F

CHAPTER LXI

ANTI-SLAVERY ACTIVITIES

ROM very early times Detroit had been a slave-holding territory. Negro and Indian slaves were held here when

the British came in 1760, and in spite of the prohibition of slavery in the Ordinance of 1787, slaves continued to be held here as private property in 1830, when the slave population of Detroit still numbered 30 persons. When slavery was abolished in New York a number of owners sold their slaves to people in Detroit and they were brought here.

But sentiment was growing for the abolition of slavery and already runaway slaves from the South were being helped into Canada.

In 1827 an act was passed requiring registration in the county clerk's office of all colored residents. No blacks were to be allowed in the Territory unless they could produce a certificate of their freedom. But the owners of slaves had such influence that six years passed without any attempt at enforcement of the law.

On June 14, 1833, Thornton Blackburn and his wife, colored, were claimed by Kentucky officials as runaway slaves, although they had lived in Detroit in freedom for two years. They were arrested and taken before a justice, who ordered them delivered to the claimants. While this hearing was in progress a crowd of Negroes gathered in front of the building, but no resistance was offered when the Blackburns were taken to the jail on Library Park. A local colored woman was allowed to visit Mrs. Blackburn and the women changed clothing in jail, thus enabling Mrs. Blackburn to escape to Canada.

A mob of Negroes gathered about the jail on the following Monday, when it was expected that Blackburn would be taken away by steamboat. There was another gathering waiting at the wharf. When the sheriff, John M. Wilson, attempted to

take Blackburn from the jail to the wharf in a carriage the local Negroes made a rush, took Blackburn out of the carriage and hurried him to a boat which landed him in Canada. Blackburn was arrested in Canada and lodged in Sandwich jail. The Canadian government refused to surrender him to the Kentuckians. In this riot the sheriff of Wayne County was seriously wounded with clubs and stones employed by the mob.

A number of Negroes were arrested and the others threatened to effect their release by violence. Gen. Cass, then Secretary of War, happened to be home on a visit and he ordered out a company of Government troops to assist the civil authorities in maintaining order. This incident gave a new impetus to anti-slavery sentiment in Detroit and Michigan, and in 1837 the Detroit Anti-Slavery Society was organized.

This society had for its avowed purpose the recognition of the Negro as a man entitled to his liberty, and the abolition of slavery in the United States. In this organization such leading citizens of Detroit as Shubael A. Conant, Edwin Brooks, E. W. Cowles, Cullen Brown, William Kirkland, Alanson Sheley and Peter Boughton were very active. Other societies were organized out in the state and these worked together in common cause for the promotion of abolition and to aid the escape of slaves to Canada. The organization became connected with that curious secret system of transportation known as the "Underground Railway," which had its stations established in a chain of towns about one night's journey apart. In each of these towns was a trusted member of the organization who could be depended upon to give food, shelter and concealment to an escaped slave and guidance by night to the next station beyond.

Hundreds of fugitive slaves were helped to a safe refuge in Canada and for many years the towns of Windsor and Chatham had a very large colored population composed of escaped slaves from the United States. Anti-slavery sentiment rose to the pitch of frenzy in the case of certain individuals like John Brown of Ossowatamie. Shortly before the historic raid on Harper's Ferry, John Brown came to Detroit on his way from Kansas, bringing with him 14 slaves whom he had picked up in

Missouri to be smuggled into Canada. They had made the journey most of the way traveling by night from station to station of the Underground Railway. Brown arrived in Detroit March 12, 1859, and saw his charges safely across the river. That night Frederick Douglass, an ex-slave and one of the greatest orators of the country, delivered a lecture in Detroit. After the lecture Fred Douglass, John Brown, George de Baptiste, William Lambert,

John Richards, Dr. J. Ferguson, William Webb and several other active anti-slavery leaders held a meeting at the house of William Webb, 185 Congress Street East, at which Brown revealed his scheme for a wholesale delivery of slaves from their owners in northern Virginia. It was an illadvised scheme from the beginning. Brown with a little band of 18 men on Sunday evening, October 16, 1859, seized the armory at Harper's Ferry and made hostages of several citizens. The citizens rallied and shot several of Brown's men and scattered the others. Brown, with his two sons and three others, barricaded themselves in an engine house instead of seeking safety in flight. After Brown's two sons had been killed and himself badly wounded, they surrendered. For this act Brown was hanged December 2, 1859.

The incident created intense bitterness between the North and South. It made compromises impossible and was one of the causes leading to the Civil War.

John G. Whittier, the Quaker poet, immortalized one Michigan man who had been involved in helping slaves to their freedom. Jonathan Walker, a sea captain, was solicited by some escaped slaves at Pensacola, Fla., to take them on board his ship and land them in the West Indies. Walker took them on

board and sailed toward Cuba, but was overhauled by a United States Government ship. He was held in long confinement at Pensacola and then sentenced to be branded in the hand with the letters "S. S.," signifying slave-stealer, fined and released. Capt. Walker, on abandoning the sea, settled in Muskegon County, Michigan, where he died a few years ago. To the end of his days he was known throughout the country as "the man with the branded hand.”

Whittier's anti-slavery poems fairly flame with the zeal of the poet for that cause. One stanza of his poem, “The Branded Hand," will show the character of the other 12 stanzas:

"Then lift that manly right-hand, bold plowman of the wave!
Its branded palm shall prophesy, ‘Salvation to the slave!'
Hold up its fire-wrought language, that whoso reads may feel
His heart swell strong within him, his sinews change to steel."

Strong language that, for a peaceful Quaker. It well exemplifies the passionate mood which possessed the people of the North and South in those grim days of long ago, when we were a divided people about to spring to arms for the settlement of a question which should have been settled by government purchase of the slaves, and might have been but for the fomentation of prejudice and passion on both sides of the question. When we read how simply and effectually the government of Brazil abolished slavery by government purchase, taking plenty of time for the task, we are filled with vain regrets for the blunders of the past.

There were several routes by which the Underground Railway crossed Lower Michigan en route from the Indiana and Ohio borders to Canada. The more western route was via Niles, Cassopolis, Vicksburg, Battle Creek and Marshall. A more eastern passage was furnished runaway slaves via Morenci, Adrian, Tecumseh, Ypsilanti and Detroit. In the course of time the slave-hunters and their subsidized sympathizers began to watch the main lines of travel for the purpose of intercepting slaves. This compelled a diversion of the route to the St. Clair River.

There were a number of Detroit citizens who aided the slaves and furnished them concealment while they were awaiting opportunity to cross into Canada. One of the best known of these was Seymour Finney, who kept the Finney House, at the southeast corner of Woodward and Gratiot avenues, where Kern's dry goods house now stands. The barn of Finney's Hotel stood at the northeast corner of State and Griswold streets, where the Detroit Savings Bank is now located. It was in Finney's barn that runaway slaves were most commonly hidden.

Each line of the Underground Railway had its general manager and station agents. The Battle Creek station was in charge of Erastus Hussey, a Quaker, who spent freely of his time and money in helping slaves to their freedom. On the Adrian route Mrs. Laura Haviland was an agent. She also conducted a school for colored children. Mr. Hussey is said to have assisted more than 1,000 slaves between 1840 and the beginning of the Civil War. At first there were only five antislavery men in Battle Creek. They were Silas Dodge, Abel Densmore, Henry Willis, Theron H. Chadwick, and a colored man named Samuel Strauther, for whom the Colored Masonic Lodge in Battle Creek was named. But others came into the organization from time to time. The stations averaged between 10 and 15 miles apart and the slaves usually traveled by night, sometimes under personal guidance and sometimes guided by well known landmarks. Nobody received any money, for it was a voluntary work of humanity.

IO

The service of the Underground Railway began at the Ohio River, and slaves were helped across Ohio and Indiana and Michigan by means of agents who provided concealment and food during the day and guidance by night. At Cassopolis the chief agent was a Quaker named Zachariah Shugart, and with him were associated Stephen Bogue, Joel East and Parker Osborn. At Schoolcraft it was Dr. Nathan Thomas; at Climax, William Gardner. Next station beyond Battle Creek was Marshall, where Jabez S. Fitch was agent with plenty of aides. At Albion, Edward M. Johnson passed the fugitives on to Parma,