OHIO STATEWIDE FILES - Know your Ohio: Ohio and The Underground Railway-- Pt 1B *********************************************************************** OHGENWEB NOTICE: All distribution rights to this electronic data are reserved by the submitter. Reproduction or re-presentation of copyrighted material will require the permission of the copyright owner. The submitter has given permission to the USGenWeb Archives to store the file permanently for free access. *********************************************************************** File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Darlene E. Kelley http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00026.html#0006374 December 9, 1999 *********************************************************************** Historical Collections of Ohio Diaries of S. J. Kelly Plains Dealer Know Your Ohio by Darlene E. Kelley *********************************************************************** Ohio and The Underground Railway --Pt 1B. Many of the slaves that had served with the American Continental Army had gained valuable knowledge while fighting in the Revolution. After betrayal of the promise, many slaves in the South began to run away to Northern states that had abolished slavery, where they thought they would be free. During the years 1783 through 1793 fugitive slaves could find some measure of sanctuary in some Northern states, particularly Pennsylvannia, Massachusetts and Connecticut where gradual emancipation plans were well into effect. But slave owners in the South pushed legislation and created the Federal Slave Law of 1793. Events that occurred between 1793 and 1808 greatly propelled the creation of an organized Underground Railroad in the Northern States. Before 1793, fugitive slaves probably were not fleeing to Canada on the Underground Railroad as been often suggested by some historians as there was no organized Underground Railroad, and the first Providence in Canada to abolish slavery, Upper Canada (Ontario), did not do so until 1793. Never the less, fugitive slaves from Virginia and Maryland ran away in droves during the years 1783 through 1793. A few abolitionists in Northern states, mostly Quakers, particularly in Pennsylvania, did help some of the fugitives try to get a new start in life. However after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, slave owners had the legal right to go into the Northern states, search for, apprehend and return their fugitive slaves to the South. The Law may have prevented the development of an organized Underground Railroad at that time, but not for long for at that time Ontario, which bordered some of the Northern states, particularly Ohio, countered that law by abolishing slavery within its own borders that same year. Thus Canada conveniently provided a safe haven for the fugitive slaves to take refuge outside of the jurisdiction of the United States Government and its laws. The other event of 1793 that had a major impact on the growth and perpetuation of slavery was Eli Whitney's invention of the cotton gin. The cotton gin, which could separate cotton seed from the cotton fiber fifty times faster than human hands, provided for the potential growth of cotton production in the cotton belt. The law banning the African Slave trade across the Atlantic Ocean to the United States, which was passed in 1808, cut off the primary source for new slaves. While slavery was greatly diminished, especially in Maryland and Virginia, the monetary increase in the value of slaves, caused many slave owners to sell off their slaves, when otherwise they may have been empancipated. Thousands were sold to the developing cotton and sugar cane plantations of the deep South. These developments soon influenced radical abolitionists to take matters in hand to create the active resistance, that became known as the Underground Railroad. The Ohio abolitionists conentrated their energies on ecouraging slaves to run away to Canada and helping them get there. During the early 1830's, nationwide the Underground Railroad probably had a few thousand supporters. Black and white anti-slavery protesters, located across the North, used their homes and farms as the Underground Railroad stations to protect them as they were relayed across Ohio to Lake Erie. Many were Christian ministers at first, deeply involved with a religous organization. They addressed the evils of slavery to their congregations on moral grounds and black ministers in the African churches provided leadership for the black community. They were working under the same conditions as to contrary to the Fugitive laws and were thus subject to prosecution if caught, so they had to exercise extreme caution for safety for both involved. The Law imposed fines and imprisonment for violations, but did not obligate citizens living in the Northern free states and territories to help apprehend or return slaves to their owners in the South. Slave owners or their agents, bounty hunters, had to carry this out with their own resources. Many Northerners felt that slavery had nothing to do with them, until in time, they realized the fact that they were competing with slave labor in the labor market. For instance, why would a manager pay for labor, when he could get slaves to do the work; and there was more too-- as the very nature of the slave system was to keep the labor wage low by creating a surplus of unemployed whites. If a white worker complained about wages, another one was waiting to take the job. As European immigrants in the North became familiar with the inhumanity of slavery, and economic conditions caused by the slave system, they took up the abolitionist banner. This was especially true in Ohio. By 1840, many of the European settlers in Ohio had settled on farms and in small villages across the state, thus creating the ideal configuration for the Underground Railroad Stations which relayed the slaves across the state. The Underground Railroad referral system that first crossed the sparsely settled lands of Ohio, over time became extremely well organized as the population of the state rapidly expanded, When the slaves crossed the Ohio River from the south, they were quickly and efficiently guided away from the river to Underground Railroad Stations located ten to fifteen miles north. This relaying, continued from station to station, all the way to Lake Erie. The common wisdom was: the furthur and faster a fugitive slave got away from the Ohio River, the better his chance to reach Canada. At several communities near Lake Erie, most notably Oberlin, Cleveland and Sandusky, passge across the Lake by boat was arranged. Regular railroad terminology was adopted as code for the various parts of the Underground Railroad. Fugitive slaves were called passengers. The network of routes were called lines. The safe houses where they were hidden, sheltered, fed and clothed were called stations. Towns and villages in Ohio were called terminals Local people who guided them from station to station, usually located at 15 mile intervals were called conductors and so on. For instance the Underground Railroad even had agents who traveled into the south in the guise of salesman or whatever, in order to give them vital information about escaping and getting to the Underground Railroad across the Ohio River. For all practical purposes, the ground work that enabled the Underground Railroad north of the Ohio River to organize and function, came when Manasseh authorized Article 6, in the Ordinance of 1787. of the United States Constitution, which excluded slavery from the Northwest Territory. In 1785, a group of New England ex-Revoluntionary War officers, led by General Rufus Putnam, formed the Ohio Land Company in order to purchase a large tract of and in the Northwest Territory, and sell that land to other American settlers. The first settlement, was at Marietta, in Wasington County, ( Ohio ). The people involved with the Ohio Land Company greatly influenced the anti-slavery attitude eventually dominated in other states formed in the Northwest Territory. ********************************************** to be continued --