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Immigrants and the Anti-Slavery Movement
By Sea Serpent of Sea Serpent Design
Much is documented about the masses of Irish, Polish, and German immigrants who arrived in the United States from the 1840s to the late 1800s, escaping starvation and social or political instability. But little is known that some of these immigrants were also active in the anti-slavery movement before the Civil War. In the Ohio River Valley, and western states like Missouri and Texas, where politicians were debating on whether to make slave states or free states, there were immigrants who were active in the Underground Railroad, and helped runaway African-American slaves escape. How do I know this? On both sides of my family, I have relatives who helped runaway slaves escape via the Underground Railroad (more on this later). And they were not the only ones. As one man who settled in New Albany, Indiana, after being released from slavery said, it was the working-class German immigrants who helped in Underground Railroad work. Many immigrants, particularly Germans in Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, and Texas, were also outspoken abolitionists. In my native Louisville, Kentucky, a group of German intellectuals in March, 1854, formed a political party called Der Bund Freier Manner (the League of Free Men), and wrote a manifesto called the Louisville Platform, which called for slavery to be abolished, equal standing of all people of color with all people, and equal standing of women with men, among other reforms. This infuriated the native-born Americans in Louisville, particularly the slaveowners. Who are those crazy radical foreigners, criticizing our way of life? they said. If they hate slavery so much, why don't they just go back home? Even though the Bund Freier Manner was but a handful of reformers, some even other German immigrants considered too extreme, and their anti-religion views offended Catholics as well as native-born Americans, the anti-immigrant Louisvillians saw little difference between them and everyone else who was born outside America and didn't speak good English. In their eyes, to be foreign was to be anti-American, pure and simple. With this in mind, they joined anti-immigrant organizations like the American Party. In Louisville, one of its members' tactics was to keep immigrants from voting in polling places. They did not want immigrants to vote or have any say in the political process. Tensions between native-born Americans and immigrants escalated, often resulting in violence. On August 6, 1855, a riot later called Bloody Monday erupted in Louisville. At least 22 people were killed; many of them Irish and German immigrants, and some of them native-born Americans. So how was my family active in the abolitionist movement? The abolitionists on my mother's side of the family (her mother was from Ohio) were based in Ripley, Ohio, where Harriet Beecher Stowe worked with Underground Railroad people to help transport African-Americans who had just crossed the Ohio River from Kentucky, a slave state, further north to freedom. I have no idea if my relatives worked with Stowe, if they knew her at all, or, if they did, what their relationship to her was. I do know that they were from Germany, and lived in Cincinnati. My mother told me that they lived in a house with some sort of secret tunnel where they hid the runaways, and may have also taken them to a safe Underground Railroad "stop." When I have the time, I will look into this very fascinating detail further. As for my father's side of the family, the Underground Railroad people in that branch lived in Louisville, Kentucky, having just arrived from France and Germany. My father has a pitcher which, according to family legend, was used to make pancakes for the African-American runaways for breakfast before they crossed the Ohio River to freedom. I wonder how these African-Americans got to the Ohio River and beyond from my relatives' house? The Underground Railroad in Kentucky was not as well "organized" as it was in Ohio and Indiana. Kentucky was a slave state, and anyone - white or black - who was caught helping runaway slaves escape faced a severe penalty and/or served time in jail. If a slave was caught escaping — usually by brutal slave patrollers that walked the roads of Kentucky and other Southern slave states — he or she was simply forced to return to his or her master, and was often punished with a whipping or worse. Abolitionists Delia Webster and Calvin Fairbank, who were caught helping a runaway slave named Louis Hayden escape from Lexington, Kentucky, were incarcerated. Happily, however, Louis Hayden made it to Ohio and reached freedom. Many slaves in Kentucky and further south escaped from their masters on their own; without any help from the Underground Railroad. Some of them, many of them children, stowed away on steamboats that cruised up and down the Ohio River, stopping at towns in the non-slave states. I was born in Louisville, Kentucky, but have lived in four other cities on both coasts. There is so much about my native state and its history that I didn't know, and am only just beginning to learn as I dig further into my family roots. So much of it hasn't been taught in school, and should be. The more I learn about my family, the more I learn how the immigrant experience and resistance to slavery interacted, whereas when I was in school they were taught as separate entities that seemed to have nothing to do with each other. I hope this isn't too rambly. There is just so much information. I will continue to explore this topic and my family roots, and keep you all informed. Good night all, SeaSerpent
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Contributor's Note
The screeners who reviewed this Intel left feedback that said "Fact-checking. Some or all of this information is not true." To these screeners: I have been researching this topic and can back up everything I said in this essay. If you don't believe me, I have added some external links. Please read them, and then get back to me. If you don't agree that the information in my Intel essay is true, please leave a comment telling me why. Thank you.
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Kentucky's Underground Railroad
| Bloody Monday Riots: August 6, 1855
| Underground Railroad Site in St. Louis, Missouri
| Centre Alumnus was an important abolitionist
| Ripley, Ohio: Crossroads of the Underground Railroad
| German immigrant abolitionists and Civil War soldiers
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I doubt you will leave this comment but it is true. This is just fuel for The Professional Victim's Society. You are obscurely connecting facts to present misinformation.
Slavery was bad, an ugly mark on our history without a doubt but let's keep this in perspective, it was over a 140 years since the last slave had to escape ! There may be lessons, but there is no future in the past.
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