Fugitive Slaves in Canada, Ohio and London

This lot is closed for bidding. Bidding ended on 1/10/2013

A complete and authentic issue of the New York Semi-Weekly Tribune, November 6, 1857, 8pp., repaired spine, VG. An extraordinary 2 column report, “The Exiled Negroes in Canada. Are They Improving Or The Contrary. The Colony of Buxton.” In part, “About nine years ago. the Rev. William King, an Irish Presbyterian clergy- man, residing at the time in Louisiana, and owning several slaves, servants of his family, and having through his wife become possessed of a number more, brought them, 15 in all, to Canada, and there emancipated them....The settlers are for the most part fugitive slaves, and of the whole number about one third are of pure African descent ... Many have already paid in full for their farms, and received the deeds, others are prepared to do so in the coming year, and Mr. K. is confident that at the expiration of the 10 years all will have come into full possession of their lands.... We entered the cabin of a fugitive, but two years from Kentucky, and who had married, we believe, some time after he had reached the settlement. The cabin was smaller than the model; but the owner, with on eye at a future time of adding to it, had built the chimney double ... Another cabin we entered belonged to a man—a full black—who, 14 years before, had escaped from Missouri. He had been six years at the settlement, and had 24 acres of land fenced and under cultivation, and six more on which the wood had been felled. He had paid up four of his instalments, and owned a waggon, a yoke of oxen, a mare, and two colts. He had four or five children, and hie eldest boy, 14 years old, was reading Virgil! ...” In a sterling article, “Operations of the Underground Railroad,” we read in part, “Last Saturday night, the 24th of October, five negroes fled from Hunter’s Bottom, Carrol County, Ky. ... The city is infested with rabid abolitionists ... have rendered negro property across the river very uncertain and insecure ....” In still another report, “Negro Runs Away With A White Woman." They show up in London.

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