Bound for Canaan (74 page)

Twenty-six men:
Loguen,
Rev. J. W. Loguen
, pp. 427–29, 434–43; May,
Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict
, pp. 379–83; Hunter,
To Set the Captives Free
, pp. 129, 138; Sernett,
North Star Country
, p. 143.

The government fared:
Collison,
Shadrach Minkins
, pp. 147–48, 192–95; Slaughter,
Bloody Dawn
, pp. ix, 86–93, 132–37; Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester,” pp. 126–27, 129–30; Paul Finkelman, “The Treason Trial of Castner Hanway,” in
American Political Trials
, Michael Belknap, ed. (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1994), pp. 79–100.

Not surprisingly, there:
Campbell,
Slave Catchers
, pp. 148, 157, 169, 199; Slaughter,
Bloody Dawn
, p, xi.

Isaac Tatum Hopper died:
Child,
Isaac T. Hopper
, pp. 473–77; and Bacon,
Lamb's Warrior
, pp. 182–86.

Public opinion in both North and South:
Nye,
Fettered Freedom
, pp. 175–76; Slaughter,
Bloody Dawn
, pp. 104–5; Pease and Pease, “Confrontation and Abolition,”
pp. 923–37; Frothingham,
Gerrit Smith
, pp. 118–19;
Frederick Douglass' Paper
, February 11, 1853, and February 18, 1853.

The language of abolitionism:
Campbell,
Slave Catchers
, p. 53; Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester,” pp. 129–30; Slaughter,
Bloody Dawn
, pp. 132–37.

the flood of refugees only grew: Voice of the Fugitive
, October 8, 1851, November 5, 1851, and December 3, 1851.

C
HAPTER
16: G
ENERAL
T
UBMAN

Kessiah Bowley:
Sarah Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
(Auburn, N. Y.: W. J. Moses, 1869), pp. 57–64; John Creighton, historian, interview with the author, Cambridge, MD, February 12, 2004; Kate Clifford Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
(New York: Random House, 2003), pp. 89 ff, and 324, nn. 11–17; Kate Clifford Larson, e-mail to author, January 21, 2004; Harkless Bowley, letter to Earl Conrad, August 8, 1939, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York; Barbara Jeanne Fields,
Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground: Maryland During the Nineteenth Century
(New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1985), pp. 45–46; McFeely,
Frederick Douglass
, pp. 27, 59, 68.

There were others:
John P. Parker,
His Promised Land
, Stuart Seely Sprague, ed. (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), pp. 100 ff; Coon, “Great Escapes,” p. 2; Quarles,
Black Abolitionists
, pp. 11, 14; Siebert,
Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom
, pp. 153–54.

But there was no one quite like:
Jean M. Humez,
Harriet Tubman: The Life and the Life Stories
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2003), p. 25; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 78–79; Lydia Maria Child, letter to John Greenleaf Whittier, January 21, 1862, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Thomas Garrett, letter to Eliza Wigham, December 16, 1855, Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford, PA.
347 General Tubman:
Oates,
To Purge This Land with Blood
, p. 242.

The fifth of at least nine children:
Statement of Harriet Tubman, in Drew,
Refugee
, p. 20; Harkless Bowley, letter to Earl Conrad, August 8, 1939, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, p. 13; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 42, 310; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, pp. 211, 342–48.

She was eleven or twelve:
Franklin B. Sanborn, “Harriet Tubman,”
Boston Commonwealth
, July 17, 1863; Mrs. William Tatlock, interview with Earl Conrad, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, pp. 54–56; Sarah Bradford,
Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People
(Bedford, Mass.: Applewood Books, 1993), pp. 15–17;
Florence Carter, manuscript, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 39, 42–43; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, pp. 178–79, 210–11.

Slavery in Maryland:
Fields,
Slavery and Freedom on the Middle Ground
, pp. 10–15.

Ross adapted readily:
Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, pp. 75–76; Mrs. William Tatlock, interview with Earl Conrad, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Harkless Bowley, letter to Earl Conrad, August 8, 1939, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 48, 52, 56, 64, 73–79.

Tubman's mind was overcharged:
Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, pp. 13–20; Bradford,
Moses of Her People
, pp. 114–15; Sanborn,
Harriet Tubman
; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, pp. 181–84.

Characteristically, she did not leave:
Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, p. 76; Mrs. William Tatlock, interview with Earl Conrad, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, pp. 216–18; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 80–83.

“When I found I had crossed”:
Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, pp. 19–20.

For the next decade:
Ibid., pp. 13–20; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, pp. 25, 260; Thomas Garrett, letter to Eliza Wigham, December 16, 1855, Quaker Collection, Haverford College, Haverford, Pa.

Emboldened by her success:
Bradford,
Moses of Her People
, p. 112; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 89–90; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, p. 183; Catherine Clinton,
Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom
(Boston: Little, Brown, 2004), pp. 82–83.

Before the year was out:
Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 93–96.

Although, in legend:
Ibid., 65–66; John Creighton, interview with the author, Cambridge, Md., February 12, 2004.

She preferred to do her underground work:
Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, pp. 21, 25, 50; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 131–32; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, p. 138; Siebert,
Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom
, p. 68; Robert C. Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester,” p. 355.

She was a consummate actress:
Mrs. William Tatlock, interview with Earl Conrad, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Harkless Bowley, letter to Earl Conrad, August 8, 1939, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection.

“Hail, oh hail, ye happy spirits”:
Bradford,
Moses of Her People
, pp. 36–38.

Tubman expected her passengers:
Harkless Bowley, letter to Earl Conrad, August 8, 1939, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection, Schomburg Center, New York; Mrs. William Tatlock, interview with Earl Conrad, Earl Conrad/Harriet Tubman Collection; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 305–6; Sanborn, “Harriet Tubman”; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 100–3.

One of these men was Thomas Garrett:
James McGowan,
Station Master on the Underground Railroad: The Life and Letters of Thomas Garrett
(Moylan, Pa.: Whimsie Press, 1977), pp. 2, 27, 41, 49, 60–64, 70–74, 111, 121, 129–30; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 649, 655, 741–45, 775; Sanborn, “Harriet Tubman,” pp. 54–55; Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester,” pp. 243–44, 249, 256, 270; William C. Kashatus,
Just Over the Line
, pp. 19–20, 51–54;
National Era
, July 13, 1848; Stowe,
Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
, pp. 54–55.

“Her like it is probable”:
Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 305–6.

Still was born free:
Linn Washington Jr., “The Chronicle of an American First Family,”
Philadelphia Inquirer
, October 11, 1987.

He coordinated escapes:
Stanley Harrold, “Subversives: Antislavery Community in Washington, D. C., 1828–1865,” Louisiana State University Press, Baton Rouge, 2003, pp. 162, 212, 214–217; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 161–63, 260–61, 583–89; Siebert,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 81–82; Collison,
Shadrach Minkins
, pp. 46–48.

freed slave from Alabama named Peter Friedman:
Kate E. R. Pickard,
The Kidnapped and the Ransomed, Being the Personal Recollections of Peter Still and His Wife ‘Vina,' after Forty Years of Slavery
(Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1970), pp. 245–69; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 18–19; Washington, “Chronicle of an American First Family”; “Slaves Liberated—A Family United,”
Provincial Freeman
, January 27, 1854.

a crusty underground veteran named Seth Concklin:
Pickard,
Kidnapped and the Ransomed
, pp. 377–99; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 1–5.

he offered to personally bring Peter Friedman's family:
Pickard,
Kidnapped and the Ransomed
, pp. 279–82.

Initially, Concklin hoped:
Thornbrough,
Negro in Indiana
, pp. 62–63; Stanley W. Campbell,
Slave Catchers
, pp. 148, 157, 169, 199; Slaughter,
Bloody Dawn
, pp. 59–60; James E. Morlock,
Was It Yesterday?
(Evansville, Ind: University of Evansville Press, 1980), p. 124; Coon, “Reconstructing the Underground Railroad Crossings.”

Frustrated but undaunted:
Pickard,
Kidnapped and the Ransomed
, pp. 284–85; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 5–7, 13–14.

a secure underground line:
Gil R. Stormont,
History of Gibson County, Indiana
(Indianapolis: B. F. Bowen & Co., 1914), pp. 224–26.

At the end of January:
Pickard,
Kidnapped and the Ransomed
, pp. 286–89; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 7–8; Stormont,
History of Gibson County
, pp. 226–28; Donald Davidson,
The Tennessee
, vol. 1:
The Old River: Frontier to Secession
(Nashville, Tenn.: J. S. Sanders, 1991), pp. 284–85, 299–301.

Thus far, they had been traveling:
Pickard,
Kidnapped and the Ransomed
, pp. 290–98.

the whites found all this less than convincing:
Ibid., pp. 298–300, 404–5; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 9–12; Stormont,
History of Gibson County
, pp. 228–30;
Joseph P. Elliott,
A History of Evansville and Vandenburgh County, Indiana
(Evansville, Ind.: Keler Printing Co., 1897), p. 380.

Sometime during the downriver trip:
Stormont,
History of Gibson County
, pp. 230–31; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 9 ff;
Evansville Daily Journal
, April 15, 1851.

“There was none of that pretended philanthropy”:
“Capture of Fugitive Slaves,”
Vincennes Gazette
, April 3, 1851.

In a curious way, Concklin's death:
Washington, “Chronicle of an American First Family.”

another brave man was lost to the underground:
Fairbank,
Rev. Calvin Fairbank during Slavery Times
, pp. 55–57, 85 ff, 98–103; Runyon,
Delia Webster
, pp. 122–23, 150–54;
Voice of the Fugitive
, December 3, 1851, and April 22, 1852.

There was, of course, another difference:
Julie Roy Jeffrey,
The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Anti-Slavery Movement
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1998), pp. 7, 88–95; Dorothy Sterling,
Ahead of Her Time: Abby Kelley and the Politics of Antislavery
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1991), pp. 2, 281; Keith Melder, “Abby Kelley and the Process of Liberation,” in
The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women's Political Culture in Antebellum America
, Jean Fagan Yellin and John C. Van Horne, eds. (Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), pp. 242–44; Kathryn Kish Sklar,
Women's Rights Emerges within the Antislavery Movement, 1830–1870: A Brief History with Documents
(Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2000), pp. 118ff.