaker traveler Joseph Sturge:
Joseph Sturge,
A Visit to the United States in 1841
(New York: Augustus M. Kelley, 1969), pp. 74, 78.

a secret ring operated by Charles T. Torrey:
J. C. Lovejoy,
Memoir of Rev. Charles T. Torrey, Who Died in the Penitentiary of Maryland, Where He Was Confined for Showing Mercy to the Poor
(New York: Negro Universities Press, 1969), pp. 105–26;
Narrative of Thomas Smallwood
, pp. 16–21; Harrold,
Subversives
, pp. 82, 90; Ralph Volney Harlow,
Gerrit Smith: Philanthropist and Reformer
(New York: Russell & Russell, 1939), pp. 165, 275.

“We had to pay”: Narrative of Thomas Smallwood
, pp. 31, 25–30, 34.

“Did you ever hear”:
Lovejoy,
Memoir of Rev. Charles T. Torrey
, p. 127.

That June:
Ibid., pp. 173–86; Harrold,
Subversives
, pp. 86–87.

prison proved an agony:
Lovejoy,
Memoir of Rev. Charles T. Torrey,
pp. 127–28, 276; Quarles,
Black Abolitionists
, p. 164.

Both proslavery forces and abolitionists:
Harrold,
Subversives
, p. 138; Harlow,
Gerrit Smith
, p. 290; William Chaplin, letter to Gerrit Smith, March 25, 1848, Smith Papers, Bird Library, Syracuse University.

Drayton's trial began:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 68–73; Stowe,
Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin,
pp. 159–164; Harrold,
Subversives
, pp. 125–26, 138–39;
North Star
, August 10, 1848.

Key maintained that:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 79–81;
North Star
, August 24, 1848.

Sayres was convicted:
Drayton,
Personal Memoir
, pp. 94–103; Harrold,
Subversives
, pp. 140–41.

John C. Calhoun:
Harrold,
Subversives
, p. 142.

Throughout the South, anxiety:
Morison,
Oxford History
, vol. 2, pp. 265–66; Susan Hubbard, letter to Joseph and Mary, October 13, 1843, Quaker Collection, Guilford College, Greensboro, N. C.; Nye,
Fettered Freedom
, pp. 147–48.

a cache of abolitionist material:
Philip Ashley Fanning,
Mark Twain and Orion Clemens: Brothers, Partners, Strangers
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2003), pp. 2–3; Shelley Fisher Fisjkin,
Lighting Out for the Territory: Reflections on Mark Twain and American Culture
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), p. 54.

Loyalty to the South increasingly:
Cohn,
Life and Times of King Cotton
, p. 82; Miller,
Wolf by the Ears
, p. 249.