Shadrach Minkins

Shadrach Minkins PDF Author: Gary Collison
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674029798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
On February 15, 1851, Shadrach Minkins was serving breakfast at a coffeehouse in Boston when history caught up with him. The first runaway to be arrested in New England under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, this illiterate Black man from Virginia found himself the catalyst of one of the most dramatic episodes of rebellion and legal wrangling before the Civil War. In a remarkable effort of historical sleuthing, Gary Collison has recovered the true story of Shadrach Minkins’ life and times and perilous flight. His book restores an extraordinary chapter to our collective history and at the same time offers a rare and engrossing picture of the life of an ordinary Black man in nineteenth-century North America. As Minkins’ journey from slavery to freedom unfolds, we see what day-to-day life was like for a slave in Norfolk, Virginia, for a fugitive in Boston, and for a free Black man in Montreal. Collison recreates the drama of Minkins’s arrest and his subsequent rescue by a band of Black Bostonians, who spirited the fugitive to freedom in Canada. He shows us Boston’s Black community, moved to panic and action by the Fugitive Slave Law, and the previously unknown community established in Montreal by Minkins and other refugee Blacks from the United States. And behind the scenes, orchestrating events from the disastrous Compromise of 1850 through the arrest of Minkins and the trial of his rescuers, is Daniel Webster, who through the exigencies of his dimming political career, took the role of villain. Webster is just one of the familiar figures in this tale of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. Others, such as Frederick Douglass, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe (who made use of Minkins’s Montreal community in Uncle Tom’s Cabin), also appear throughout the narrative. Minkins’ intriguing story stands as a fascinating commentary on the nation’s troubled times—on urban slavery and Boston abolitionism, on the Underground Railroad, and on one of the federal government’s last desperate attempts to hold the Union together.

Shadrach Minkins

Shadrach Minkins PDF Author: Gary Collison
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674029798
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 306

Get Book Here

Book Description
On February 15, 1851, Shadrach Minkins was serving breakfast at a coffeehouse in Boston when history caught up with him. The first runaway to be arrested in New England under the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law, this illiterate Black man from Virginia found himself the catalyst of one of the most dramatic episodes of rebellion and legal wrangling before the Civil War. In a remarkable effort of historical sleuthing, Gary Collison has recovered the true story of Shadrach Minkins’ life and times and perilous flight. His book restores an extraordinary chapter to our collective history and at the same time offers a rare and engrossing picture of the life of an ordinary Black man in nineteenth-century North America. As Minkins’ journey from slavery to freedom unfolds, we see what day-to-day life was like for a slave in Norfolk, Virginia, for a fugitive in Boston, and for a free Black man in Montreal. Collison recreates the drama of Minkins’s arrest and his subsequent rescue by a band of Black Bostonians, who spirited the fugitive to freedom in Canada. He shows us Boston’s Black community, moved to panic and action by the Fugitive Slave Law, and the previously unknown community established in Montreal by Minkins and other refugee Blacks from the United States. And behind the scenes, orchestrating events from the disastrous Compromise of 1850 through the arrest of Minkins and the trial of his rescuers, is Daniel Webster, who through the exigencies of his dimming political career, took the role of villain. Webster is just one of the familiar figures in this tale of an ordinary man in extraordinary circumstances. Others, such as Frederick Douglass, Richard Henry Dana, Jr., Harriet Jacobs, and Harriet Beecher Stowe (who made use of Minkins’s Montreal community in Uncle Tom’s Cabin), also appear throughout the narrative. Minkins’ intriguing story stands as a fascinating commentary on the nation’s troubled times—on urban slavery and Boston abolitionism, on the Underground Railroad, and on one of the federal government’s last desperate attempts to hold the Union together.

The Price of Freedom

The Price of Freedom PDF Author: Judith Bloom Fradin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0802721664
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 48

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Book Description
When John Price took a chance at freedom by crossing the frozen Ohio river from Kentucky into Ohio one January night in 1856, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was fully enforced in every state of the union. But the townspeople of Oberlin, Ohio, believed there that all people deserved to be free, so Price started a new life in town-until a crew of slave-catchers arrived and apprehended him. When the residents of Oberlin heard of his capture, many of them banded together to demand his release in a dramatic showdown that risked their own freedom. Paired for the first time, highly acclaimed authors Dennis & Judith Fradin and Pura Belpré award-winning illustrator Eric Velasquez, provide readers with an inspiring tale of how one man's journey to freedom helped spark an abolitionist movement.

Fugitive Slaves and the Unfinished American Revolution

Fugitive Slaves and the Unfinished American Revolution PDF Author: Gordon S. Barker
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786469870
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
This book posits that the American Revolution--waged to form a "more perfect union"--still raged long after the guns went silent. Eight major fugitive slave stories of the antebellum era are described and interpreted to demonstrate how fugitive slaves and their abolitionist allies embraced Patrick Henry's motto "Give me Liberty or Give me Death" and the principles enshrined in the Declaration of Independence. African Americans and white abolitionists seized upon these dramatic events to exhort citizens to complete the Revolution by extending liberty to all Americans. Casting fugitive slaves and their slave revolt leaders as heroic American Revolutionaries seeking freedom for themselves and their enslaved brethren, this book provides a broader interpretation of the American Revolution.

Fugitive Justice

Fugitive Justice PDF Author: Steven Lubet
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674059468
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 378

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Book Description
During the tumultuous decade before the Civil War, no issue was more divisive than the pursuit and return of fugitive slaves—a practice enforced under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. When free Blacks and their abolitionist allies intervened, prosecutions and trials inevitably followed. These cases involved high legal, political, and—most of all—human drama, with runaways desperate for freedom, their defenders seeking recourse to a “higher law” and normally fair-minded judges (even some opposed to slavery) considering the disposition of human beings as property. Fugitive Justice tells the stories of three of the most dramatic fugitive slave trials of the 1850s, bringing to vivid life the determination of the fugitives, the radical tactics of their rescuers, the brutal doggedness of the slavehunters, and the tortuous response of the federal courts. These cases underscore the crucial role that runaway slaves played in building the tensions that led to the Civil War, and they show us how “civil disobedience” developed as a legal defense. As they unfold we can also see how such trials—whether of rescuers or of the slaves themselves—helped build the northern anti-slavery movement, even as they pushed southern firebrands closer to secession. How could something so evil be treated so routinely by just men? The answer says much about how deeply the institution of slavery had penetrated American life even in free states. Fugitive Justice powerfully illuminates this painful episode in American history, and its role in the nation’s inexorable march to war.

A Revolutionary Conscience

A Revolutionary Conscience PDF Author: Paul E. Teed
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 0761859632
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
Theodore Parker was one of the most controversial theologians and social activists in pre-Civil War America. This book argues that Parker's radical vision and contemporary appeal stemmed from his abiding faith in the human conscience and in the principles of the American revolutionary tradition.

To Set this World Right

To Set this World Right PDF Author: Sandra Harbert Petrulionis
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801441578
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 278

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Book Description
In the decade before the Civil War, Concord, Massachusetts, was a center of abolitionist sentiment and activism. To Set this World Right is the first book to recover and examine the voices, events, and influence of the antebellum antislavery movement in Concord. In addressing fundamental questions about the origin and nature of radical abolitionism in this most American of towns, Sandra Harbert Petrulionis frames the antislavery ideology of Henry Thoreau and Ralph Waldo Emerson--two of Concord's most famous residents--as a product of family and community activism and presents the civic context in which their outspoken abolitionism evolved. In this historic locale, radical abolitionism crossed racial, class, and gender lines as a confederation of neighbors fomented a radical consciousness, and Petrulionis documents how the Thoreaus, Emersons, and Alcotts worked in tandem with others in their community, including a slaveowner's daughter and a former slave. Additionally, she examines the basis on which Henry Thoreau--who cherished nothing more than solitary tramps through his beloved woods and bogs--has achieved lasting fame as a militant abolitionist. This book marshals rich archival evidence of the diverse tactics exploited by a small coterie of committed activists, largely women, who provoked their famous neighbors to action. In Concord, the fugitive slave Shadrach Minkins was clothed and fed as he made his way to freedom. In Concord, the adolescent daughters of John Brown attended school and recovered from their emotional distress after their father's notorious public hanging. Although most residents of the town maintained a practiced detachment from the plight of the enslaved, women and men whose sole objective was the moral urgency of abolishing slavery at last prevailed on the philosophers of self-culture to accept the responsibility of their reputations.

The Captive's Quest for Freedom

The Captive's Quest for Freedom PDF Author: R. J. M. Blackett
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108418716
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 531

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Book Description
Examines the impact fugitive slaves had on the Fugitive Slave Law and the coming of the American Civil War.

Resolve and Rescue

Resolve and Rescue PDF Author: Mark C. Bodanza
Publisher: iUniverse
ISBN: 1491728930
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168

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Book Description
Where Frances Drake saw injustice, she tried to right it, and where freedom was denied, she fought to secure it. In Resolve and Rescue, author and historian Mark C. Bodanza explores the life of this Massachusetts woman who took up the cause of the slave early in the antislavery movement. He shows how, in an age dominated by men, Drake never allowed the disadvantages suffered by her gender to impede the great object of her work, the end of slavery in America. Resolve and Rescue narrates the story of this woman, born in 1814, who had an uncommon energy. She toiled for more than two decades to end slavery in ways great and small, including the promotion of some of the greatest speakers of the abolition movement. Her efforts were not limited to speeches or theory, but she publicly participated in the rescue of many fugitive slaves, including the first test case in New England under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850; Bodanza also demonstrates that her fight wasnt limited to ending slavery, as she worked tirelessly for racial equality and womens rights. Resolve and Rescue shares the life story of Frances Drake, her conviction and courage displaying a timeless example of promoting justice and equality.

The Magna Carta Manifesto

The Magna Carta Manifesto PDF Author: Peter Linebaugh
Publisher: Univ of California Press
ISBN: 0520260007
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description
History.

30 People Who Changed the World

30 People Who Changed the World PDF Author: Jean Haddon
Publisher: Seagrass Press
ISBN: 1633223779
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
Languages : en
Pages : 147

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Book Description
Profiles thirty notable figures throughout history, including Julius Caesar, Rosa Parks, Vincent Van Gogh, and Malala Yousafzai.