When Citizens Stood Up To Slave Catchers Trivia Quiz | History

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. What 1858 rescue occurred in northern Ohio, near a well-known college that for the time so shockingly enrolled black students along with whites? The college was nowhere near the capital of Germany, but no one got confused, and both races worked together to make sure the rescue turned out WELL.

Answer: Oberlin-Wellington Rescue

A fugitive slave was arrested in Oberlin, Ohio by a U.S. Marshall, but was quickly taken to Wellington, Ohio, to start his journey back south to his master in Kentucky. A group of 37 or more local blacks and whites tried negotiating, and when that failed, removed the slave by force from the hotel room where he was hidden and took him to Oberlin, then on to safety in Canada. Thirty-seven men were arrested, many with close ties to the college -- alumni, and a future president. Only two went to trial, Simeon M. Bushnell, white, and Charles H. Langston, black. Though convicted, they received light sentences, 60 and 20 days. Two of the participants who were not tried in this rescue went on to die the next year in connection with John Brown's raid, Lewis Sheridan Leary and John A. Copeland.

The Oberlin-Wellington rescue made the news and showed how blacks and whites were willing to combine against slavery in general, and the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act in particular. Did you notice the hints: OBERLIN and WELL?

2. In the 1858 Ohio slave rescue, citizens came from the local college town to take the escaped slave to Canada so he wouldn't be returned to slavery in Mayfield, Kentucky. What was his name? He had a price on his head.

Answer: John Price

John Price had escaped from the farm of John G. Bacon in 1856, and had spent two years near Oberlin, Ohio, mainly living with James Armstrong, another black laborer. Anderson Jennings, the neighbor of Price's owner back in Kentucky, worked to recapture Price.

He got Shakespeare Boynton, the son of an Oberlin landowner, to approach Price with an offer of work, but it was actually a trap. Price was taken to the Wadsworth House Hotel in Wellington, Ohio, where the successful rescue took place.

3. A slave named William Henry escaped from Missouri and was recaptured in Syracuse, N.Y., in 1851. A crowd gathered, broke him free from the courtroom and smuggled him to Canada. What was the rescue called? It is generally named using Henry's free name that he used in Syracuse, but this wasn't a rescue "about nothing" nor did he play the guitar like Mr. Garcia or the piano like Mr. Lee Lewis.

Answer: the Jerry Rescue

Well, those hints weren't exactly subtly slipped in, but they're there at the end, leading toward Jerry and away from the other answers. Syracuse was known for its underground railroad and abolitionist sympathies. Word of the arrest had been leaked, so church bells began ringing and a crowd gathered at the courtroom. Jerry made it to the street but was recaptured. That night, a larger crowd showed up with a battering ram, freed Jerry and scared a deputy marshal so that he broke his arm jumping from a window to escape. Jerry was hidden in a butcher's home for several days, then spirited to Canada on the well-worn track.

4. When a federal marshal attempted to recapture escaped slave William Henry, or Jerry, Oct. 1, 1851 in Syracuse, New York, what else was going on in Syracuse at that time? If one wanted to arrest a slave unmolested by abolitionists, it was probably the worst possible time and place to choose.

Answer: the state convention of the Liberty (anti-slavery) Party was underway in the city

The city was full of abolitionists who had come for the convention. Though the Liberty Party was a distant and hopeless third party, its declining membership still showed enthusiasm. Gerritt Smith, the party's presidential candidate, introduced a resolution adopted the next day that memorialized the 2,500 men (he claimed) who took part in the rescue. To be fair, Daniel Webster had taunted the party that such a thing might happen, and he promised the law would be upheld even during the convention, if any runaway was found. That made the successful rescue just so much sweeter.

5. In 1835, a Tennessee slave owner recaptured a family named Stanford, who had made their escape to Canada. He ignored the niceties of international law and had his men just put the family on a ferry back to what city in New York? They might have wished for wings, but there were none in the city then.

Answer: Buffalo

There is at least one contemporary report of the story, "Buffalo Fugitive Slave Case and Riot," in the Buffalo Daily Commercial Advertiser, July 13, 1835. The slave catchers brought the family -- father, mother and infant -- back to the U.S, but citizens of Buffalo were alerted and decided to fight to return the family to freedom in Canada. The slave catchers had convinced the sheriff to have a large group of deputized men ready to help, but even so, the Buffalo citizens prevailed. The hint had to do with Buffalo wings.

6. The Stanford family were rescued in 1835 by dozens of New York Staters, including one who would go on to be a fairly famous writer and lecturer on anti-slavery topics. What was his name? He had the WILL to succeed and was WELL-known for writing, but even that couldn't save him from the prejudice his BROWN skin caused.

Answer: William Wells Brown

William Wells Brown included the incident in his book "Narrative of William W. Brown" (London: Charles Gilpin, 1849), p. 109. After over decade, he missed the date by a year, compared to the contemporary newspaper report, and probably added the wrong name to the slave catcher, whom he identified as Bacon Tate, while newspapers said "one Tait, a slave agent from the South." The infamous slave dealer Bacon Tait of Virginia doesn't fit biographically, but Tait/Tate was a common name in Tennessee, where Bacon had at least one brother and cousins.

The rest of the story that Brown told was fairly accurate compared to contemporary reports. The Stanfords, in everyone's story, made it safely back to Canada and Tait/Tate decided it wasn't worth his while to try that again. Most of the rescuers were let off free or with minimal fines of a few dollars.

7. In 1854 Boston, what young man sparked major rioting and protests when slave catchers tried to return him to Virginia? His return ignited a fiery powderkeg of anger burning among citizens.

Answer: Anthony Burns

Anthony Burns (1834-1862) became a Baptist preacher while enslaved in Stafford County, Virginia. In 1853, he escaped on a ship from Richmond, Virginia to Boston, where he worked several jobs over a year. He was recognized in the street a year later and taken into custody to be returned to Virginia, but abolitionists mounted a strong protest.

The US marshal on the case was fatally stabbed, and more reinforcements were brought in by both sides, but Burns was eventually found to be the escaped slave that was wanted and returned to Virginia.

8. The Anthony Burns rescue in 1854 resulted in Burns being transported from Boston back to slavery in Virginia. What was the final outcome of his life? He was worth around $1,000 as a slave, and abolitionists were willing to donate to help the cause.

Answer: Bostonians bought his freedom and after college in Ohio, he moved to Canada

The Boston Twelfth Baptist Church raised money to buy him, and after some difficulties, he was freed. From a scholarship and proceeds from his autobiography, he received a college education at Oberlin in Ohio and eventually moved to Upper Canada, where he acted as a non-ordained minister. He died from tuberculosis there in 1862.

9. What escaped slave lived in Christiana, Pa. circa 1850, where he farmed and also organized aggressive anti-slavery activities? He had been enslaved in Maryland, but when he got free, he PARKed himself in Pennsylvania, stayed and built up connections with local abolitionists and underground railroad operators.

Answer: William Parker

Parker was an odd friend of the peaceful Quakers in Pennsylvania. They all agreed that slavery was wrong, but the Quakers were pledged to non-violence, while Parker had fought for a place by the fire as a boy and carried that aggressiveness right into adulthood.

He organized a "mutual protection society" among local blacks, who realized an attack by slave catchers could happen at any time, since the area was known, rightly, for concealing runaways.

10. In 1851, Edward Gorsuch, a Maryland slave owner, arrived at William Parker's farm in Christiana, Lancaster County, Pa., with a marshal, helpers and all the paperwork to recapture slaves Parker was harboring. Parker and his men fought back, and in the end, Parker won, the slaves stayed free, and Gorsuch wound up dead. Parker fled to Canada with the assistance of what very famous black abolitionist in Rochester, NY?

Answer: Frederick Douglass

The Christiana Riot or Resistance, as the incident was called, made more northerners sympathetic toward escaped slaves who were living peaceful lives as free people before attempts to re-enslave them. Thirty-eight men, black and white, Quaker and not, were implicated in the riot, but eventually all were freed with virtually no trials.

The event especially drew attention to the new tougher 1850 Fugitive Slave Act, passed just the year before.

Source: Author littlepup

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When Citizens Stood Up To Slave Catchers Quiz

Before 1865, slave catchers had the legal right to drag runaway slaves back from free states and re-enslave them. But sometimes, local citizens didn't let that happen. Here are two questions each on five different "rescues," out of so many that occurred.

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