Flee north : a forgotten hero and the fight for freedom in slavery's borderland / Scott Shane.
2023
Non-Fiction
Available at Popular Reading
Items
Details
Author
Shane, Scott, 1954- author.
Title
Flee north : a forgotten hero and the fight for freedom in slavery's borderland / Scott Shane.
Edition
First edition.
Imprint
New York, NY : Celadon Books, a division of Macmillan Publishers, 2023.
Copyright
©2023
Description
viii, 340 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (chiefly color), maps ; 25 cm
Formatted Contents Note
The most inhuman system that ever blackened the pages of history
Until no slave should be found in our land
That mock metropolis of freedom
The flesh-mongers
Slavery's borderland
Safe from the fangs of Robert Gilmor
The laughingstock letters
That vile wretch Slatter
Very vigilant officers!
Between two fires
A fugitive from justice
Perhaps reckless
Let the strife go on
Fly to Canada, and begin anew
Resident capitalist
No breeze comes.
Until no slave should be found in our land
That mock metropolis of freedom
The flesh-mongers
Slavery's borderland
Safe from the fangs of Robert Gilmor
The laughingstock letters
That vile wretch Slatter
Very vigilant officers!
Between two fires
A fugitive from justice
Perhaps reckless
Let the strife go on
Fly to Canada, and begin anew
Resident capitalist
No breeze comes.
Summary
"A riveting account of the extraordinary abolitionist, liberator, and writer Thomas Smallwood, who bought his own freedom, led hundreds out of slavery, and popularized the term "underground railroad," from Pulitzer Prize-winning author and journalist, Scott Shane. Flee North tells the story for the first time of an American hero all but lost to history. Born into slavery, Thomas Smallwood was free, self-educated, and working as a shoemaker a short walk from the U.S. Capitol by the 1840s. He recruited a young white activist, Charles Torrey, and together they began to organize mass escapes from Washington, Baltimore, and surrounding counties to freedom in the north. They were racing against an implacable enemy: men like Hope Slatter, the region's leading slave trader, part of a lucrative industry that would tear one million enslaved people from their families and sell them to the brutal cotton and sugar plantations of the deep south. Men, women, and children in imminent danger of being sold south turned to Smallwood, who risked his own freedom to battle what he called "the most inhuman system that ever blackened the pages of history." And he documented the escapes in satirical newspaper columns, mocking the slaveholders, the slave traders and the police who worked for them. At a time when Americans are rediscovering a tragic and cruel history and struggling anew with the legacy of white supremacy, this book -- the first to tell the extraordinary story of Smallwood -- will offer complicated heroes, genuine villains, and a powerful narrative set in cities still plagued by shocking racial inequity today"-- Provided by publisher.
Bibliography, etc. Note
Includes bibliographical references and index.
Call Number
Non-Fiction
Language
English
ISBN
9781250843210 hardcover
1250843219 hardcover
9781250843227 electronic book
1250843219 hardcover
9781250843227 electronic book