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W. M. Mitchell's The Underground Railroad - A Firsthand Account of the Struggle for Freedom
William M. Mitchell (circa 1826 to circa 1879) was a free-born Black overseer in North Carolina who, after 12 years managing slaves on a plantation, experienced a religious awakening, condemned slavery, left North Carolina for Ohio, and became...
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Former Slave Narratives from Canada - "I thought it best to come to Canada and live as I pleased."
Enslaved Blacks in the United States, seeking freedom, often fled to Canada, especially after the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 compelled citizens in free states to help slave-catchers apprehend them. Although they frequently faced racial prejudice...
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The Confessions of Nat Turner
The Confessions of Nat Turner (1831) is the first-person account given by the rebel slave leader Nat Turner (l. 1800-1831) to the attorney T. R. Gray (l. c. 1800-1843) following Nat Turner's Rebellion in Virginia (also known as the Southampton...
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Slave Hunters in Boston - The Failed Attempt to Capture Ellen & William Craft
In 1848, Ellen and William Craft escaped from slavery in Georgia by Ellen posing as a Southern gentleman and William as 'his' slave (since women were not allowed to travel alone with a male slave). They arrived in the free state of Pennsylvania...
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The Heroic Slave - Frederick Douglass' Novella of the Creole Mutiny
Abolitionist author, orator and statesman Frederick Douglass (1818-1895) is well-known for his speeches, autobiography, and other works addressing the issue of slavery in the United States in the 19th century, but, in 1853, he wrote his only...
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Ellen and William Craft's Escape Through Canada - The Challenges of Racial Prejudice
Among the most daring escapes from slavery in the United States in the 19th century was the flight of Ellen and William Craft from the slave state of Georgia to the free state of Pennsylvania in 1848. Ellen (1826-1891), a light-skinned Black...
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The Liberation of Jane Johnson - Her Famous Escape and Court Testimony
Jane Johnson (circa 1814/1827-1872) and her two young sons, Daniel and Isaiah, were slaves of one John Hill Wheeler of North Carolina, who brought them north to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on his way to New York in July 1855 en route to a...
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The Immortal Ten - The Daring Rescue of John Doy
The Immortal Ten were a group of abolitionists from Kansas Territory (where slavery was hotly contested) who slipped across the Missouri River into St. Joseph, Missouri (a slave state) and, on 23 July 1859, freed their friend and fellow abolitionist...
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Fear of Insurrection - Harriet Jacobs on Nat Turner's Rebellion
Fear of Insurrection comes from Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) by Harriet Jacobs (l. c. 1813-1897) describing the reaction of the White community of Edenton, North Carolina, to news of Nat Turner's Rebellion in Southampton County...
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Reverend James Drummond MacGregor's Letter to a Clergyman - Urging Him to Set Free a Black Girl He Held in Slavery
James Drummond MacGregor (1759-1830) was a Presbyterian minister in Pictou, Nova Scotia, who became the first published abolitionist in Canada through his A Letter to a Clergyman Urging Him to Set Free a Black Girl He Held in Slavery (1788...