Escape on the Pearl by Mary Kay Ricks

Author:Mary Kay Ricks
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins

When the insurrection of the Southern slaves shall take place, as take place it will unless speedily prevented by voluntary emancipation, the great majority of the colored men of the North, however much to the grief of any of us, will be found by your side, with deep-stored and long-accumulated revenge in their hearts, and with death-dealing weapons in their hands.

The letter exhorted Southern slaves not to hesitate in violating their own sense of propriety to bring about their escape, advising them, in obvious tribute to Jermain Loguen, to take the “fleetest” of “your masters’ horses” and “break your masters’ locks” because their right to slave property is “but a robber-right.” The letter concluded “by all the rules of war, you have the fullest liberty to plunder, burn, and kill, as you may have occasion to do so to promote your escape.” Hugh Humphreys’s detailed monograph on the convention, published by the Madison County Historical Society, noted that “many abolitionists in the throng must have squirmed at the idea of putting their stamp of approval on the resort to violence to free the slave.”

Punctuated by songs from Mary and Emily and others, the first day of the convention finally came to a late end. By then, the crowd had grown to some two thousand people, and larger accommodations were needed. They gratefully accepted the offer of Grace Wilson, a teacher and antislavery activist, to use her orchard located on Sullivan Street, just one block west of the Free Church.

The next day a platform was set up under one of Wilson’s fig trees, and fugitives from slavery described their escape experiences for the crowd. At one point, it was announced that a telegram had been received claiming that Captain Goddard of Washington would be in Cazenovia that very day. Frederick Douglass called out for Goddard to step forward, assuring him that he would be treated kindly. There was no response. It was unlikely that Goddard had made his way to Cazenovia, and it is unclear what business would take him there, since he had William Chaplin safely locked up in the Blue Jug.

There were more resolutions to finalize before the final day of the convention could adjourn. It was resolved that any civil servant who made a person’s complexion a bar to either social or political equality could not be supported in an election. Another resolution proclaimed that any goods that were the product of slave labor should not be purchased or consumed, the position of the American Free Produce Association. The last resolution returned to William Chaplin. It stated that:

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