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The year is 1850. I am an upper middle class white man living in Pennsylvania.
I am traveling in a slave state, such as South Carolina.
I meet a slave named John who wants to be free.
I say: "I can help."
And John and I simply travel north together. Nothing more complex than that.
If anyone asks along the way, he's my slave. But I'm pretty sure people back then would be used to seeing a white guy in public with a slave with them.
I figure the only place an issue could arise would be if we were spotted by slave catchers in the immediate area I am helping him escape from.
If they know the slave and know his master, they would probably take us to said masters plantation and ask him if he sold John to me.
So maybe til we're out of the immediate area, he simply hides under a tarp in my wagon.
I don't think slave patrollers we're in the habit of stopping and searching random white people.
But after we're out of town, we just travel together openly and I doubt people would think anything of a black guy accompanied by a white guy.
Because again, if anyone asks, he's MY slave.
Would it have been that easy?
In terms of stopping random people, if the search was on for an escaped slave, your wagon would have been searched--especially if there had been witnesses to you having been the area (and left said area) around the time this hypothetical escaped slave had disappeared.
Fashions and mannerisms were different from place to place. You would stand out in your Yankee hat, or if didn't bow to the correct degree when you encountered someone of higher or lower rank.
The underground railroad would have been well established by then. An Abolitionist would only have to get his "cargo" to the next stop. There would be Quakers and friends all along the way. Many conductors along the underground railroad were prominent people who were beyond reproach so it was quite easy for them to do this work in secrecy.
John Brown was once said to drive a wagon with slaves under a tarp and when he had to go through a check point he had a signal to alert the gate keeper that he was transporting slaves and they would not inspect his cargo.
The underground railroad would have been well established by then. An Abolitionist would only have to get his "cargo" to the next stop. There would be Quakers and friends all along the way. Many conductors along the underground railroad were prominent people who were beyond reproach so it was quite easy for them to do this work in secrecy.
John Brown was once said to drive a wagon with slaves under a tarp and when he had to go through a check point he had a signal to alert the gate keeper that he was transporting slaves and they would not inspect his cargo.
The scenario, though, is that this is practically a spur-of-the-moment decision, not an integrated Abolitionist plan.
The scenario, though, is that this is practically a spur-of-the-moment decision, not an integrated Abolitionist plan.
That would almost be like going on a large farm and seeing a tractor or piece of equipment and deciding to drive it off. Slaves were under the watchful eye of a driver most of the time. It could probably be done if a slave was on an errand and away from the plantations overseer or driver.
Slaves were a little like us, some of us are ignorant and some of us are brilliant. An ignorant slave might be more trouble than what its worth and brilliant and cunning slave may have his own plans for escape and not need any help.
Last edited by thriftylefty; 06-07-2022 at 07:05 PM..
Funny how you think I am Naive or a Northerner. I am a southerner who used Pennsylvania as an example as a free State because it is just north of the Mason Dixon line.
We aren't talking about you. We're talking about a guy living in 1850...aren't we?
That would almost be like going on a large farm and seeing a tractor or piece of equipment and deciding to drive it off. ...
Nobody steals a farm tractor...The getaway is too slow.
Quote:
Originally Posted by KCZ
A slave owner possessed a bill of sale for the slave. Free blacks were supposed to have documentation of same...a certificate stating they were born free, a manumission document, or copy of the owner's will stating they were freed at his death.
.
Solomon Northup was the son of a freed slave, thus free himself. He was unfortunately kidnapped and hustled to the deep south where he lived in slavery for 12 years before he could prove he was free.
Solomon Northup was the son of a freed slave, thus free himself. He was unfortunately kidnapped and hustled to the deep south where he lived in slavery for 12 years before he could prove he was free.
Well there's intelligence and then there's knowledge. A person can be naturally intelligent, but knowledge is more or less a product of environment and opportunity.
The naturally brilliant and cunning slave likely still lacks the knowledge to read and write, has no money, no wilderness survival skills, nothing but the clothes on his back, and, if he's lucky, shoes on his feet.
Though he may have heard word of free states in the north, what does he use for direction?
Odds are he's never been more than a few miles from his master's property. Does he even know which direction North is in?
These are obstacles that runaways often needed to overcome to be successful.
Even slaves who escaped from say, Maryland, where freedom may have been 20 miles away, still had to make it 20 miles, on foot, without being seen by the wrong person, even once. That is difficult. For every one who was successful, many more were caught.
Doing so from the Deep South? Few accomplished that.
But if they could avoid all of that, by way of a benevolent white person who would escort them as their "slave," and could furnish them with clothing and some money to get started in their new life, that seems like better odds to me.
So yeah, difference between intelligence and knowledge. A Bushman of the Kalahari might have intelligence, but he doesn't likely have the same knowledge of the world that those of us in the West have.
As far as your first point, obviously one could not offer to help a slave escape right in front of their master, overseer or driver.
I would have thought that goes without saying.
An archeologist who excavated beneath slave cabins wrote that the most common thing she found was things to read and write with. There are publications by slaves. Some slaves forged their own papers, slaves read the bible and some had to learn to read music. Learning to read seemed to be a surmountable obstacle.
One of the biggest advantages to help a slave escape seemed to be hubris of plantation owners. Many of them really believed that they were benevolent masters and servitude was so good that a black person had no chance of a better life if he escaped. There was a section of the news papers for escaped slave notices. It was not uncommon for a slave to be described as," reads and writes" or speaks several languages." Some masters taught their slaves to read. One body servant attended college with his young master.
We need to get past the notion that all slaves were ignorant barbarians thus making it easy to enslave them. They were just like us, some of us are ignorant barbarians and some of us are civilized.
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