Why Michigan? Why 1847? Four Slave Rescues

Abstract

Why Michigan? Why 1847? Four Slave Rescues Déanda Johnson (bio) In 1847, Michigan was site of four incidents—the Crosswhite Affair, the Robert Cromwell Rescue, successful resistance to the Kentucky Raid in Cass County, and the failed plot to kidnap John Felix White—in which Southern slave owners and their emissaries came into the state and attempted to retrieve freedom seekers who had escaped on the Underground Railroad years before. During each of these attempts, the slave catchers were met by local residents who joined the efforts of the freedom seekers to fight their return to enslavement. These confrontations were not the first or the last of their kind but were representative of a growing “fugitive slave crisis.” Despite its complicated history with race and slavery, by 1847 Michigan was a well-established stop on the Underground Railroad. Largely owing to its geographic position, Michigan developed into an important destination for freedom seekers. Prohibitions against slavery within its boundaries dating back to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 set it on the path to becoming a free state; there were no slaves in Michigan by the time of statehood in 1837. This fact was reinforced by the interracial antislavery activism of some of its residents who willingly assisted self-emancipators traveling through the area or, as in all the incidents explored in this issue, chose initially to remain. In large part, the willingness of many Michigan residents to protect freedom seekers emerged from settlement patterns in the state. The opening of the Erie Canal in 1825 sparked a rapid migration of settlers into the southern counties of Michigan. In the beginning, this movement was dominated by migrants from New England and upstate New York. So many came that, for a time, Michigan became known as “the third New England.” This broader wave of settlement was soon supplemented by the arrival of Quakers from the South and other parts of the Northwest Territory. Smaller numbers of free [End Page 1] Blacks and freedom seekers also migrated. All these groups were inclined to oppose slavery.1 New Englanders, Quakers, and Blacks stood “in the forefront of abolitionism” as it developed across Michigan. By 1838, they had helped to create twenty antislavery societies in the state, including a statewide organization: the Michigan State Anti-Slavery Society. In the 1840s, these groups sponsored antislavery lecture tours, promoting abolitionism among ordinary citizens. A major example came when Black abolitionist Henry Bibb, himself a freedom seeker, moved audiences across southern Michigan from 1845 to 1846. By 1847, abolitionism in Michigan was reaching a mature stage. The Liberty Party, a political organization with a radical emancipationist platform by this time, had support in various parts of the state. The Signal of Liberty, an antislavery journal based in Ann Arbor, spread the antislavery message and reported on attempts to recapture freedom seekers in Michigan; it had a substantial circulation by 1847.2 This intensified antislavery sentiment brought the development of a significant Underground Railroad network to aid freedom seekers reaching Michigan. In part, this was the result of the arrival of key personalities in communities across the state. Guy Beckley moved from Vermont to Ann Arbor in 1839 and quickly became active in Michigan antislavery organizing, including helping establish the Signal of Liberty and coordinate local efforts to assist freedom seekers. The migration of Rev. Charles Osborn, a Quaker from North Carolina who had spent time in Ohio and Indiana before moving to Cass County in 1842, accelerated Underground Railroad work in that area. After an epidemic decimated her family in 1845, Laura Smith Haviland, once a Quaker, emigrated from New York and began helping freedom seekers who reached Adrian and even worked to rescue those still enslaved in the South. In 1847, a reward for her capture was offered from Tennessee. Threats against his life drove George DeBaptiste, a free man of color, from Madison, Indiana, to Detroit in 1846. A year later, he was joined by George Reynolds, an African American Underground Railroad operative also from Indiana, who had worked with Quaker Levi Coffin, the self-proclaimed “President of the Underground [End Page 2] Railroad.” Their arrival heightened the work of the Colored Vigilant Committee of...