Lumenarium

Emancipation Day

2011-08-01T07:16:00.000-04:00

Today is the first of August, a day that once held incredible significance for many free African American communities in the United States, and in the northeast in particular. On this day in 1834, the British Parliament decreed an end to slavery in the West Indies. In honor of that decision, free African American communities celebrated with picnics, speeches, and processions, in anticipation of the day when lawmakers in the United States would do the same.

It was celebrated in Carlisle, as documented in this news blurb from the Carlisle Herald:
"The colored people of this borough celebrated the Anniversary of British Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies, on the 1st instant, in a Grove adjacent to town, where they listened to several addresses from some of their own number. In the evening they returned to town, both sexes marching in procession and singing as they passed through the several streets." (Carlisle Herald and Expositor, 6 August 1845).

Harrisburg's African American residents also celebrated the holiday.
In 1859, Emancipation Day in Harrisburg was celebrated with speeches, including a notable oration by Jacob C. White, who asked why Black men have "No rights in a land which embosoms the hallowed remains of our ancestors? No liberty in a country which was freed by our own arms?" (Weekly Anglo-African, 13 August 1859)

This holiday held special significance for Blacks for reasons beyond the slavery connection. From The Year of Jubilee: Men of Muscle:
Prior to the end of slavery in the United States, northern blacks had few occasions to celebrate the ideas of freedom and equality. Independence Day rang hollow for most free African Americans, many of whom had family and friends in bondage in slave-holding states. The raucous celebrations of July Fourth also posed a threat to free blacks in large cities, who were often targeted with firecrackers by malicious revelers. As a result, many free African Americans remained indoors or otherwise maintained a low profile during the explosion-filled holiday.
Harrisburg residents, along with blacks in other large Northern cities, chose a different day and a different cause for celebration: The first day of August was Emancipation Day, named in honor of the 1834 act of the British Parliament bringing an end to slavery in the British West Indies. The day was marked by parades and abolitionist speeches, often to the confusion of the local white community, who did not understand the significance of the date. Whites who observed local African American residents commemorating the day paternalistically likened the activities to child-like fun and nonsense.
The earliest documented Emancipation Day celebration in Harrisburg occurred in 1857, on a small scale. Schoolchildren were organized into a parade through the borough's Tanner's Alley neighborhood under the direction of Charles Robinson, an established oysterman and neighborhood patriarch. Though he could neither read nor write, Robinson organized a neighborhood celebration and choreographed an intricate series of marching maneuvers to squeeze the procession smartly through the maze of narrow alleys that constituted the African American portion of the East Ward. A writer for the Harrisburg Daily Telegraph reported the event in its afternoon edition:

Love and Charity. A company consisting of about twenty colored children marshaled by Charley Robinson paraded in Walnut street this morning. They were uniformed in sashes of red, white and blue muslin, with red rosettes, and carried a banner with the words "Love and Charity" imprinted thereon. About every third one of the juveniles were provided with a miniature drum and brass trumpet, which they "tooted" with an earnestness that showed their feelings were strongly enlisted in the cause, whatever it was.
When the company arrived at Tanner's alley, marshal Robinson in true military style advanced before the drummer, and planting his baton of office upon the ground, bade them wheel to the right, and the precision with which this movement was executed drew from even the soldiers themselves loud and repeated bursts of applause. The last we saw of the precious youngsters they were about filing into the colored Masonic Hall, where we presume they were regaled on doughnuts and ginger-bread.

(George F. Nagle, The Year of Jubilee: Men of Muscle, 2010, pp 191-192)

The significance of the event escaped the news reporter, but such celebrations were a cornerstone of community-building, and ulitmately strengthened the anti-slavery resolve of free African American communities everywhere.

Historical Documents: Men of Color, To Arms! Now or Never!

2011-07-23T13:31:00.000-04:00

The following recruiting poster, designed to draw African American men into the newly formed United States Colored Troops regiments, was probably released about mid-July 1863. It references the early July engagements at Port Hudson and Milliken's Bend, but does not mention the assault on Fort Wagner, which occurred on July 18th of that year.

This poster was published in Philadelphia, and is signed by most of the region's most influential African American male community leaders. It is a brilliant and inspirational appeal to patriotism, family, duty, and honor, and it was very effective.

Men of Color To Arms! To Arms! Now or Never!
This is our golden moment! The Government of the United States calls for every Able-Bodied Colored Man to enter the Army for the THREE YEARS’ SERVICE, and join in fighting the Battles of Liberty and the Union. A new era is open to us. For generations we have suffered under the horrors of slavery, outrage and wrong; our manhood has been denied, our citizenship blotted out, our souls seared and burned, our spirits cowed and crushed, and the hopes of the future of our race involved in doubt and darkness. But now the whole aspect of our relations to the white race is changed. Now, therefore, is our most precious moment. Let us rush to arms!

Fail Now and Our Race is Doomed on this the soil of our birth. We must now awake, arise, or be forever fallen. If we value liberty, if we wish to be free in this land, if we love our country, if we love our families, our children, our home, we must strike NOW while the Country calls: we must rise up in the dignity of our manhood, and show by our own right arms that we are worthy to be freemen. Our enemies have made the country believe that we are craven cowards, without soul, without manhood, without the spirit of soldiers. Shall we die with this stigma resting upon our graves? Shall we leave this Inheritance of shame to our Children? No! a thousand times NO! We WILL Rise!

The alternative is upon us. Let us rather die freemen than live to be slaves. What is life without liberty? We say that we have manhood--now is the time to prove it. A nation or a people that cannot fight may be pitied, but cannot be respected. If we would be regarded Men, if we would forever SILENCE THE TONGUE OF CALUMNY, of prejudice and hate; let us rise NOW and fly to arms! We have seen what Valor and Heroism our brothers displayed at PORT HUDSON and MILLIKEN'S BEND; though they are just from the galling, poisoning grasp of slavery, they have startled the world by the most exalted heroism. If they have proved themselves heroes, can not we prove ourseleves men!

ARE FREEMEN LESS BRAVE THAN SLAVES? More than a Million White Men have left Comfortable Homes and joined the Armies of the Union to save their Country; Cannot we leave ours, and swell the Hosts of the Union, to save our liberties, vindicate our manhood, and deserve well of our Country?

MEN OF COLOR! All races of Men--the Englishman, the Irishman, the Frenchman, the German, the American, have been called to assert their claim to freedom and a manly character, by an appeal to the sword. The day that has seen an enslaved race in arms has, in all history, seen their last trial. We now see that OUR LAST OPPORTUNITY HAS COME! If we are not lower in the scale of humanity than Englishmen, Irishmen, white Americans and other races, we can show it now.

MEN OF COLOR! BROTHERS and FATHERS! WE APPEAL TO YOU! By all your concern for yourselves and your liberties, by all your regard for God and humanity, by all your desire for Citizenship and Equality before the law, by all your love for the Country, to stop at no subterfuge, listen to nothing that shall deter you from rallying for the Army. Come forward, and at once Enroll you Names for the Three Years’ Service. STRIKE NOW, and you are henceforth and forever FREEMEN!

K. D. Bassett
Wm. D. Forten
Frederick Douglass
Wm. Whipper
D. D. Turner
Jas. McCrummell
A. S. Cassey
A. M. Green
J. W. Page
L. R. Seymour
Rev. J. Underdue
John W. Price
Augustus Dorsey
Rev. Stephen Smith
N. W. Depee
Dr. J. H. Wilson
J. W. Cassey
P. J. Armstrong
J. W. Simpson
Rev. J. B. Trusty
S. Morgan Smith
Wm. E. Gipson,
Rev. J. Boulden
Rev. J. Asher
Rev. J. C. Gibbs
Daniel George
Robert M. Adger
Henry M. Cropper
Rev. J. B. Reeve
Rev. J. A. Williams
Rev. A. L. Stanford
Thomas J. Bowers
Elijah J. Davis
John P. Burr
Robert Jones
O. V. Catto
Thos. J. Dorsey
I. D. Cliff
Jacob C. White
Morris Hall
James Needham
Rev. Elisha Weaver
Ebenezer Black
Rev. Wm. T. Catto
Jas. R. Gordon
Samuel Stewart
David B. Bowser
Henry Minton
Daniel Colley
J. C. White, Jr.
Rev. J. P. Campbell
Rev. W. J. Alston
J. P. Johnson
Franklin Turner
Jesse E. Glasgow.

"White Girl Wanted:" Racial Discrimination in Wartime Hiring

2011-07-18T09:47:00.000-04:00

The beginning of war, and in particular the establishment of Camp Curtin north of the city, brought many jobs and business opportunities to Harrisburg. Employment and opportunities were not equitably divided among all of the city's residents, though. Lingering nativism limited opportunities for Irish Catholics, and anti-foreign feelings were strong with regard to Italian and Eastern European immigrants who were beginning to appear in the city.

Racial discrimination in hiring, however, was still a daily reality for the city's African American residents, who were kept from applying for employment in many of the city's socially prominent households by advertisements such as the one placed by ex-governor David Rittenhouse Porter, below. Already limited to the lowest paying jobs, Harrisburg's African American population experienced increasing competition for even these jobs from thousands of black war refugees, poor whites who were drawn to the city hoping to find work, and newly arrived immigrants.

Many turned to working in the thriving ililcit businesses that flourished in the alleys and narrow avenues of Judy's Town and Tanner's Alley. Unlicensed dance halls and lager houses, collectivley referred to as disorderly houses by the police, catered to soldiers and the thousands of men who were employed in their support. Prostitution, hard liquor, and gambling were associated with these businesses, and whites mixed freely with blacks as owners, staff, and as patrons. This "amalgamation" of the races, as well as the illegal activity, frequently led to calls for police crackdowns on the businesses by the same segment of society that denied otherwise respectable employment opportunities to African Americans.

Advertisement source: Pennsylvania Daily Telegraph, 31 October 1861.

An Independence Day Story

2011-07-04T08:22:00.000-04:00

This story is excerpted from The Year of Jubilee: Men of God, pp 237-239:

While many thousands of runaway slaves found freedom in the British army under the provisions of Lord Dunmore’s proclamation, many others served the side of the colonists in rebellion, and fought faithfully and bravely in patriot units. The New England states saw a considerable number of African American men volunteer to fight, many of them slaves or former slaves, in presumed exchange for their freedom.

One such man, a Connecticut slaves, enlisted in the Continental Army in 1777 with the consent of his master, who received the enlistment bounty paid by the government. The former slave served with distinction, survived the war and was “discharged with badges of honor,” only to be claimed years later by his former master as a runaway slave, never manumitted. The man sued for his freedom and the court ruled, “As at the time of enlistment, no person but a freeman could by the resolutions of Congress be enlisted into the Continental army, the consent of his master to the enlistment amounted in law to compleat [sic] manumission.”

In Pennsylvania, fugitive slaves who attempted to join Continental forces or patriot militia would have been returned to their owners. However, in rare instances, enslaved persons may have bargained with their owners, offering to enlist in exchange for freedom. Such might have been the case near Carlisle when Lieutenant John Pratt enlisted thirty-year-old Hercules Johnston, “a mulatto,” into the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, on 25 February 1782. Listed on the docket at number seventeen, Johnston is described as “5 Feet 8 inches high, born in Paxtang, Lancaster county, short black curled hair, a blemish on his left eye, yellow complexion, by trade a hammerman.”

Could this man, who was enlisting in Carlisle with the story that he was born in Lancaster, be the elusive Hercules, who repeatedly ran away from iron maker William Bird’s Birdsboro Forge two decades previously? Bird’s Hercules was close to the same height, at five feet ten inches, but would have been ten years older; however, recruiters were as bad as slaveholders at estimating the ages of blacks. More intriguing are other similarities—both men were forge workers, both had a blemish on one eye, and Bird’s Hercules spoke fluent German and was believed to be hiding among the Germans in Lancaster County. This places him closer to Paxton Township, the birthplace cited by the enlisting man, Hercules Johnston. We also have no evidence of any slaves or free blacks named Hercules in Paxton Township, other than John Harris’ Hercules, who was long dead by this time. Could this newly enlisted Continental Army soldier be the fugitive iron forge slave Hercules from Berks County? Although we can only speculate, based on certain similarities, it would not be unusual for a fugitive slave to try to hide out in the army.

Although Pennsylvania had significant numbers of free blacks, mostly in Philadelphia, during the war, and large numbers of enslaved blacks who could have served as substitutes for their masters in state regiments, few were actually enlisted in militia units, in comparison with other northern and New England states.

In a 1974 pamphlet produced by the National Archives, historian Debra L. Newman extracted all the identifiable records for African American patriot soldiers. Pennsylvania shows only two listings, both of which are the same name and therefore probably indicate records relating to the same soldier: Cato Johnston, a private listed with both the First and Second Pennsylvania Regiments. It is interesting to note that the only soldier listed for this state bore the same surname, with the same distinctive spelling, as the man who enlisted in the Fourth Regiment in Carlisle. Though there were other African Americans with the surname Johnson listed in other state and Continental regiments, the spelling variant Johnston appears only in Pennsylvania, in these listings. What could the link be, if any, between Cato Johnston of the First/Second Regiment, and Hercules Johnston, of the Fourth Regiment? With so few surviving records, we may never know, but if one of the men was born near present day Harrisburg, the possibility exists that, because of the shared surname, both have central Pennsylvania connections—an unusual, and until now unrealized, distinction for area blacks in this time period.

July Events in Local African American History

2011-06-30T20:12:00.000-04:00

July 2, 1777: Vermont becomes the first state to abolish slavery when it outlaws it in its state constitution.

July 2, 1908: Thurgood Marshall, first African American appointed to the Supreme Court, is born in Baltimore.

July 4, 1836: Plans for the organization of an Adams County Antislavery Society are laid at an Independence Day picnic at McAllister’s Mill.

July 9, 1893: Dr. Daniel Hale Williams sutures a wound to the pericardium of a stabbing victim, applying stringent antiseptic and sterilization measures, and becomes the first surgeon to perform successful open heart surgery.

July 11, 1905: The Niagara Movement is founded by W.E.B. DuBois to demand full equal rights for African Americans. This group was formed to oppose the views of Booker T. Washington, who advocated patience on the part of African Americans in waiting for civil rights. Among the founders of the Niagara Movement was Harrisburg attorney William Justin Carter, Sr.

July 13, 1863: Anti-draft rioters kill hundreds of African Americans in four days of violence in New York City.

July 20, 1847: A number of Harrisburg’s African American residents meet in Wesley Union Church “to take into consideration the propriety of inviting W. L. Garrison and F. Douglass to pay them a visit on their route to the West.” Edward Bennett, Thomas Early, and John F. Williams are appointed to draft a resolution inviting the abolitionists to visit Harrisburg.

July 22, 1780: The first central Pennsylvania slave registrations, required by the 1780 Gradual Abolition Law, are recorded in Lancaster when store keeper Christopher Crawford, who lived in town, registered his “Negro male” Bill, aged ten years and six months, and his “Negro female” Esther, aged nineteen years and six months, with county Clerk of the Peace John Hubley.

July 24, 1845: Slave catcher Thomas Finnegan and his gang kidnap Kitty Payne and her three children from a home in Bendersville, Adams County. Finnegan was eventually captured, tried for kidnapping in November 1846, found guilty and sentenced to five years in Eastern Penitentiary.

July 25, 1847: Liberia declares its independence.

July 25, 1918: Beginning of four days of race riots in Chester, PA that leave five people dead.

July 26, 1918: Beginning of four days of race riots in Philadelphia, PA that leave four people dead.

July 26, 1948: President Harry S Truman issues executive orders that institute fair hiring practices in the civilian government and wipe out segregation in the armed forces.

July 28, 1868: The Fourteenth Amendment to the Constitution is finally ratified, two years after its passage, guaranteeing citizenship and protection of rights to African Americans. The delay was caused by the refusal of Southern states to ratify the amendment.

July 30, 1852: James Phillips returns to Harrisburg with attorney Charles C. Rawn, who successfully bargained for his release in Richmond after ten weeks in a slave prison. They arrived late at night to a “tumultuous welcome” from Harrisburg’s African American community, which met the men at the train station. After a joyous reunion with his wife and children, the crowd put the Phillips family in a small wagon and staged an impromptu welcome home parade through town.

June Events in Local African American History

2011-06-02T20:12:00.000-04:00

June 2, 1847: A riot in Carlisle over the seizure of three African Americans as fugitive slaves becomes known as the McClintock Slave Riot due to the involvement of Dickinson College professor John McClintock. McClintock was acquitted of charges that he incited the riot.

June 8, 1861: Tennessee secedes, becoming the eleventh and final state to leave the Union and join the Confederacy.

June 12, 1854: Three men from Maryland, accompanied by a Philadelphia marshal, arrived in Harrisburg in search of a fugitive who was working in a brickyard in town. With Commissioner McAllister gone, the slaveholders had been forced to go first to Commissioner Edward D. Ingraham in Philadelphia, to swear out a warrant. The delay gave Harrisburg activists the time they needed to spirit the man out of town before he could be located by the slave catchers.

June 14, 1811: Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, is born in Litchfield, Connecticut.

June 15, 1864: Congress authorizes equal pay and equipment for African American troops.

June 19, 1862: Juneteenth, African American Emancipation Day. President Abraham Lincoln signs into law a measure prohibiting slavery in the territories of the United States.

June 23, 1969: Harrisburg experienced its worst modern race riot triggered by an incident during a boycott by local African Americans of a pharmacy at 13th and Market Streets. Police used tear gas to disperse large groups of rioters and made seven arrests.

June 24, 1969: A second day of racial unrest in Harrisburg results in the death by police gunfire of Charles A. Scott. Violence continued with crowds setting fires, and police made three arrests.

June 28, 1863: A company of African American militia is used in the defense of Wrightsville, York County, against Confederate soldiers advancing to the river intending to cross the bridge into Columbia. Although the meager defense was futile against the seasoned Southern veterans, Union commanders praised the delaying efforts of the African American troops who “stood up to their work bravely,” after working all day to dig the defensive trenches. One of the African American soldiers was killed by a Southern artillery round.

April Events in Local African American History

2011-04-14T10:56:00.000-04:00

April 1, 1837: Edward Prigg is indicted in York for the kidnapping of Margaret Morgan and her children in violation of the 1826 Pennsylvania Personal Liberty Law. This sets in motion a trial and appeal that ends up as the landmark U.S. Supreme Court decision Prigg vs Pennsylvania.

April 1, 1878: Dinah, former slave of the Cowden family, dies at about ninety years of age. She is buried in Paxton Presbyterian Church Cemetery.

April 2, 1845: A delegation of American Antislavery Society speakers, including Abby Kelley (later Abby Kelly Foster) and Jane Elizabeth Hitchcock, speak at the Courthouse in Harrisburg. A Philadelphia correspondent reports that they lectured to large audiences, "many of whom were ladies." Unfortunately the lectures were marred by pro-slavery activists who "raised false alarms of fire," heckled the speakers, and showered the group with eggs. The women were also threatened with tar and feathers, and duckings. The speakers also spoke at local black churches, where they were unmolested by rowdies.

April 4. 1792: Thaddeus Stevens, named for the Polish patriot Thaddeus Kosciuszko, is born in Danville, Vermont to Joshua and Sarah Morrill Stevens.

April 4, 1968: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee, at the Lorraine Hotel while in town to lead a demonstration of striking sanitation workers against low wages and poor working conditions.

April 5, 1800: Eanus, the slave of Robert Clark, of Southampton Township, Cumberland County, is arrested for trying to protect his young son from being taken away by a new owner, Jesse Kilgore, of Newton Township. Eanus leveled a gun at Kilgore when the man tied up Eanus’ son, but Eanus was convinced to put the weapon down and surrender.

April 5, 1839: Robert Smalls, the only African American naval captain to serve during the Civil War, is born in Beaufort, S.C.

April 5, 1856: Booker Taliaferro Washington, first principal of Tuskegee Institute, is born in Franklin County, Virginia.

April 7, 1712: The New York slave insurrection involved twenty-three slaves who burned a slaveholder’s house, fought with authorities, and killed nine whites. Twenty-one of the rebels were executed, but the event shocked slaveholders across the colonies. Pennsylvania promptly imposed higher tariffs on the purchase of slaves in a temporarily successful measure to curb slave importation.

April 9, 1866: Congress overrides a veto by President Johnson and passes the Civil Rights Act, guaranteeing citizenship and equal rights for African Americans.

April 12, 1787: Richard Allen and Absalom Jones form the Free African Society in Philadelphia.

April 14, 1800: Caesar, the slave of John McAllister of Tyrone Township, Cumberland County (modern day Perry County), is beaten to death by William McAllister, John’s brother, for the supposed crime of stealing some money. Both men are later tried and found guilty of murder by a county court.

April 14, 1851: The Franklin family is arrested in Harrisburg, including a small child born in Pennsylvania. Slave Commissioner Richard McAllister tries to suppress protests by holding the hearing in the pre-dawn hours, but word gets out. The family is sent south without the youngest child, who is placed with a local black family.

April 15, 1865: President Abraham Lincoln is assassinated.

April 15, 1947: Jackie Robinson becomes the first African American to play professional baseball in the major leagues when he appears at Ebbets Field with the Brooklyn Dodgers.

April 16, 1862: President Abraham Lincoln signs a bill ending slavery in the District of Columbia.

April 16, 1863: The Harrisburg Daily Telegraph reports on a fugitive slave who was being lawfully taken through the city back to slavery in Maryland.

April 21, 1825: Harrisburg's first reported incident in which local Blacks come to the aid of a captured fugitive slave with the use of public demonstration and force in an unsuccessful rescue attempt.

April 21, 1865: Abraham Lincoln's funeral train brings his body to Harrisburg, arriving about 8:30 p.m. At Market and Fifth streets, his body was transferred to a hearse hitched to four white horses. Grooms led the horses west on Market Street to the Square, turned north to travel along Second Street to State, where the funeral procession turned right to proceed to the Capitol. From 9:30 p.m. until midnight, Harrisburg citizens filied through the House Chamber of the Capitol to view his body in the open casket.

April 22, 1865: At 7 a.m., mourners began viewing Abraham Lincoln's body in the House Chamber of the Capitol at Harrisburg. At 9 a.m., the casket was closed and prepared for the funeral procession back to the waiting funeral train at the Market Street station. More than forty thousand people lined the route along State, Second and Market streets. Ordinary citizen mourners were allowed to join the funeral procession at the end, with African American citizens segregated to the very rear. The train pulled out of Harrisburg at 11 a.m.

April 25, 1821: Harrisburg borough passes an ordinance requiring all “free persons of color” to register with the town burgess and report their names, occupations, addresses and the names of all family members and other non-whites in their homes. They had to notify the authorities if they moved to another residence in town, and if anyone moved in with them. This ordinance was an attempt to control non-whites who were not already under the rigid controls of slavery and indentured servitude.

April 28, 1847: George B. Vashon, son of John Bethune Vashon, a political activist and Underground Railroad conductor of Carlisle and Pittsburgh, become the first African American to pass the New York State Bar.

April 29. 1824: Birthday of George Boyer Vashon, abolitionist, lawyer and educator. Born in Carlisle to abolitionist and rights activist John Vashon, George was the first African American graduate of Oberlin College. He studied law and was later president of Avery College in Pittsburgh. He would go on to help found Howard University.

April 29, 1852: A. D. Ridgely, a police officer from Baltimore, Maryland, shoots to death William Smith, an alleged fugitive slave working at a lumberyard in Columbia, PA. Ridgely was accompanied by Solomon Snyder of Harrisburg, a deputy to Federal Slave Commissioner Richard McAllister in Harrisburg. The incident causes outrage in the north.

February Dates in Local African American History

2011-02-20T14:49:00.000-05:00

From the Afrolumens site:

February events in local African American history

February 3, 1837: The Pennsylvania Antislavery Society is formed in convention at Shakespeare Hall in Harrisburg. Attendees include Dr. F. Julius LeMoyne, Charles C. Burleigh, Jonathan Blanchard, and Benjamin Lundy. John Greenleaf Whittier reports on the proceedings for The Liberator.

February 8, 1865: Delegates to The State Equal Rights Convention of Colored People of Pennsylvania meet in Harrisburg to again petition for the restoration of the vote to African American men. That right had been taken away by the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1838, despite the efforts of Thaddeus Stevens, who vigorously fought against the constitutional change.

February 12, 1793: Passage of the first Federal Fugitive Slave Act, intended to replace the legal maze of local, state and pre-existing federal laws regarding fugitive slaves.

February 14, 1818: Abolitionist Frederick Douglass is born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Because his actual day of birth was unknown to him, Douglass adopted February 14th as his birthday.

February 18, 1688: The “Germantown Protest” is written. Garret Hendericks, Derick up de Graeff, Abraham up den Graef and Francis Daniell Pastorius, four Quakers at Germantown, Pennsylvania, write a protest against the enslavement of Africans. Based upon the Golden Rule, it was delivered to the larger Monthly Meeting, where it was not acted upon and was largely ignored.

February 20, 1843: Paxton Lodge No. 5, an African American Masonic Lodge, is established in Harrisburg.

February 22, 1839: Octavius Valentine Catto is born in Charleston, South Carolina. Catto became a teacher at Philadelphia’s Institute for Colored Youth and was invaluable in raising large numbers of African American troops during the Civil War. A tireless equal rights activist, Catto was murdered on Election Day, October 10, 1871 by opposition party rowdies.

February 22, 1841: Painter Grafton Tyler Brown is born in Harrisburg.

February 24, 1811: Daniel Alexander Payne is born in Charleston, South Carolina to free African American parents Martha and London Payne. Payne attended the Lutheran Seminary at Gettysburg in 1835 and went on to become the sixth bishop of the A.M.E. church. He founded Wilberforce University, becoming the first African American president of a college.

February 24, 1837: An anti-abolition meeting in Susquehanna Township elects trustees to manage the Hailman Schoolhouse in the township. The citizens charge the trustees with allowing the use of the schoolhouse for preaching, "but in no event shall they open the door to lectures on abolitionism, negroism, and amalgamationism."

February 25, 1782: Thirty-year-old Hercules Johnston, “a mulatto,” enlists in the Fourth Pennsylvania Regiment, in Carlisle. Johnston is described as “5 Feet 8 inches high, born in Paxtang, Lancaster county, short black curled hair, a blemish on his left eye, yellow complexion, by trade a hammerman.

Slavery and Christmas Time, Part Four--Christmas Fairs

2010-12-24T11:19:00.000-05:00

My previous three posts explored the trials and dangers that plagued enslaved persons and their families around the winter holidays. The Christmas season that we now experience as a joyous holiday was fraught with the fear of separation and the dangers posed by harsh northern winter weather to fugitive slaves.

To abolitionist activists, however, the Christmas season presented an opportunity to raise funds and share their anti-slavery beliefs. Anti-Slavery Festivals became regular events in many northern cities. Although men generally dominated the political and administrative arms of major anti-slavery societies, this was an area in which the women took charge. These popular and highly successful events were organized, supplied and staffed almost solely by female activists, and they often provided the essential funding that made the political activities possible throughout the rest of the year.

A correspondent to The North Star, Frederick Douglass' abolitionist weekly, reported that the ladies of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society were "getting up a monster Fair, to come off during teh holidays, to be held at the Philadelphia Institute." The correspondent, identified only as "Palmetto," remarked "No doubt it will be something rich, for the females are very zealous when they put their heads together."

The same correspondent had earlier reported on a trip to Harrisburg by several male representatives of the Philadelphia society, lamenting the lack of funds available in the society coffers. He credited the success of the trip to the women who stayed behind, observing "Had it not been for the indefatigable exertions of the ladies, together with a few societies, many of the delegates would have been obliged to remain at home." (North Star, 22 December 1848)

The women of Rochester, New York put on an ambitious Anti-Slavery Festival in 1852. This advertisement from the Frederick Douglass Paper paints a picture of a vibrant and exciting event:

The Rochester Ladies' Anti-Slavery Festival will open on Thursday, 23d of December in CORINTHIAN HALL, at 3 o'clock precisely.

There will be exhibited for sale a large assortment of articles useful and ornamental, both of American and FOREIGN manufacture. We are happy to state that anti-slavery friends in England and Ireland, have contributed more largely this year than on any former occasion; and the British tables will be highly attractive.

The Society trusts that the friends of the slave in this vicinity, will postpone the purchase of their Christmas and New Year's gifts until the 23d of December.

"THE AUTOGRAPHS FOR FREEDOM" will appear on the first day of the Festival, and will form the most attractive feature of the Book Table.

Bounteous Refreshment Tables will be provided; for which contributions are solicited from all who feel an interest in the objects of the Society. Among the gentlemen who are expected to be present, to address the audience on this occasion, are Rev. Samuel J. May, R. R. Raymond, W. H. Channing, Rev. Ovid Miner, and Frederick Douglass.

Donations of TEA, COFFEE, SUGAR, CREAM, MEATS, and CONFECTIONARY, will be particularly acceptable; and donations in money will be thankfully received.

The Society trust that liberal patronage will be extended to their Festival on the forthcoming occasion.

Money was raised not only from the sale of donated goods, which included both food and handicrafts, but also from a small admittance charge. In 1858, the Philadelphia women charged thirteen cents as a daily admission fee, or twenty-five cents for a season pass. But money to fund activities was only one on their aims. From an 1836 report, they noted: "The most important results of such sales, is, we think, the silent, unobtrusive, and extensive dissemination of anti-Slavery truth. The form of the chained and kneeling slave, pictured on needle book or a pin cushion, may arouse the latest sympathies of many a heart, and suggest to many a conscience the reproving inquiry, 'What hast thou done for the redemption of thy brother?'"

Harrisburg did not lag behind in the holiday fair tradition, and in fact kept raising funds throughout the Civil War, and after. Money was subsequently raised to support the destitute freedmen of the South, following liberation. Harrisburg resident Lizzie C. Williams organized a fair that commenced on Christmas Day, 1865, and continued through New Year's Day, 1866. A Harrisburg correspondent to the Christian Recorder newspaper reported that the fair "realized quite a handsome profit."

That same year, the women of Harrisburg's office of the U.S. Sanitary Commission raised money and collected goods to send to the freedmen. This effort was organized and directed by the local organization president, Mrs. J. L. Spence.

Slavery and Christmas Time, Part Three

2010-12-23T19:37:00.000-05:00

The previous two blog entries dealt with the trials of fugitive slaves who ran away during Christmas time. We all generally feel closer to family and friends at this time of year, particularly as we honor a time of year made even more romantic by the popular novels and stories of Charles Dickens. Yet strong Christmas traditions were in place among African American families even before Dickens' "A Christmas Carol" became popular.

African American editor John Russwurm ran an article in his newspaper, "Freedom's Journal," titled "The Yule Clog," which described "a great log of wood, sometimes the root of a tree, brought into the house with great ceremony, on Christmas eve." The article went on to tell how it was "laid in the fireplace, and lighted with the brand of the last year's clog. While it lasted, there was great drinking, singing, and telling of tales. Sometimes it was accompanied by Christmas candles; but in the cottages the only light was from the ruddy blaze of the great wood fire. The Yule clog was to burn all night; if it went out it was considered a sign of ill luck." (Freedom's Journal, 21 November 1828)

Although the yule clog or log tradition originated in Europe and remained strong in the United States among European descended people, particularly in the east and northeast, it seems to have been adopted by African American families in these same regions well before the Civil War.

Among enslaved persons, Christmas was a time of great emotional turmoil, as children hired out to work for persons other than their owners were traditionally allowed to return home to their families for a week. Very often this was the only time of the year when slave families were together and whole. The great joy of reunion, however, was tempered by the bitter realization that New Year's Day would bring another year-long separation, with the possibility that the new employer could be cruel or even dangerous.

An abolitionist correspondent for the Frederick Douglass Paper reported on the annual hiring event, held in Alexandria, Virginia, that caused so much anguish to slave families:

Annual Hiring of Slaves

New Year's Day is always a period of interest here. It is the set time for the annual hiring of colored servants. The ceremony usually takes place at Catt's Tavern, an ancient establishment at the eastern extremity of King Street. Here are congregated, in a large number, the sable sons and daughters of toil, from childhood to years of full maturity.

Assembled also at this point, are the owners, overseers and representatives of the estates to which these servants belong and the men met by our citizens who, wish to renew their present lease, change their domestics or employ additional 'help.' The obligation on the part of the employer is, in addition to the wages, that each servant is to be fed, clothed, and have medical attendance when necessary.

(Frederick Douglass Paper, 21 January 1853)

In the landmark anti-slavery book, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, Harriet Ann Jacobs, writing under the pen name of Linda Brent, wrote about the dual nature of Christmas to a slave:

Christmas was approaching...Were it not that hiring day is near at hand, and many families are fearfully looking forward to the probability of separation in a few days, Christmas might be a happy season for the poor slaves.

(Linda Brent [Harriet Ann Jacobs], Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl [New York: Harvest/Harcout Brace Jovanovich, 1973] 121)

Is it any wonder, given this abuse of the Christmas season by slaveholders, that so many enslaved persons chose the Christmas season as the time to risk everything to escape such scenes.

Slavery and Christmas Time, Part Two

2010-12-19T15:09:00.000-05:00

Continuing thoughts on the season, and how it affected our ancestors. Today marks the one hundred and eighty-second anniversary of the escape from enslavement at Fort Hunter of Sal Craig, whose story was told in yesterday's blog.

Winter escapes, and in particular, escapes around Christmas time, were quite common, despite the harsh weather. While Sal's ultimate fate is unknown, many fugitive slaves survived, perhaps because of aid obtained from other slaves, free black residents, and sympathetic whites. The stories of winter escapes, below, are from The Year of Jubilee, Volume One: Men of God:

"In late December 1794, Benjamin Duncan of Dauphin County placed an ad in the Pennsylvania Gazette for the escaped seventeen-year-old slave he listed only as "Sam." That slave was captured and jailed five months later in Chester County, giving his name to the jailor as 'Sam Roach.' " (page 151)

"Cold Pennsylvania nights and winter winds chilled freedom seeker Robert Brown, who escaped from Martinsburg, Virginia just before Christmas 1856. His wife and four children had been sold away from him only days before, and when Brown realized he had no hope of preventing their sale, he ran away, crossing the Potomac River on horseback on Christmas night. He rode another forty miles before abandoning his horse and continuing on foot, arriving in Harrisburg after two more days. Local Underground Railroad activists discovered him and took him to their homes to feed him and exchange his freezing clothing for dry, nondescript clothing. When Brown was ready to travel again, a Harrisburg operative, possibly Joseph Bustill, arranged for his safe transport by train to the offices of the Vigilance Committee in Philadelphia, where he arrived on New Years Day 1857."

"Frostbite claimed the extremities—usually toes—of many fugitive slaves. William Still, in writing about the Christmas Eve 1855 escape of three married couples from Loudon County, Virginia, noted the harsh effects the 'biting frost and snow' had upon them. Two of the couples traveled by horse and carriage, but even this improvement in transportation did little to shield them from the freezing temperatures. Still described how the men 'strove to keep the feet of the females from freezing by lying on them' when the party rested for the night in the snowy countryside, 'but the frost was merciless and bit them severely, as their feet very plainly showed.' Still does not indicate if the women lost toes to the effects of frostbite, but their feet were injured enough to require them to spend time in Philadelphia in recuperation before going on to greater safety in New York and eventually Canada."

"In another incident, related to him by a Delaware Underground Railroad activist, a group of thirteen fugitives arrived at a safe house in New Castle County on December 27, 1845, after traveling twenty-seven miles through a snowstorm. Many members of the party, including several children, were suffering the pain of frostbite, but the detail that most stands out, as the storyteller recalled for Still, was the image of one man who was unable to remove his boots from his feet, because they were frozen into one solid mass. The man, taking a very practical approach to this horrible discovery, simply went to the water pump to fill his boots with water, 'thus he was able to get them off in a few minutes.' ”
(pages 197-198)

Such stories are a tribute to the endurance and perseverance of freedom seekers who found their way into central Pennsylvania.

Slavery and Christmas Time, Part One

2010-12-18T12:32:00.000-05:00

The deep, sub-freezing weather system that has descended upon the midstate, coating the area with light snow from time to time, freezing ponds to the depth of several inches, and thoroughly chilling everyone, is a reminder that we all live in a northern climate. It is suitable weather for the Christmas season, however, and shoppers and school children do not seem to mind the cold. Spirits remain high even as temperatures dip, with the impending arrival of the holidays.

One hundred and eighty-two years ago, almost exactly to this date, a sixty-year-old woman named Sal Craig packed a few meager possessions and walked away from the warm hearth fires, blankets, and ovens of Fort Hunter. Sal was venturing into countryside that was sparsley sprkinkled with farms and houses at the time, and was quite inhospitable for traveling. Where she went and how she fared, no one today knows. She never returned to Fort Hunter. Sal was a fugitive slave, claimed as property by the owner of Fort Hunter, Archibald McAllister.

Below is her story, excerpted from my book, The Year of Jubilee:

"Archibald was the son of Richard McAllister, of Hanover, York County. Richard bequeathed two slaves for life, Cato, and Cato's son Jack, to Archibald upon his death in August 1795. Prior to that acquisition, Archibald McAllister had registered five slaves in the county seat of Lancaster on 11 September 1780, in accordance with the Gradual Abolition Act of 1780. He listed his residence as "London Derry Township," and his occupation as "Gentleman.” The five slaves registered on that date, all described as "slave for life," were: Ned, aged 52; Isaac, aged 20; Jem, aged 8; Nance, aged 10; and Sal aged 14. McAllister increased his slave holdings when he married widow Elizabeth Carson of Paxton Township, who then owned a male slave named Pompey. At least twenty-two slaves have been associated with owner Archibald McAllister on this estate between the years 1780, when he registered five slaves, and 1829, when he was forced by financial difficulties to sell the property. There were at least two distinct slave family groups at this estate, and possibly more. Of the twenty-two slaves registered by McAllister between 1780 and 1825, five have been determined to have had the surname Craig, and two others, Cato and Jack, shared a father-son relationship, although their surname has not been discovered.

"One of the Craig slaves, Sally, had been with the McAllister family for over sixty years, giving her entire life in service, when financial disaster struck and McAllister placed her up for sale, along with his other, much younger, slaves:

The Time of Colored People For Sale.
I wish to dispose of all my colored people at private sale:--One female slave, aged about sixty one years, strong and active of her age, she is an excellent washer, baker and cook, and understands the management of a dairy, and soap boiling.
Also, a female aged about twenty years, has eight years to serve; she understands all kind of house work, and is stout and healthy.
Also, a male aged about twenty four years, has four years to serve, remarkably stout and healthy, and understands all kinds of farming whatever.
Also, a female aged twenty two years, has six years to serve, stout and healthy, understands all kind of house work, a good cook and ironer; in short, she understands every kind of work that belongs to a respectable family.
Archibald M'Allister. December 9.

"Unwilling to change masters at her age and no doubt highly insulted and hurt by McAllister’s callous actions, Sally took charge of her destiny ten days later and ran away from the only home she had known for six decades. When a week passed and Sally did not return to Fort Hunter, Archibald McAllister placed an advertisement seeking her return in the local newspaper, but he was able to offer little as a reward:

Ran away from the subscriber at Fort Hunter, six miles above Harrisburg on the 19th instant, a female slave, named Sall Crage, aged about 60. I hereby forewarn all persons from harboring her, and will pay $2 to any person who will deliver her to me at Fort Hunter. Archibald M'Allister. December 24, 1828.

"The idea of a sixty-one-year-old woman venturing out into the world with no assets or supplies, a few days before the onset of winter, conjures up visions of a tragedy in the making. Sally had little time to prepare for her escape, as only ten days had passed from the placing of the sale ad and the day she ran away. Perhaps she had warnings, or perhaps she knew from the earlier offer to rent the estate, or from other signs, that her master planned to liquidate his human assets. It is possible that she had a plan and a destination in mind. At her age, she must have established numerous contacts in the surrounding neighborhoods with people on whom she knew she could depend in a crisis, and this was certainly a crisis.

Whether due to the pitifully small reward, or to her success at finding safe harbor, Sally Craig was never recovered by McAllister, who also failed to sell all of his slaves by the time financial problems forced the sale of his assets at a sheriff’s sale in 1829. At least one slave was listed among his assets, and it was not Sally Craig."

From The Year of Jubilee, Vol. One: Men of God, pages 81-83.

York Daily Record's Cannonball Blog Reviews Year of Jubilee

2010-10-21T11:01:00.000-04:00

Scott Mingus' excellent daily blog on York County Civil War history recently reviewed the Year of Jubilee and interviewed me about the book. Scott's questions and my answers were published today, and may be found here: http://www.yorkblog.com/cannonball/.

Scroll down for earlier blog entries to see the actual book review. Don't forget to check out his past columns on local York history. He has found and written about an amazing number of stories--human interest, local history, lots of fascinating, hidden details about significant Civil War era and antebellum events.

A Page From Harrisburg History

2010-10-17T16:04:00.000-04:00

My article below appeared in The Patriot-News' Opinion pages on October 17, 2010.

Harrisburg’s sesquicentennial year as a city will close in a few weeks with a final fanfare centering on the one hundred and forty-fifth anniversary of the Grand Review of Colored Troops. The original event, which took place in November 1865, featured a parade by African American troops returning home following the Civil War. Racism had denied these troops a spot in the official Grand Review in Washington, DC that May, which was staged to celebrate the Union victory. At the behest of the Garnet Equal Rights League of Harrisburg, however, these slighted men were given their due recognition in the capital of the Keystone State, which offered “a Complimentary Reception, a Free Dinner, and an Oration Welcome.”

Realizing that such an event was likely to be ignored by most of the state and city’s white residents, the African American organizers used word of mouth, and advertised in various African American publications, urging “the colored people of Pennsylvania” to “crowd Harrisburg, and give your brothers in blue a thrilling welcome.” Special half-price excursion rates were arranged with agents of the Cumberland Valley, the Philadelphia and Reading, the Northern Central, and the Pennsylvania Central railroads, in hopes of drawing crowds that would send “thundering echoes” of cheering support to the returning soldiers. The grassroots effort worked magnificently, and in mid-November, the black residents of the City of Harrisburg, along with hundreds of visitors, paid homage to black veterans with a parade, speeches, and a free dinner at the Soldier’s Rest.

This was not the first time that Harrisburg’s African American community had come together during a time of need. Historically, blacks in Harrisburg have a strong tradition of opening their doors to fighters in the war on inequality, and of pulling together to fight the ravaging brutalities of hatred and ignorance. An early example occurred in April 1825, when “a great number of blacks” gathered outside of the courthouse on Market Street to demonstrate against the recapture of a fugitive slave, whose hearing was being conducted inside. Although they did not succeed in gaining freedom for the captured slaves, their sheer numbers and aggressive behavior clearly intimidated the slave hunters and set a precedent for future collective action.

Over the course of the next forty years, Harrisburg’s African American residents weathered numerous social, economic, and political storms through the effective employment of mutual aid and self-help. A crisis of will occurred in 1859, however, that threatened to tear the black community apart. For several years, fugitive slaves and newly-freed blacks had been arriving in town in large numbers. Although local black residents tried to absorb and accommodate these newcomers, a shortage of good housing and employment threatened to overwhelm this traditionally tight-knit community.

A vital pressure release had been lost in 1857 with the purchase of the land north of Tanner’s Alley by developer William Verbeke. No longer could new arrivals take up a squatter’s residence on the vacant land next to the burgeoning black neighborhood. The result, by 1859, was a neighborhood constrained on all sides and bursting at the seams. In addition, Harrisburg’s longtime black residents found it difficult to bond with the new, unskilled, illiterate refugees from the South. For the first time, Harrisburg’s African American community found itself divided into two competing camps, with little in common. The rift came at a bad time, as slave catchers were again becoming more aggressive. Now more than ever, a cohesive community was vital for everyone’s survival.

In April 1859, four slave catchers cornered Daniel Dangerfield in one of the market sheds on the square. With Colt revolvers drawn against the gathering crowd, they hustled their captive off to the Pennsylvania Railroad Station, where they took the train to Philadelphia for his hearing. Although the case received much attention in the newspapers, the outlook appeared grim for Dangerfield. It was at that point that Carlisle native and abolitionist J. Miller McKim sent an urgent telegram to Harrisburg seeking help. Harrisburg responded.

In the late afternoon of the second day of the hearing, five African American men from Harrisburg pushed their way through the hostile white crowd that surrounded the hearing room. Leading the way was sixty-six-year-old William Jones, one of the town’s most respected African American citizens. Testimony and cross-examination lasted for more than three hours, with Jones telling how Daniel Dangerfield has helped him dig the cellar of his rooming house on West Alley in 1853. Prosecutors attempted to confuse Jones with a battery of detailed questions, but the old man’s memory proved faultless. Ultimately, Dangerfield was freed.

William Jones had secured the freedom of Daniel Dangerfield, but more importantly, he had provided the foundation upon which Harrisburg’s African American community would again make itself whole. He had proved the power of African American memory and legacy--an idea which was seized upon the following August by Jacob C. White, Jr., in a speech before an assembled African American crowd in a local picnic grove. Enslaved, hunted, disenfranchised, proscribed, and segregated by their white neighbors, and now declared non-citizens by the highest court in the land, African Americans from North and South had a common struggle, a common heritage, and a legacy of mutual aid, according to White. That was the motive that drove William Jones to travel hours to testify for a man before a hostile court, and that was the motive that would enable Harrisburg’s African American community to survive the coming years of civil war.

During this Sesquicentennial year, Harrisburg is again facing a crisis of will. Debt and internal squabbling threaten to undermine all aspects of city operations. Harrisburg’s African American community, in particular, can draw from a rich heritage of mutual aid and dozens of inspiring, even heroic episodes. In decades past, Harrisburg blacks have surmounted and conquered obstacles of staggering magnitude. Yet much of this noble legacy has escaped the history books. Residents, estranged from their historical roots, must feel like Dunne’s fictional Mr. Dooley, who lamented “I know histhry isn't thrue, Hinnessey, because it ain't like what I see ivery day in Halstead Street.” If Harrisburg is to remain a vibrant community, it is vital that residents reestablish their historical memory. Whether black or white, it is a mutual history, and one of which all can be justly proud.

George F. Nagle
Harrisburg, PA

Afrolumens Book to be in Harrisburg History Center

2010-10-13T14:07:00.000-04:00

The newly published Afrolumens book, The Year of Jubilee: Men of God/Men of Muscle, will be stocked in the Harrisburg 2010 History Center, at 213 Market Street. The History Center opened at the beginning of the year in celebration of the city's sesquicentennial. Having the book stocked there now is particularly fortunate, as the center is due to open its final exhibit honoring the United States Colored Troops.

The 2010 Harrisburg History Center is open from 11 am until 4 pm, Tuesday through Saturday. Admission is free.

Year of Jubilee at Mid-Town Scholar

2010-10-07T17:00:00.000-04:00

Exciting news! The Mid-Town Scholar Bookstore is stocking The Year of Jubilee. Both volumes are available on the local history table, just inside the front door.

Even better news! In keeping with their goal of offering quality local history books at great prices, they have agreed to make the book available at the discounted price of $24.95. This is a substantial discount from Amazon.com. Please stop by the store and pick up a copy. If you have not yet been in this amazing store in Harrisburg's historic Midtown District, you'll be amazed at the depth of their stock.

We are also finalizing an evening talk/book signing in November. Stay tuned for the date and time.

Afrolumens Book Fully Searchable at Amazon

2010-10-01T05:22:00.002-04:00

Just yesterday I wrote, in the Afrolumens site news page, that Amazon had enabled "Look Inside This Book" for The Year of Jubilee, Volume One: Men of God. I was excited about this, because it allows interested persons to view and flip through various pages of the book. It gives a good sense of what the book is about, how it is laid out, and the author's style. The experience is not unlike flipping through the pages of a book that catches your eye at a brick and mortar bookstore.

You can read substantial portions of the book, although random runs of pages are not displayed, to encourage you to actually buy the book. The "Look Inside the Book" feature is also supposed to allow for full text searches, so you can find references to specific terms, subjects, names, places, or whatever interests you. I typed in several words that I knew where in the volume, but the search box returned no results, which disappointed me. I figured this was because the book was being produced from a pdf file submitted by me, and, as we all know, some pdf files are essentially just images, rather than actual text.

It appears I was just being impatient, however. Today I again tried the text search box and found that it works perfectly. Apparently, it just took another day for my pdf text file to be fully integrated with the search software. All is well, now, and I am happy. I encourage you to play around with this feature. View my book on Amazon and type in a search term to see what comes up. I suppose it will be another two weeks before Volume Two: Men of Muscle, is text searchable as well.

Link to the book from the blog entry title, or use this direct link:
The Year of Jubilee, Volume One: Men of God

Year of Jubliee: Men of God at Amazon

2010-09-16T11:02:00.003-04:00

The first volume of the Afrolumens book, The Year of Jubilee: Men of God, is now available at Amazon.com. I am proud to finally present this work in its finished published form, after more than ten years of research and four years of active writing.

Volume One topics include: slavery in Pennsylvania, anti-slavery efforts, Underground Railroad around Harrisburg, fugitive slaves, the various federal and state fugitive slaves laws, colonization efforts, the rise of the black entrepreneurial class in Harrisburg, black churches,the black moral reform movement, black conventions and the general development of the African American community in Harrisburg.

A good description of volume one is on the publisher site:
https://www.createspace.com/3483245 at CreateSpace.

Volume Two, Men of Muscle, will be available very soon (a week or two).

Year of Jubilee at Barnes and Noble

2010-09-11T11:33:00.002-04:00

It is tremendously exciting to see The Year of Jubilee, ebook edition, in the catalog of a major bookseller. In this case, it was been picked up by Barnes and Noble, and is being featured at a really low price. If you are interested in sampling the book, they allow that, too (you must create an account).

Of course I am working diligently to get the print edition into a major bookseller catalog, which I believe will happen within the next two weeks. If all continues to go well, it should appear for sale with Amazon very soon.

The link for The Year of Jubilee, Barnes and Noble ebook edition, is:
http://search.barnesandnoble.com/books/e/2940011089220/?itm=1&USRI=%22The+Year+of+Jubilee%22.

The Year of Jubilee is at publisher

2010-09-06T19:08:00.003-04:00

The Afrolumens book, titled The Year of Jubilee, is now at the publisher and should be available shortly. Due to size, it had to be split into two volumes, so volume one will cover Harrisburg African American history through about 1849, and volume two will cover 1850 through June 1863. Cost of each volume will be $29.95. I will release a link to its availability in a few days.

Volume one is subtitled Men of God, and volume two is subtitled Men of Muscle. Each volume is well over 600 pages, making this a very comprehensive history. I am very excited about the process and the progress. Stay tuned!

Harrisburg's Hidden Stories

2010-08-25T18:23:00.003-04:00

How well do you know Harrisburg history? How about local black history?

What stories come to mind when you ponder the lives of individual slaves who lived in the small trading settlement that would become Harrisburg? How much do you know about the first free black residents? Their neighborhoods? Their jobs? Their social institutions?

Most persons know few stories about Harrisburg's early black history beyond the old(and highly politicized) story about Hercules, "the rescuer of John Harris." A few persons know about the stormy 1847 visit from abolitionist speakers Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison. A few more also know of the George Chester family, who operated an infamous oyster cellar near the old courthouse, and whose son became famous as a war correspondent and a lawyer.

That's about it. Two or three stories to represent a community that played a huge part in founding, building, and defending Harrisburg from the colonial era through the Civil War. In 1860, on the eve of the Civil War, more than 1300 African Americans lived and worked in the city. They attended church, sent their children to school, held fairs, built meeting halls, organized reading rooms, debated politics, established businesses, bought property, courted, married, raised children, aged and died here. Harrisburg's black community has always been richly-textured, multi-layered, and vibrant, even in its earliest days.

The history of any city, town, or region is composed of two distinct parts: the individual stories of its inhabitants, and the story of how those inhabitants interacted with one another against the backdrop of local or national events. Every battle, revolution, riot, election, cabal, invasion, rally, migration, treaty, protest, convention, pogrom, expedition, and alliance that occured in or affected that place is nothing more than the accumulated stories of its participants, and every event can be similarly dissected into its component stories.

There are many histories of Harrisburg on library shelves, and they all tell the city's story against the backdrop of revolution, industrialization and civil war. Colorful and heroic characters fill their pages. But except for the occasional appearance of Hercules, who appears in the nick of time to release John Harris from his captors, the stories and histories are as white as the paper on which they are printed. This bleaching of Harrisburg history is prevalent, despite the involvement of African Americans in every major event and era in city history.

Two or three stories to represent thousands of people and more than a hundred and twenty years of dramatic history!

Of course, not all local histories are so lily-white. Of the older historians, William Henry Egle and J. Howard Wert paid limited respects to influential black citizens in their works. Modern historians who have superbly chronicled local black history include Michael Barton, Jessica Dorman, Gerald G. Eggert, Eric Ledell Smith and John Weldon Scott. Yet Harrisburg still lacked a comprehensive history of its African American community, which is why I felt it was time to write The Year of Jubilee.

The book, which some have referred to as "The Afrolumens book" in acknowledgment of the website from which much of the material is drawn, is the story of Harrisburg's black community from the colonial era to the middle of the Civil War. It takes Harrisburg blacks from near complete servitude, through an often chaotic, always painful struggle for identity and self-respect, to a showdown fight for freedom against the threat of reenslavement. It is a collection of individual stories--many,many stories--that make up a story of Harrisburg that is still hidden to so many of its own people.

For more details about "The Year of Jubilee," which is now available as an ebook, go to: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21796. It is published by Smashwords.com.

More Book Details

2010-08-24T19:33:00.002-04:00

The Afrolumens book, The Year of Jubilee, moved a step closer to wider distribution yesterday when it was cleared for distribution with several major ebook retailers, including Apple. It may appear in their catalog in as little as two weeks, and in other major retailer catalogs shortly thereafter. I'm quite excited to see it moving along so quickly, and am encouraged by early reactions from some who have sampled it. You can download a sample of the book from the Smashwords website and decide for yourself if you are interested in purchasing. Just go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/21796. You can choose from several formats for your sample.

I am still searching for a print publisher. The current economic climate is keeping everyone in a cautious mode, and so far I have not been able to convince anyone to accept it for publication, but I will keep looking. For those who are holding out for the print version, be patient. I am confident I will find some interest sooner or later.

There is a print-on-demand operation affiliated with Smashwords, called Wordclay. I was exploring that option and had begun formatting my manuscript for possible submission there, but discovered there were certain costs associated with that operation and decided to keep looking for a local history book publisher. Wordclay remains a possibility, but I am not ready to sink several hundred dollars into that option yet. By the way, it is possible to publish for free at Wordclay, which makes this a valuable tool for some writers, but The Year of Jubilee will require two volumes--in a standard 6x9 book format it would run to over 1,000 pages, making one large volume impractical. I also want to use my own cover, and would need ISBN numbers. These options require an initial investment of about $300. I don't have that much money to spare for the privelege of seeing my work in print, right now, so I will keep looking and making additional inquiries.

The Afrolumens Book

2010-08-17T20:54:00.005-04:00

I am very happy to announce that the Afrolumens Project book is in release as an ebook at Smashwords.com. The title is The Year of Jubilee, and it tells the story of the development of Harrisburg's African American community. The book utilizes much of the content of the Afrolumens Project site and is the most complete and detailed account of Harrisburg African American history from the colonial era through the Civil War.

Topics covered in the book include Hercules and the first slaves, the growth of slavery in central Pennsylvania, the Harrisburg area slave plantations, early runaway slaves, early free black residents, the establishment of a free black community in Harrisburg, the first black entrepreneurs, the early black churches, the first black neighborhoods, and the maturing of social institutions.

Later chapters look at the Pennsylvania and federal laws governing slave ownership and the recovery of runaway slaves, the growth of colonialism, anti-colonialism, anti-slavery, abolitionism and radical abolitionism. The book describes the complex relationship between Harrisburg's black and white abolitionists, details the efforts and activities of each group as they worked separately at first, then learned to cooperate in fighting against slavery, and covers the role that each played in the shadowy and fast-changing world of the Underground Railroad.

The book concludes with the invasion of Pennsylvania by the battle-hardened troops of the Army of Northern Virginia, in June 1863, and the reactions of the local African American population to that cataclysmic event. It is a book filled with heroes, heroines and villains, murderers, kidnappers, and victims, courtroom drama and secret plots. It places Harrisburg, Carlisle, York and Lancaster in the middle of some of the most dramatic events of the antebellum era involving high treason, street riots, sensational kidnappings and the potential for one final climactic battle that could forever change the lives of everyone in the capital city and possibly the entire North. Did I mention that this is a non-fiction history? (over one thousand chapter notes!) Get it at Smashwords now for only $7.99.

While you are there, check out my author profile : http://www.smashwords.com/profile/view/gnagle

Harrisburg's Close Call, 1863

2009-07-16T11:17:00.005-04:00

In conducting research for my book I was struck by the immediacy of this report from the June 30, 1863 issue of the New York Gazette:

THE INVASION.

AFFAIRS IN FRONT OF HARRISBURG.

FORT WASHINGTON, WEST BANK OF THE SUSQUEHANNA, June 29, - Evening.

As the sun goes down in the west it leaves within this fort and within and around Harrisburg an anxious, wondering, guessing, partially fearful and somewhat excited population. The enemy holds a position almost describing an arc of a circle. The extremes rest on two main roads, cross the railroads, and extend through wheat and corn fields and some, small woods. He has pickets out in all valuable positions, and has artillery commanding and intended to sweep the roads and protect his front and flank.

We expect a fight to-morrow, more or less general or serious in its character.
If we do not have a fight to-morrow, both common public and general military authorities will be disappointed. If for the best or otherwise, it is for us to know, and not your correspondent to make public.

This afternoon we had a skirmish with the enemy near Oyster Point. In fact skirmishing, at times slight and at other times more serious, has been carried on ever since the dawn of this day's sun.

After an hour skirmish this afternoon, in which even artillery was used on the enemy's side, our men fell back to a position this side of the toll gate. I cannot learn that any one was killed. A few were wounded and some horses suffered.

In Harrisburg , as I learn, the heavy shots that were fired created quite a sensation, many crowding on prominent points to gain a view of what they thought was the commencement of a general engagement.

You can visit the area of Fort Washington today, but you will not see many signs of the old fortifications. Most of the land has long since been converted to private homes with fenced backyards, although one small piece remains. The Borough of Lemoyne has preserved a small section of the outlying earthworks--a portion of the 1863 fortification network called Fort Couch--and it may be visited at anytime. Even that historic site is deceptive, though. Fort Couch is calmingly beautiful, with mature shade trees to shield visitors from the hot summer sun, and soft grass underfoot to cushion the walk. Neighborhood children often play on the large serpentine mounds that snake through the length of the small park.

Those mounds, of course, are the remnants of a much longer chain of artillery lunettes constructed in late June 1863 to protect the main fort. A state historical marker on Indiana Avenue gives a brief account of the site's significance, but gives no clue to the drama and emotional turmoil that took hold of local residents while this fort was being built and manned in anticipation of an attack. Fortunately, in recent years the site has obtained a more educational pair of memorials, with text and images that are much more illustrative of the chaotic and frightening events of the day. The large permanent markers placed by the Camp Curtin Historical Society include historic plans of the original fortifications and period engravings of local people laboring with picks and shovels to build the earthworks before enemy soldiers arrived on the scene.

The local folks quickly tired of the hard, dirty work of digging through the area's tough shale and clay soil, and the bulk of the actual labor was performed by railroad work crews and by African American laborers from Harrisburg. Once the main portion of the fortifications were complete, local military men inspected them and pronounced them able to repel any attack by the enemy. That was either bluster for the benefit of the press, or outright ignorance of the fearsome fighting ability of a veteran Confederate infantryman. Many of those soldiers who manned the fort would have been local militia, and probably would not have been able to repel a determined Confederate advance. Local residents, though they kept up a patriotic and brave front, suspected this, which accounts for many of the emotions cited by the reporter: "anxious, wondering, guessing, partially fearful and somewhat excited." After all, in this third year of the war, the Union had very few military successes of which it could brag.

Those in Harrisburg with most at stake were the African American residents. For several days the local newspapers had been reporting on the relentless and steady advance of a large southern force. Included in those reports were stories about African Americans who had been caught by the soldiers in gray to be carried back to enslavement in the south. Refugees, both black and white, who streamed across the Camelback Bridge into town told similar stories, and even more frightening, said the soldiers made no distinction between fugitive slaves and free-born persons.

Now, with the enemy "at the gates," Harrisburg's African American community was facing its most dire threat to freedom yet. Every expectation was, as the New York Gazette reporter wrote after the summer sun set on June 29th, "we expect a fight to-morrow, more or less...serious in its character."

It was a very foreboding sentence, for a very desperate night.

Mixed Company

2009-07-08T09:28:00.004-04:00

During the first few decades of the Commonwealth, the level of rights and status accorded to a person was based heavily on race, but social class mattered at least as much. Pennsylvania was a fast growing and wealthy state, with much of the wealth being controlled by a few long established families. Merchants and entrepreneurs who were able to take advantage of the state's economic vitality and burgeoning markets soon joined the ranks of the social elite, gathering in the salons and private clubs of late eighteenth century Philadelphia. All of those who constituted this upper echelon of society were whites of European descent, and although race weighed heavily in acceptance to this group, money was the key determinant.

Occupying the middle range of the social structure were the bulk of the commonwealth's artisans, skilled tradesmen, merchants and gentelmen farmers. This was a large group of citizens that, although lacking in political clout, was able to assert their influence at the ballot box, in city and local council meetings, or through various social and beneficial associations. This group was also slightly more racially diverse than the uppermost class, as it included several African American tradesmen, clergymen and entrepreneurs--people such as sailmaker James Forten and AME Bishop Richard Allen. As members of this middle class, though, African Americans still had limited opportunities to mix socially with white members of the same economic class.

At the bottom rung of the social ladder were the laboring and serving classes. This group included white indentured servants, German redemptioners, African slaves, free born poor people of all races, soldiers, sailors, apprentices, clerks and others. Although this class of people lacked economic and political clout and suffered the greatest curtailment of human rights, they enjoyed the greatest degree of freedom in regard to multiracial fraternization. As a colony, Pennsylvania passed laws forbidding racially mixed marriages and other social mixing of the races. Many of these laws stayed on the books when the colony changed over to a commonwealth, but it appears they were seldom enforced, especially among members of the lowest social classes. Social disapproval of mixed gatherings and unions, effectively enforced at the higher levels of society, was more of a deterrent to such practices than legal penalties.

The conflict between socially accepted practices and the preferences of Philadelphia's eighteenth century laboring classes is clearly illustrated in the news item below:

At the late city sessions a negro was tried and convicted for keeping a disorderly house; it appeared upon this occasion, that the offender kept a place of resort for all the loose and idle characters of the city, whether whites, blacks or mulattoes; and that frequently in the night gentlemen's servants would arrive there, mounted on their masters' horses (for which the landlord had provided a stable in the neighbourhood) and indulge in riotous mirth and dancing till the dawn, when they posted again to their respective homes. These facts are laid before the public to prove the growing nuisance of the cabins in the suburbs of the city, occupied by free negroes; and as a hint to masters to watch the conduct of their servants, who may, in these nocturnal excursions, commit a greater outrage upon their property than the midnight robber. (The Pennsylvania Gazette, 8 August 1787)

Such opportunities for "riotous mirth" were common among the poor, and although frowned upon by the authorities, provided valuable contact between newly arrived people and established people. Philadelphia was, during this time, one of the largest cities in North America, and attracted large numbers of immigrants, refugees fleeing strife in the Caribbean, and fugitive slaves. The latter group was large, but enjoyed the fewest options for work, shelter and aid, as they were in constant danger of being tracked down by former owners, or turned in for a reward by anyone who knew their identity. It is unlikely, however, that slave catchers frequented these "disorderly houses." Run by free African Americans on the edge of town, they were not haphazardly managed. This particular house provided a convenient stable for its patrons' horses. Owners apparently knew their clientele, and would have made fugitive slave hunters feel highly unwelcome. Instead, fugitive slaves had the opportunity to meet local people, find work, arrange for housing and generally built their social network, toward the goal of starting life anew as a free person in a large northern city.

More important to the future of the Underground Railroad, such operations brought people of all races together in a social setting that fostered an atmosphere of racial equality. The influence of such houses can be seen several decades later in Harrisburg, in George Chester's oyster cellar, located beside the courthouse on Market Street. Chester's establishment was a place where local people of all colors met for business and pleasure. It was notorious as a meeting place for anti-slavery advocates, and local legend holds that Underground Railroad strategy was planned behind the drawn curtains of its private dining booths. Like the African American "disorderly houses" of 1787 suburban Philadelphia, Chester's place of business was subject to public taboos and poor social reputation, suffering the same social disapproval accorded all oyster cellars as dens of sin.

It's All in the Marketing

2009-06-26T14:17:00.010-04:00

Pennsylvania passed legislation in 1780 to abolish African American slavery in the commonwealth, and became the second North American colony to take action against the perpetuation of slavery within its borders. Only Vermont, whose 1777 state constitution outlawed slavery, acted earlier. Pennsylvania legislators felt a distinct pride in passing the legislation, a pride that, though cloaked with magnanimity by phrases such as "we conceive that it is our duty , and we rejoice that it is in our power," still shows through. Yet this legislation was deeply flawed in that it still bowed to the interests of the commonwealth's slaveholding elite by making the abolition of slavery a gradual process. As long as the state's slaveholders complied with the registration requirements of the new law, they could keep their slaves until the slaves died. By making only newly born children of slaves subject to eventual emancipation, the well intentioned Pennsylvania lawmakers set up a system that would actually help perpetuate the enslavement of African Americans for decades to come.

Which is why we can find advertisements offering African American slaves for sale in the pages of the Lancaster Journal forty years after the passage of Pennsylvania's Gradual Abolition Act of 1780. The 1819 advertisement to the left, placed by businessman Robert Carson, offers two such slaves: a young woman who presumably (with six years left until she reaches emancipation at age twenty-eight) is about 22 years old, and a twelve year old boy.

Note that the young woman, according to the ad, was raised in a Quaker household in Delaware. The Quakers were a driving force behind Pennsylvania's anti-slavery legislation, but not all Friends towed the line, and this ad provides documentation of one such exception. The two young slaves, who were placed up for sale in mid-December, faced a bleak and uncertain Christmas. (Ad from the Lancaster Journal, 21 December 1819)

Some will argue that such bound African Americans were servants, not slaves. Indeed, the legal language of the time seemed to make such a distinction as well, but the reality of their lives was that they were enslaved, with the hope that they would be legally manumitted after nearly three decades of bondage. Whites considered these children enslaved, as well, and didn't care that they were to be eventually liberated. The only distinction they made, as spelled out in the ad, was in the number of years left in their term. An earlier ad, from October of the same year, actually uses the term "slave" in reference to two such term servants. In practical terms, it was all the same. (Lancaster Journal, 19 November 1819)

Carson sold the young boy first and was left holding the young woman. He was still advertising the young woman in late January of 1820. Young boys were more eagerly sought as slaves, by Pennsylvania slaveholders. They were perceived as being more easily trained, and they had longer to serve before, like perishable goods, their term expired. Eventually he stopped advertising her, so he must have found a buyer.

Later that same year, an anonymous seller was also trying to sell a young slave girl (see the ad above). This girl was not yet 14, a much more marketable age, but for some reason the seller felt that she had to be sold quickly. The unusual step of including the expected price in the ad was taken. In this case, the seller wanted $120 "if speedy application be made." What would happen otherwise? Would her price go up? Other than that line about the price, this was a very typical slave-for-sale ad. Unfortunately for this seller, competition appeared in the very same issue (Lancaster Journal, 9 June 1820) of the newspaper. The first ad was on page one, but on page three was the following:

"GREAT BARGAIN. FOR SALE, VERY CHEAP."

Although this female slave was apparently older, with only four years to serve, her owner had a great sense of marketing. The hook lines quickly grab your attention, and stand out easily against the other surrounding ads for taverns, livestock and lumber. Although her price is not quoted, as in the ad for the first girl, the owner wants you to know that she is bargain priced.

Which sales tactic worked?

Within a week, the ad for the "very cheap" slave was gone, and the first ad continued, although with a difference: the price had dropped by twenty percent. The first slave owner was now offering his young slave girl for $100, but still hoped for "speedy application." It did not come. The same ad persisted until the July 14, 1820 issue, then disappeared. Apparently he finally found a buyer. Perhaps he should have first considered a bargain-basement approach.

I hope these very inhumane and humiliating advertisements stick in your memory. Please call them to mind the next time you read a Pennsylvania history text that trumpets the state's noble gesture to abolish slavery in 1780.

Underground Railroad Presentation

2009-06-25T09:40:00.007-04:00

Below is an Underground Railroad Powerpoint I created several years ago for a classroom presentation. It could use some updated information, but it is still valuable as a resource for those interested in Harrisburg UGRR basics. This is the Google Docs version (hint: click on this blog entry title for a full-screen presentation, and then click "view speaker notes"
in the lower right for more information on each slide) :

New Features

2009-06-22T11:55:00.002-04:00

I've talked in the past about the Afrolumens community, in reference to the people who have contributed to the vitality of the website, but up to now it has not been possible to clearly define that community. It consists of persons well known to me, who send queries, notes and information via email, or who communicate with me in other ways. Most of these persons are researchers interested in local African American history. Some are persons with a mild interest in local history, or are former residents just keeping in touch.

But a large number of persons who support the site by visiting on a regular basis are completely unknown to me, mostly because they have never had a reason to send an email. All of the site supporters are important to me, both those with whom I am well acquainted through years of contact, and those who rely upon it anonymously. All are unofficial members of the Afrolumens Project community.

This weekend I added the Google Friend Connect app to the Afrolumens Project site to supply a means for all of these supporters to officially "join" the site, if they desire to do so. This app allows anyone to add their name to the list of site members, and to make connections with other members. This is all completely optional, and you don't have to sign up to join, just to access the material on the Afrolumens site. But if you do, it provides extra functionality, such as the ability to leave comments, ratings and reviews, contact other members who might have similar historical interests and even pose questions that other members can address (I'm thinking this will be a popular feature, as researchers will be able to post queries, to which any member may reply).

In the near future, I hope to add features that allow for event calendars, polls and other items that will add value to the site as an interactive historical site, not just a static list of collected databases.

The drawback is that you must already be a member of one of several popular networking or communication sites. I use Google, but also available are Yahoo, Twitter, AOL, Plaxo and orkut. Most persons already belong to one or the other, but if you don't, the sign-up page allows you to create a free account. Three people have already taken advantage of the feature and have signed up.

I will be very interested to see how much these features are used.

New material for the web

2009-06-19T14:53:00.002-04:00

I have been receiving a good bit of new material for the web site, both from contributors and from my book research. Lately I have been putting most of my energy into finishing the book (well, that and gardening), and have been intentionally neglecting the Afrolumens site. At the current rate, it will be winter before I get the site totally updated, but it will get done.

Readers of the site and researchers are always welcome to send email inquiries. I will do my best to find the information you need, although researching inquiries is another reason I lag in my updates. However the friendships formed through these inquiries are always quite rewarding, and usually yield a treasure trove of new information. I also enjoy the challenge that research presents and frequently get to view old topics from new angles. That is always a good thing.

Update on "the book"

2009-06-03T09:26:00.002-04:00

My friend Craig Caba, a veteran of previous publishing efforts, advised me to double the time I expect it would take to finish "the book." That was in August 2008, when I told him I was hoping to finish my first draft by the end of winter, but surely by the end of spring. Well the springtime has come and I can see that it will not be finished in the few remaining weeks. Craig was right (he always is), so now I have pushed my self-imposed deadline back to the end of August. Even that will take some serious writing, but I think I'm up to it. We all think we work better under pressure, right? I hope so.

"The book" is essentially a manuscript version of the Afrolumens Project website. It tells the story of Harrisburg's African American community, from its painfully slow emergence from the chains of bondage in the mid-1700s, through the racist local efforts to keep the community in de facto servitude, through the kidnappings and other horrors of the fugitive slave years, to the most dire threat to their freedom: the June 1863 invasion of central Pennsylvania by Confederate forces. After more than a century of being enslaved, held down, segregated, fought, jailed, teased and cheated out of property by their white neighbors, you would think that the local African American residents, when faced with the prospect of being rounded up by advancing enemy soldiers and taken back south into the hells of bondage, would hang it up and head to Canada with their families. But they didn't. Instead, they took in the refugees from the Cumberland Valley that were streaming across the Market Street Bridge and massing on the riverbank, fed them, found useful work for them fortifying the defenses of the city, and they took up arms themselves, bravely shouldering rifles and marching to the riverbank, ready to lay down their lives in defense of a city that had treated them like dirt for so long.

I believe it is the most inspiring story I have ever learned, and I'm amazed it has not been documented in a book yet. Well, by August it will be. I'm keeping my fingers crossed and staying up late. I've got to prove Craig wrong this time.

Slave Burials in Central Pennsylvania

2009-01-27T20:35:00.003-05:00

Julie, of Leacock Township writes:

Hello,
I stumbled onto your website by accident and found it to be quite an eye opener! I knew that we had slaves in Lancaster County...and in Leacock township where I live....but I did not know we had at least 20 plus owners of them in our little area. It makes me wonder....where were they buried when they died? Do you have a listing of "Negro cemeteries" for lack of a better word? It would be great to know.

Thanks for the interesting question about slave graves in Lancaster County. Although I am much more knowledgeable about the burial of slaves in my home Dauphin County, I feel confident in asserting that the burial of slaves in Lancaster County was done in a very similar fashion. That is, slaves were buried either on private patches on the farms on which they were enslaved, or they were buried on the grounds of the local church. The choice of burial site was most likely made by the slave owner, and probably followed the burial traditions of that owner’s family. If, for instance, the slave owner had a large farm and tended to bury family members in a private burial plot somewhere on his own property (many of these old burial plots are still around and are referred to by the name most predominate among the surviving tombstones), then it is likely that any slaves who died on this farm are also buried on land that was once part of that farm. Generally, slaves were buried in separate burial grounds some distance from the family burial ground.

Farmers, being of a very practical nature, usually chose burial sites that were not prime agricultural ground and were removed from local sources of water. That is one reason you usually find old burial sites on high ground. Many known slave burial locations tend to be on rocky, sloping ground.

The other main location, in which slaves were frequently buried, is near the burial grounds of the local Presbyterian church of the period. If the original old burial grounds are surrounded by a wall, it is a good bet that slaves are buried on land outside of the wall. If the grounds have been expanded and the wall erected after 1790 or so, slaves may be buried on land inside of the wall, and may in fact have more modern burials right on top of them. This, by the way, was not uncommon and has happened to whites as well. In many of our earliest churches, the first burials were performed under severe living conditions, and graves were marked with large rocks and wooden markers. Over time, the rocks were moved, the wooden markers rotted away, near relatives died, and the very oldest graves were soon lost to memory. There are numerous stories of church gravediggers, thinking they were digging in new ground, suddenly encountering bone fragments of previous occupants of an old forgotten grave. Such was often the case with slave burials. Slaves were not traditionally buried in the same church yard as the owners, generally being buried outside of the wall, or outside of the recognized limits of the church yard, along with strangers, non-church members, and others who were not thought to be Heaven bound. Their graves were not permanently marked, and over time, they were forgotten. Over a longer period of time, the church expanded its burial area beyond the old borders, and new graves were dug right on top of these old ones.

We tend to think of burial grounds as permanent sites because of the enduring quality of the old, large grave markers. Even though the chiseled inscriptions are often barely legible, the stone itself seems to stand as an ageless testament to the person resting beneath. The reality of course is that even stone grave markers crumble, crack, fall over, are stolen, are damaged by tree limbs and vandalism, and are subject to the corrosive effects of acid rain. The oldest stones in our area, those from the earliest colonial times, are much smaller than the stones of the nineteenth century, and many are now barely recognizable as grave markers. The markers used for the graves of slaves were even less durable. Traditional African burial often involved marking the grave with a collection of sticks, rocks, or sometimes a plant. Frequently, personal effects or even seashells (if available) were placed on the grave. If traditional European burial practices were adopted, perhaps at the insistence of the owner, a wooden marker with a name and dates might be added. All of this, of course, was quite impermanent, and the location of the slave’s grave survived only in memory. When the farm changed ownership many years later, as eventually happened, the traditional well marked and walled family grave yard was usually preserved, while the now unmarked slave grave yard was usually cleared for planting out of ignorance or lack of concern.

So for these reasons, "slave graveyards" as such do not exist in our area. You will find cemeteries containing graves of persons who were once enslaved, but these are generally from a later era—people who were born into slavery and made the transition to freedom, dying as a free person, with what we now consider a proper burial. Of the thousands of people who lived their entire lives in slavery in Central Pennsylvania, however, almost none are in surviving, marked graves.

Please see my articles on slave burials in Dauphin County, on the Afrolumens website:
http://www.afrolumens.org/slavery/images.html for additional information and documentation of the examples cited above.

Why Pennsylvania Still Had Slaves Before the War

2009-01-18T10:39:00.005-05:00

The following is a blog entry that I wrote for the old Lumenarium in the summer of 2007. I am re-running it because it was otherwise lost when that blog was discontinued.--gn

Critics constantly take me to task for stating that Pennsylvania still had a few slaves up until the Civil War, and actually had hundreds in the decade prior to the war. Armed with rudimentary knowledge of the Pennsylvania Gradual Abolition Act of 1780, they apply simple arithmetic to conclude that slavery disappeared in this state by the late 1820s or early 1830s.

What they forget to do is factor in human greed.

The 1780 Gradual Abolition Act set March 1, 1780 as the cut-off point. Anyone born prior to that date would remain a slave for the rest of their life. Anyone born of a slave mother after that date would be enslaved until their twenty-eighth birthday. It sounds very simple, and it was intended to phase out slavery within a generation, while protecting the human property interests of slaveholders.

So, assuming that a slave born just prior to the cut-off date bore children into her mid-twenties (let's say in the year 1805), those children, indentured until age 28, would be freed no later than the year 1833. Decreasing numbers of slaves enumerated in the federal censuses in Pennsylvania for 1830 and 1840 seem to support these calculations.

This is where the first point of contention usually arises. I count the children of slaves, those held to servitude for 28 years, as slaves. The term favored by the courts of the time, indentured servant, doesn't cut it. To me, an indentured servant is someone serving a term, usually less than seven years, to pay off debt or to learn a trade. It was the second lowest class of labor in colonial America, next only to slavery, and to all of those, white and Black, who suffered through an indentured servitude, often the difference in treatment from slaves was negligible. Still, it was not quite slavery; the terms were significantly shorter and usually the servant was erasing a debt, or learning a trade.

Legally, however, those Blacks who were manumitted under the 1780 law were considered indentured servants. But what did they have to show for it? Twenty eight years at hard labor generally used up a person's best years and often destroyed their spirit. Three decades of forced labor, with no power to control your own life, to me, is slavery. The accepted terminology for this class of labor now is "term slave," to distinguish it from lifelong slavery. Because census takers were instructed to record these term slaves as servants, their true numbers are lost to us. They recorded as "slaves" only those aging persons who were born prior to 1780. Naturally, then, the number of slaves in the official records were dropping rapidly.

In 1850 the ability of census takers to record slaves in Pennsylvania was cut to zero: for the first time there was no column for slaves on the census form. Most other states had columns to records slaves, but not Pennsylvania. As a result, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania recorded zero slaves for the first time in its history. Of course there were still slaves around--this was only 70 years after passage of the Gradual Abolition Act. Most county histories have anecdotes about aged former slaves dying at grand old ages well into the 1880s. Regardless of the truth in those stories, it is clear that the existence of slaves in Pennsylvania during the two decades prior to the Civil War was ignored or, worse, covered up.

The second point of contention stems from a failure to understand how, in the 1830s and 1840s, there were still so many term slaves around. By my estimate, there were still thousands of Pennsylvania term slaves in the early 1830s and at least several hundred through the 1840s. If you take the example in the paragraph above and assume most slaves were freed by 1833, my estimates seem preposterous. But wait! We must still factor in human greed.

Slaveholders registered, as required by law, the children born to their slaves for life. But when that generation of term slaves grew up and began bearing children, many slaveholders then kept on registering those children as term slaves as well. This was clearly illegal, as it violated not just the letter of the law, but the spirit of the law as well. By this practice, slaveholding in Pennsylvania could be sustained indefinitely with each generation.

Fortunately the courts eventually caught on and put a stop to the practice, but not before many hundreds of children had been unjustly condemned to years of slavery. The courts also addressed only the cases that were brought before them. How many legally free Black children were enslaved by unscrupulous slaveholders because their parents and family were ignorant of the law?

More than forty years ago this subject was well researched by Penn State college professor Stanley I. Kutler for an article published in the scholarly journal Pennsylvania History. "Pennsylvania Courts, the Abolition Act, and Negro Rights" documented case after case of slaveholders who attempted to keep their human property well beyond what the law allowed. Writing in 1963, in an era when African Americans were fighting to establish their constitutional rights, Dr. Kutler showed the painfully slow development of Black legal and human rights in an earlier century.

Among the abuses documented by Dr. Kutler was the practice of bringing young slaves from other states into Pennsylvania, manumitting them into a term of servitude until age 28, and selling their terms to Pennsylvania owners. It's a practice I have documented several times on the pages of the website. It also greatly increased the numbers of young slaves in the commonwealth, slaves who were not counted as such on census forms, for reasons already explained.

There were other ways to keep a person beyond the original limit, some legal, some very illegal. In all, they highlight the very dark and seamy side of our early history; a side that is more comfortably left unexamined, for many folks.

Madman or Visionary

2009-01-16T18:06:00.003-05:00

Last Sunday Calobe Jackson wrote to me:

George,
As Obama retraces the train ride of Lincoln to Washington, DC, you might be interested to know that a plot was discovered to kill Lincoln enroute and that Lincoln was secretly put on a train at Steelton and sent to Philadelphia unannounced. The late Eric Ledell Smith wrote an unpublished play about Harrisburg's role. Jacob Cumpton (African American) worked for Simon Cameron and drove Lincoln to Steelton in Cameron's carriage. Mrs. Lincoln was left in Harrisburg and boarded the train the next morning. Lets hope and pray that Obama has a safe trip to Washington, D.C.

Best Regards,
Calobe

I have read quite a bit about Abraham Lincoln's stop in Harrisburg on the way to his inauguration in Washington, and the story is full of enough drama, secret plots, shady characters and suave hero types to fill a modern Hollywood action flick. The night of February 22, 1861, was a momentous one in local history, as the president-elect of the United States was smuggled out of the city by blackjack-carrying secret agents. This was done right under the noses of the gathered press corps, state and local politicians, great crowds of public admirers (and detractors), and even his family.

Considerable skullduggery was employed to keep even Lincoln's closest associates out of the plan, as every increase in participants would only increase the chance of mistakes. Only a very few "trusted men" were used to choreograph his exit from the Jones House, to hold up all other trains on the line, and to cut the telegraph wires between Harrisburg and Baltimore while the train was enroute to Washington. It was a plot conducted in the utmost secrecy, literally in the shadows, with secret code names and secret rendezvous points. And what was with the uncharacteristic soft felt hat and muffler Lincoln wore? Was he really trying to disguise himself?

Calobe mentions the role allegedly played by Jacob Cumpton, as the man entrusted to drive the carriage carrying an incognito Lincoln from the hotel to the dark grade crossing in Lochiel where a small special train awaited. I have heard the story about Jacob Cumpton's involvement for many years, yet have not found a primary source that mentions his name, or even gives mention of the carriage driver. Maybe I just haven't found the right source, but it sure makes a great story.

Regarding the historical significance of Barak Obama's impending inauguration, I note an old news article that I found recently, which shines a surprising light on this event. We consider ourselves now very enlightened, entering a new age where a Black man has been elected president. This is something we consider as having been unthinkable a generation ago--the wishful stuff of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech. Yet consider this exchange from Baltimore from a period before King's momentous speech:

'Well, sir,' said my [adversary], 'how should you like to see a black man President of the United States?'
'As to that, sir, I am a true republican, and bow to the will of the majority. If the people prefer a black President, I shall cheerfully submit; and if he be qualified for the station, may peradventure give him my vote.'

Okay, the style probably gives you some clue that it comes from sometime before the 1950s, but how far before? At what point in our country's history do you think an editor would print an article that puts forth the notion that a Black man could not only be qualified for the Presidency of the United States, but would actually be elected through the support of white voters?

Give up? The quotation above comes from William Lloyd Garrison's abolitionist newspaper The Liberator, and was published in the February 5, 1831 issue. True, this was not a mainstream newspaper, and abolitionists were considered to be fringe elements by most people in the country, but this is still pretty heady stuff. Keep in mind, this was three short decades after Gabriel organized a revolt in Virginia that scared the hell out of whites, nine years after Denmark Vessey--who was free--did the same thing on a larger scale in Charleston, and the same year that Nat Turner made white nightmares come true in Southampton County, Virginia. White mistrust of smart, powerful Black men was increasing during this period, rather than decreasing. What type of person, 178 years ago, would suggest that a Black man could be elected by a majority of voters to run the country?

A madman? Or a visionary?

Let us hope, as Calobe suggests, that Barak Obama has a safe trip to Washington, unbothered by the very real threats that forced Abraham Lincoln to dodge into an unmarked train and speed toward Philadelphia with the lights out. Let us hope that his presidency is historic not only for its significance to civil rights, but for its progressive and healing policies. Let us hope that the skeptics, like our unnamed 1831 advocate of true republicanism, will "bow to the will of the majority," and "cheerfully submit" to change we can all believe in.

Back to the web for 2009

2009-01-11T12:23:00.000-05:00

Afrolumens is back. After a fifteen month absence from the web, I decided to repost the site with an eye toward a total makover. You will find almost all of the old data intact, with very little material deleted. In fact I added new material and made corrections to some of the old material while the site was down. There are some bugs to fix--mostly broken links--but I expect to have everything running smoothly very soon.

The new emphasis will be on Harrisburg area antebellum and Civil War history. During my sabbatical from web publishing I found a lot of new resources and a renewed personal interest in local Underground Railroad and anti-slavery history. In my research, I also made numerous connections between Harrisburg and areas well beyond the local region, which means you will soon see more items and articles relating to Maryland, Delaware, New York and even Louisiana. I'm excited about the changes and hope you will continue to find this site useful in your own research. I also want to offer my thanks to those who encouraged me to repost the site.