Making Freedom by R. J. M. Blackett

Author:R. J. M. Blackett [Blackett, R. J. M.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781469636108
Barnesnoble:
Publisher: The University of North Carolina Press
Published: 2017-08-01T00:00:00+00:00

3. Taking Leave

Fugitive Slaves and the Politics of Slavery

On April 14, 1860, almost one year to the day before the outbreak of the Civil War, Nathan James, a free black, and Alfred Savage, a slave drayman, took a large pine box to the Adams Express Company office in Nashville, Tennessee, and arranged to have it shipped to Hannah Johnson—very likely a fictitious person—in Cincinnati, Ohio c/o Levi Coffin. A letter was also sent to Coffin telling him to call for the box at the local Adams Express office. The box traveled by train to Louisville, Kentucky, where it was transferred by ferry across the Ohio River to Jeffersonville, Indiana, and placed on a train for Seymour, Indiana, where it was to be transferred to the Cincinnati-bound train. At Seymour the box was rather unceremoniously thrown onto the platform. The impact caused the box to shatter and out fell a black man, Aleck, who by that time had been in the box for fourteen hours without food or drink.

Aleck was taken into custody, sent off to jail in Louisville, and later returned to Nashville courtesy of the Adams Express Company. It turned out that Aleck’s owner had been on his trail soon after he failed to show up for work at McClure & Buck, a tin manufacturer, and had wired ahead to the authorities in Louisville asking them to be on the lookout for a slave trying to escape by train. The escape caused considerable excitement locally. The reconfigured box was also returned to Nashville and put on display at the Adams Express office, where men and boys took turns climbing into it and local wags tried their hand at doggerel to commemorate the event.

What do we know of the individuals involved? Nathan James, fifty-one, was born in Virginia. Some reports describe him as a free black, others a “free mulatto.” Alf Savage was a slave of his father, who had hired him out on an annual basis since 1845. Aleck was a sheet-metal worker. Also a party to the escape attempt was an unnamed “white man,” whose involvement only added to the mystery. Within a week of his return to Nashville, Aleck was brought before Magistrate’s Court in an effort to determine who was involved in the plot. The evidence suggests that James and Aleck were members of the same Methodist Episcopal Church. Aleck testified that he had met the white man several times at Alf Savage’s. It was the white man who had suggested he escape and who had offered to help him. Before agreeing, Aleck consulted James, who confirmed that the white man, whom he knew, could do the job. Aleck agreed to pay him $60 and, in addition, handed over his silver watch to cover the cost of the escape. The white man procured the box and had it sent to James’s home, where Aleck was crated. According to Aleck, the white man had accompanied the crate, periodically checking to make sure he was alive, but disappeared from the train once the plot unraveled in Seymour.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.