Bound for Canaan (92 page)

After the Stantons moved to Seneca Falls:
Stanton,
Eighty Years and More,
pp. 143–50; Nancy A. Hewitt,
Women's Activism and Social Change: Rochester, New York 1822–1872
(Ithaca, N. Y.: Cornell University Press, 1984), pp. 130–32; Ward and Burns,
Not for Ourselves Alone
, pp. 39–41, 58–59; Shirley J. Yee,
Black Women Abolitionists: A Study in Activism, 1828–1860
(Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1992), pp. 140–41; Nell Irvin Painter, “Difference, Slavery, and Memory: Sojourner Truth in Feminist Abolitionism,” 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. 140–47; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 107–9.

Women had always done:
Yee,
Black Women Abolitionists
, pp. 20–21, 29; Jeffrey,
Great Silent Army of Abolitionism
, pp. 179–84.

White women as well as black women:
Ward and Burns,
Not for Ourselves Alone
, pp. 48–49; Elizabeth Buffum Chace and Lucy Buffum Lovell,
Two Quaker Sisters
(New York: Liveright Publishing, 1937), pp. xxv, 110, 128, 134; Diary of Phebe Earle Gibbons, entry for July 17, 1856, Gibbons Family File, Lancaster Historical Society, Lancaster, Pa.; Yee,
Black Women Abolitionists
, pp. 36, 117; Hewitt,
Women's Activism and Social Change
, p. 150.

Ironically, no one did more:
Furnas,
Goodbye to Uncle Tom
, pp. 5–9, 17, 30–31, 45.

Stowe based her eponymous composite hero partly:
Stowe,
Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
, pp. 19, 26–27; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 185–91.

Stowe learned the story directly:
John Rankin Jr., unpublished interviews with Wilbur H. Siebert, Ohio Historical Society, Columbus, and Frank Gregg, copy in Union Township Library, Ripley, Ohio.

In Stowe's rendering, Eliza:
Harriet Beecher Stowe,
Uncle Tom's Cabin or, Life Among the Lowly
(New York: Signet, 1998), pp. 67–68; Siebert,
Mysteries of Ohio's Underground Railroad
, p. 47; Coon, “Southeastern Indiana's Underground Railroad Routes and Operations,” p. 185.

Virtually every literate American:
Furnas,
Goodbye to Uncle Tom
, pp. 11ff; Stowe,
Key to Uncle Tom's Cabin
, pp. 21–23.

Following her dramatic escape across the ice:
Stowe,
Uncle Tom's Cabin
, pp. 147–55, 203–21, 414–19.

Harriet Tubman was unimpressed:
Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, p. 22.

C
HAPTER
17: L
ABORATORIES OF
F
REEDOM

On Christmas Eve, 1854:
The escape story of Tubman's brothers is based on Sarah Bradford,
Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman
, pp. 57–72; John Creighton, historian, interview with the author, Cambridge, Md., February 12, 2004; Larson,
Bound for the Promised Land
, pp. 93–94, 105, 110–17; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, pp. 23, 351; Still,
Underground Railroad
, pp. 305, 307.

They were welcomed by Tubman's friend: St. Catharines Journal,
April 22, 1852; Humez,
Harriet Tubman
, p. 25; Sernett,
North Star Country
, p. 180; Pease and Pease,
Bound with Them in Chains
, pp. 133–39; Frederick Douglass,
Life and Times,
p. 710; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, p. 197;
Voice of the Fugitive
, May 21, 1851;
North Star
, November 10, 1848.

sometime journalist Benjamin Drew:
Drew,
Refugee
, pp. 57–60.

Some refugees complained:
Silverman,
Unwelcome Guests
, pp. 73, 128–30, 152.

It was not unusual: Frederick Douglass' Paper
, October 2, 1851; Hunter,
To Set the Captives Free
, pp. 126–27; May,
Some Recollections of Our Antislavery Conflict
, pp. 378–79.

In the burgeoning town of Chatham:
Farrell, “History of the Negro Community in Chatham, Ontario,” pp. 65, 138; Jonathan W. Walton, “Blacks in Buxton and Chatham, Ontario, 1830–1890: Did the 49th Parallel Make a Difference?” (Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1979), pp, 62–67; Lauriston,
Romantic Chatham
, p. 458;
Provincial Freeman
, September 9, 1854;
Syracuse Daily Standard
, May 26, 1856.

Estimates of the total number: Liberator
, September 27, 1848;
North Star
, November 10, 1848;
Provincial Freeman
, March 25, 1854, and March 26, 1854; Coffin,
Reminiscences of Levi Coffin
pp. 252–53; Silverman,
Unwelcome Guests
, p. 43; Pease and Pease,
Bound with Them in Chains
, p. 138; Wayne, “Black Population of Canada West,” pp. 465–85.

the journalist Henry Bibb:
Henry Bibb, “Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave,” in
I Was Born a Slave: An Anthology of Classic Slave Narratives
, vol. 2, Yuval Taylor, ed. (Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1999), pp. 13–92.

Unique within the underground: Detroit Tribune
, February 23, 1875, and January 11, 1886; interview with George DeBaptiste, “Underground Railroad,”
Detroit Post
, May 16, 1870, and February 23, 1875; Lumpkin, “General Plan Was Freedom”; Afua Ave Pamela Cooper, “‘Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause': Henry Bibb, Abolitionism, Race Uplift, and Black Manhood, 1842–1854” (Ph.D. thesis, University of Toronto, 2000), pp. 153–59.

Bibb underwent another profound experience:
Cooper, “Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause,” pp. 47 ff; Bibb, “Narrative of the Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb,” pp. 86–87.

The passage of the Fugitive Slave Act: Voice of the Fugitive
, January 1, 1851, January 29, 1851, February 17, 1851, March 12, 1851, March 26, 1851, May 21, 1851, October 8, 1851, and April 8, 1852; Cooper, “‘Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause,'” pp. 204, 302, 315, 349, 378.

“What is the future of the black race”:
Henry Bibb, “An Address to the Colored Inhabitants of North America,” in
The Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 2:
Canada, 1830–1865
, C. Peter Ripley, ed. (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986), pp. 170–75.

For Bibb, part of the solution: Voice of the Fugitive
, March 26, 1851, and December 16, 1852; Jason H. Silverman, “‘We Shall Be Heard!': The Development of the Fugitive Slave Press in Canada,
Canadian Historical Review
65, no. 1 (March 1984), pp. 54–69; Cooper, “‘Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause,'” pp. 225–27, 241–47.

Among those who attended:
Jane Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary: The Black Press and Protest in the Nineteenth Century
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998), pp. 10–15, 20–22, 32 ff, 110; Smedley, “History of the Underground Railroad in Chester,” pp. 33, 337.

Initially, the two got along:
Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 205–8; Silverman, “‘We Shall Be Heard,'” pp. 54–69; Jason H. Silverman, “Mary Ann Shadd and the Search for Equality,” in
Black Leaders of the Nineteenth Century
, eds. Leon Litwack and August Meier (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1988); Jeffrey,
Great Silent
Army of Abolitionism
, pp. 191–92; Cooper, “‘Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause,'” pp. 264–68, 282; Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
, pp. 71 ff.

By 1852 Shadd's relationship:
Mary Ann Shadd, letter to George Whipple, December 28, 1852, in Ripley,
Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 2, pp. 245–51; Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
, p. 66.

Although Bibb's manifold talents:
Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
, p. 73; Cooper, “‘Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause,'” pp. 251–64, 275;
Provincial Freeman
, March 24, 1853, and March 27, 1853, in Ripley,
Black Abolitionist Papers
, vol. 2, pp. 265–67, 285–87.

Caught amid the collateral damage:
Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 195–203;
Voice of the Fugitive
, May 21, 1851; Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
, pp. 105–7.

A sawmill long championed:
Henson,
Uncle Tom's Story of His Life
, pp. 137, 164–65, 173–74.

Another problem was more subtle:
Ibid., pp. 165–69; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, p. 201; Pease and Pease,
Black Utopia
, pp. 75–81.

Perhaps Dawn's fatal weakness:
Henson,
Uncle Tom's Story
, pp. 142, 147, 173–77;
North Star
, January 12, 1849;
Voice of the Fugitive
, January 1, 1854; Joshua Leavitt, letter to John Scoble, March 9, 1843, in Anti-Slavery Papers, Dennis Gannon Collection, Welland Museum, St. Catharine's, Ontario.

For Henry Bibb, the controversy:
William Lloyd Garrison, letter to Helen E. Garrison, October 17, 1853, in
The Letters of William Lloyd Garrison
, vol. 4:
From Disunionism to the Brink of War 1850–1860
, Louis Ruchames, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1975), pp. 272–75; Cooper, “‘Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause,'” p. 286; Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
, pp. 74, 81–82.

In 1855, the touring abolitionist:
Drew,
Refugee
, pp. 225 ff.

Shadd too was damaged:
Rhodes,
Mary Ann Shadd Cary
, pp. 102–8; Silverman, “‘We Shall Be Heard!'”

She even mocked Frederick Douglass:
Yee,
Black Women Abolitionists
, p. 127.

The origins of the Elgin Settlement:
Victor Ullman,
Look to the North Star: A Life of William King
(Toronto: Umbrella Press, 1969), pp. 19, 39–62; Bryan Prince, historian and curator of the Buxton National Historic Site and Museum, North Buxton, Ontario, interview with the author, June 7, 2003.

King, in contrast to Henson:
Pease and Pease,
Black Utopia
, pp. 85–95; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 210–11; Farrell, “History of the Negro Community in Chatham, Ontario,” p. 118; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, p. 100; Walton, “Blacks in Buxton and Chatham,” pp. 90–92.

the first of many fugitives:
William King, unpublished autobiography, manuscript copy in Raleigh Township Centennial Museum, North Buxton, Ontario; Parker, “Freedman's Story,” March 1866, p. 291; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, p. 108; Walton, “Blacks in Buxton and Chatham,” p. 94.

“When we grew tired”:
Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, p. 106.

King led rather than governed:
King, unpublished autobiography; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, pp. 141–42; Pease and Pease,
Black Utopia
, pp. 96–99.

Opposition coalesced around: Black Utopia
, pp. 105–6; King, unpublished autobiography; Lauriston,
Romantic Chatham
, pp. 493–94; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, p. 85; Cooper, “‘Doing Battle in Freedom's Cause,'” p. 308; Silverman,
Unwelcome Guests
, p. 64.

But King had a subtler strategy:
King, unpublished autobiography; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, pp. 119–23; Pease and Pease,
Black Utopia
, pp. 100–4; Winks,
Blacks in Canada
, pp. 210–11; Silverman,
Unwelcome Guests
, p. 69.

Isaac Riley's oldest son:
Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, pp. 224–26.

White fears also ebbed:
King, unpublished autobiography; Pease and Pease,
Black Utopia
, pp. 85–95: Farrell, “History of the Negro Community in Chatham, Ontario,” p. 118; Walton, “Blacks in Buxton and Chatham,” pp. 94, 100, 109; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, pp. 151–53; Silverman,
Unwelcome Guests
, p. 69.

Elgin's crowning moment:
King, unpublished autobiography; Pease and Pease,
Black Utopia
, pp. 96–99; Ullman,
Look to the North Star
, pp. 90, 151–53.

But there was no second act to Edwin Larwill: Provincial Freeman
, May 6, 1854; Walton, “Blacks in Buxton and Chatham,” p. 109.

Gerrit Smith was also dreaming:
Harlow,
Gerrit Smith
, pp. 241–58; Frothingham,
Gerrit Smith
, pp. 99–111; Sernett,
North Star Country
, pp. 198–202; Stauffer,
Black Hearts of Men
, pp. 155–56;
Liberator
, March 20, 1846;
North Star
, January 7, 1848, February 18, 1848, February 25, 1848, and December 15, 1848;
Press-Republican
, June 27, 2002.