Christiana Riot Episode 2 Fight for Freedom

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
My name is Sarah Gaskell and you're listening to the
Distorted History podcast program. I can't give you many names.
And joy a Blacker. Look, I'm Raisling. I'm got the

(00:24):
ba A long struggle for freedom, it really is a revolution.
The story of the Christian a Rite is a story
about resisting slavery. It is a story about a group
of men who fled, and saymen and a community of

(00:45):
fellow black people, both legally free and feuded as like themselves,
coming together to fight back not only against the men
looking to reensave them, but also against the very legal
system of the United States that supported the actions of
these slave catchers. This story then started with Noah Buley,
Nelson Ford, and brothers George and Joshua Hammond all fled
from the Maryland farm of Edward Gorsuch, a man who

(01:07):
did not really profit all that much from owning slaves,
and who had even promised to feed the people he
enslaved when they reached the age of twenty eight. Yet,
despite this, Gorsag, for two years following their initial departure,
remained fixated on bringing his quote unquote boys home. Now,
for Gorch, this was seemingly both a matter of pride,
as he wanted to retrieve his so called property, But

(01:27):
he also seemed to be of the belief that his
slaves would never run away of their own volition. Instead,
they had to have been tricked by the dastardly free
blacks and northern abolitionists. This was, after all, seemingly alive
that slaveholders had to tell themselves as they lied to
pretend that the system which they benefited from was less
cruel than it actually was. To try and support this line,

(01:48):
they pointed to the large number of enslaved people who
never even attempted to run away, when the reality was
many enslaved people never attempted to flee simply because they
were too beaten down to ever believe escape was a possibility,
and indeed, the South was very much set up to
make escape as difficult as possible. Meanwhile, others who very
much wanted to flee and seek freedom did not do

(02:10):
so because of strong personal relationships that held them where
they were, which is to say, they had people they
could not imagine leaving behind. Be these family members, husbands, wives, children,
or even just close friends. They simply could not imagine
life without them. That being said, the four men who
had fled from the Gorstage farm apparently did not have
any such close ties, plus were also close enough to

(02:32):
a border with a free state Pennsylvanian. In this case,
that escape was not entirely unreasonable, as the further south
one started from, the harder would be to get to
a place where they can move about freely without being
stopped and asked to prove that they were free or
had permission to be where they were, because, as I said,
life in the South was in many ways designed around
limiting the freedoms of black people, so unfamiliar black individuals

(02:56):
traveling through an area were sure to draw attention until
they reached the so called freeste in the north, where
they no longer had to avoid the frequent slave patrols,
whose main purpose was hunting down to preventing the escape
of the south and slave population. Which is all to
say that it was incredibly hard to run away. Those
who did, though, tended to resemble the quartet it who
fled from the Gorsage farm, as eighty percent of those

(03:18):
who ran were men between the ages of sixteen and
thirty five. Just like the Gorsage runaways, they also tended
to flee in groups and were often spurred into action
by some specific incident where they feared some kind of punishment. Again,
like the Gorsagch Quartet, whose theft and attempted sale some
of the farmers grain had been discovered. These four men
had then flooded the North, crossing the border into Pennsylvania,

(03:40):
utimately settling down in Lancaster County. Yet, before I go
into any more detail about their new home, first, like always,
I want to acknoledge my sources for this three part series,
which include Thomas P. Slaughter's Bloody Dawn, the Christiana Ride,
and racial violence in the Antebellum North Ella Forbes but
we have No Country, Stanley Harrold's Border War, Fighting over

(04:01):
Savory before the Civil War, Stanley W. Campbell's The Slave Catchers,
Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law eighteen fifty to eighteen
sixty in Jonathan Kat's Resistance at Christiana. And like always,
these and any other sources like websites that I used,
will be available on this podcast. Bluesky and KOFE pages.
Plus for anyone who doesn't want to be bothered skipping

(04:21):
through commercials, there is always an ad free feet available
to subscribers at Patreon dot com slash distorted history. And
with all that being said, let's begin before diving into
the events of the Christiana Riot slash Resistance. I think
it's important to first talk about the place where the
four men from Edward Gorsuch's farm, along with many othern
saved men and women, had fled to Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. Now,

(04:44):
the first step in understanding why this was a place
a non insignificant amount of so called fugitive slaves look
to settle down. You first have to realize that Lancaster
County sits on the border with Maryland. As such, it
was one of the first places where runaway says might
come to where they would only at least somewhat safe,
as Pennsylvania was a free state. Indeed, Pennsylvania had passed

(05:05):
a law of gradual emancipation back in seventeen eighty, which
saw to it that by eighteen forty nine, when Noah
Beulee Nelson Forden, brothers George and Joshua Hammond arrived, no
one residing in Lancaster County wasn't slaved. Now, Lancaster's African
American population before the Civil War would peak in eighteen fifty,
when some thirty six hundred black individuals made their home there,

(05:27):
an amount that represented three point seven percent of the
county's overall population. To be clear, though Pennsylvania was not
some kind of racism free paradise. Indeed, historically Pennsylvania, especially
in its colonial days, had been no better than the
Southern States in their treatment of the enslaved, and subsequently,
its laws designed to limit the freedoms of free blacks

(05:47):
and especially the children of mixed races were arguably even
harsher than any existing in the South at the time.
For example, a free black person being found guilty of
having sex with a white person in Pennsylvania faced the
potential punishment of being sold into savory for seven years.
In contrast, a white person found guilty of sleeping with
a black individual would face at most a year in

(06:09):
prison in a fine of fifty pounds. Indeed, even those
who were anti Savory, like Benjamin Franklin, who was the
president of Pennsylvania's reconstituted Anti Savory Society, tended to hold
regressive racist beliefs. As Franklin, for example, was he the
opinion that most black people were quote of a plotting disposition, dark, sullen, malicious, revengeful,

(06:30):
and cruel in the highest degree. In a similar vein,
while the Quakers in general opposed the practice of slavery
and even at times allowed black people to attend their meetings,
which were basically their church services, the African Americans who
did so were still segregated into their own separate section.
In fact, black people were not even allowed to become
full members of the Society of Friends, which was the

(06:51):
Quakers staying for themselves, a dichotomy that would be noted
by English Quaker John Chandler upon his visit to Pennsylvania
in the early eighties. As you would write of the
Quakers in Pennsylvania, quote, they are kind to the colored people.
They relieve their necessities, they visit their sick, they educate
their orphaned children, and perform to them many disinterested acts

(07:13):
of love and mercy. But still they seem to consider
them as aliens, as a people who have no right
to possession in the land that gave them birth. Basically, then,
while many in Pennsylvania polsy and save one of black people,
that did not mean they wanted to live anywhere near
them or have anything to do with them. In Lancaster
County in particular, as the black population swallowed, relations between

(07:34):
whites and blacks worsened as a worse, seen as a
threat to white identity. Lancaster papers, for example, started featuring
negative stories gathered from other parts of the country that
cast African Americans as some combination of careless and combetant, foolish, violent, sneaky,
and or thieves, with the fact that these stories were
being specifically selected from other regions by local newspaper editors

(07:56):
being particularly telling of the relations between whites and blacks
and Lancaster CAUs It's also notable that these stories were
especially being featured at a time when the counties black
population was growing dramatically, as from seventeen ninety into the
eighteen twenties, Lancaster's black population was growing at a rate
that was three times out of the white population. To
be clear, though even with this rapid growth, there were

(08:17):
still only some three hundred African Americans to the sixty
six hundred or so white residents of Lancaster. Still, the
growth was significant enough that many took notice. Indeed, some
residents of Pennsylvania southern counties, including Lancaster, tried petitioning the
state's government to put a stop to the immigration of
blacks from the South. Now, none of these proposed bills

(08:38):
ever gained enough traction to actually be passed, but still
the state politicians would endorse the efforts of the American
Colonization Society that looked to send free blacks to Africa. Meanwhile,
in eighteen thirty seven, following a tightly contested election of
Bucks County where black votes apparently proved to be crucial
in deciding the winner, the States Constitution would be amended

(08:59):
to limit voting to whites only. Basically, it was a
situation where many in Pennsylvania and in the North in
general were willing to talk a big game about opposing savory,
but when the proverbial rubber hit the road and they
actually had to treat African Americans as equals, and when
they look to gain anything resembling the power to demand
such fair treatment, it was determined that robots had to

(09:20):
be put in their way. The way blacks were seen
and treated in the free Northern States would be noted
by former World Naval officer Frederick Merriott in his travelong
Diary in America. As he wrote quote singular is a
degree of contempt and dislike in which the free blacks
are held in all the free states of America, behavior
that he found to be quite extraordinary in a quote

(09:41):
Land which professes universal liberty equality in the rights of man.
Alexei to Talkaville, another European traveler to America, would also
note and seek to explain his confounding behavior, as he wrote,
quote the master is not afraid to raise the safe
to his own standing, because he knows that he can,
in a moment reduce him to the dust at place
which is not strictly true, as illustrated by the laws

(10:03):
forbidding the teaching of enslaved individuals how to read. He, however,
was quite likely onto something when he went on quote
in the North heat white no longer distinctly perceives the
barrier that separates him from the degraded race, and he
shuns the Niger with more pertinacity, since he fears lest
they should someday be confounded together, basically saying that without
formal bearers that made them superior to black people, whites

(10:26):
were more hostile and more degrading in their treatment of them,
as they feared ending up on the bottom rung of
the ladder with them. Meanwhile, in addition to this continued
racial hostility, and likely at least in part because of it,
relatively few blacks in the region were comfortable, by which
I mean about five percent of African Americans living in
Lancaster could be described as being in the middle class,

(10:46):
while in contrast, seventy percent were at best working class,
many in factory itinerant workers, meaning that rather than being
able to settle down in one place, they had to
go wherever they could find work. Plas also often had
to compete with the newly arrived Irish immigrants for jobs.
This included being used as a replacement of workforce when
Irish miners and railroad workers went on strike. Times and

(11:08):
were tough for many black people residing in Pennsylvania southern
counties like Lancaster, which goes a long way to explain
why they were so vastly overrepresented in the states. Jails.
Plus In addition and because of all this, between eighteen
thirty and eighteen sixty, roughly twenty percent of the five
thousand newly arrived African Americans for the region would die
within five years of their arrival. Basically, then, the actions

(11:31):
of even the most well meaning people in the county
tended to focus at most on ending these scourge of slavery,
while when it came to actually helping free African Americans
and bettering their lives, it seems that few were actually
interested in doing so. Instead, most of the attention and
or money that went toward free blacks went to the
colonization society that looked to remove free blacks from the

(11:52):
state and the country as a whole. Meanwhile, all this hardship,
their poverty, the fact that they were treated as outsiders,
as well as their shared desire for life liberty, only
seemed to draw the black population closer together, forming a
community in the process. At the core of this community, then,
was the fact that the black people of Flancaster County
knew the score, which was while some whites would assist

(12:13):
runaways in their flight from savory their while still only
so far, they would stick their necks out to aid them. Furthermore,
they certainly did not seem to believe that blacks really
belonged to living among them. As a result, if and win,
push came to shove and they were face to face
with Southern saveholders. Emboldened by the new and more powerful
Fugitive Slave Law, they knew they would be in this
fight by themselves, which was why the community was so

(12:37):
terrified of groups like the Gap Gang that Corsuch's informant
William Padgett was a part of, as they knew they
could not rely upon their white neighbors, much less the
law to come to their aid. Indeed, these groups had
become a veritable plague fall on the passage of the
eighteen fifty Fugitive Slave Law. For example, in March eighteen
fifty one, one gang of kidnappers would break into the
helm of an old colored man and his wife. The

(12:59):
invaders did not have any paperwork, as they had not
even bothered with the legal niceties of confirming if the
old man was a runaway or not. Face with this
middle of the night invasion. According to a newspaper kind
of this tragedy quote, the old man and his wife
made all the resistance they could, but were overpowered, the
woman knocked down and the man captured. The thing was,

(13:20):
while the couple had unfortunately been unsuccessful in the resistance,
their actions were illustrated on the attitude held by many
in the black community as they knew their Regardless of
whether such individuals waves supposedly official paperwork to lend legal
way to their actions or not, the only option was
to either resist or be kidnapped and taken away, regardless
of if one was actually a runaway or not. The

(13:41):
spirit of resistance would be illustrated in Columbia, pennsylv They
knew when Stephen Bennett, an actual fugitive slave, was captured
by Harver de Grasse, who claimed that Bennett was legally
his property. The local African American community, however, it did
not actually care if he had the weight of the
law behind his claim, as again, the only answer this
such circumstances was to resist. A quote unquote right would

(14:04):
then result from Degrass's attempts to claim Bennett, as other
African Americans came to his aid, fighting not only against
the slaveholder, but also the lawmen who were aiding in
this venture, with the fight resulting in one shriff's arm
being shattered by a bullet. Now, eventually the lawman would
fight off the crowd and successfully recapture the fugitive slave.
Luckily for Bennett, though, locals were able to pull together

(14:26):
seven hundred dollars to purchase his freedom. The sad fact
of the matter was, though, that few could actually count
on such an outcome, and thus the option for many
was simply to either fight or flee, usually to Canada,
as nowhere in America under the Fugitive Slave Vall was safe. Indeed,
this was the path taken by one of the four
men who would fed Gorsic's farm as he left for

(14:47):
Canada shortly after the Fugitive Slavevall was passed. Recognizing that
the situation in the US was no longer safe for
one such as himself if he wanted to retain his freedom,
he really had no choice but to keep running north
in till he was in a different country free of
the Fugitive Slave Law. That being said, at least two,
if not all three the others had decided to stay

(15:07):
where they were to fight for their freedom, even if
it meant death in doing so. They were a little
different than the three thousand or so other African Americans
who remained in Lancaster County, people who had to live
their lives working, sleeping, eating, and praying, all the while
having to remain constantly vigilant for kidnappers, In doing so,
the Black community, if anything, grew closer together, as no

(15:29):
one else could truly understand the kind of constant threat
that they lived under. Similarly, they also knew that no
one else was likely to come to their aid, which
meant that to survive they were going to have to
protect not just themselves but one another. After all, the
chances of saving yourself from these outrages, as seen by
the incident with the old man and his wife, were
a pretty slim Alone, then they were vulnerable. But together

(15:51):
they had a chance, which had been illustrated with the
case of Stephen Bennett, when the whole community had risen
up to try and fight off his kidnappers. Granted the
lawman eventure, she were able to capture him regardless of
this resistance, but the community had again banded together to
purchase his freedom, a concession likely made by the safeholder
in response to the resistance he and his men had faced,

(16:12):
likely thinking it was better to accept payment than to
have to face the potential of such continued resistance until
they were able to get Bennett back to the safety
of the South. Indeed, the local African American community was
very much prepared for the type of trouble brought by
the new Fugitive Slave Lall of eighteen fifty as two
decades earlier before the passage of this even more dangerous
fugitive slave Lall, they had formed their own self defense

(16:34):
organization to protect themselves from safeholders and groups of kidnappers
like the Gap Gang. Leading this particular self defense organization
at this point was one William Parker, who would explain
his motivation in forming this organization as he said that, quote,
we would hear a slaveholders or kidnappers every two or
three weeks. Sometimes a party white men would break into
a house and take a man away, no one knew where,

(16:57):
and again a whole family would be carried off, no
power to protect them nor prevent it. So completely roused
were my feelings that I vound to let no safeholder
take back a fugative if I could but get my
eye on him. It was and for this reason that
William and other like minded individuals quote formed an organization
for mutual protection against safe orders and kidnappers, and had

(17:19):
resolved to prevent any of our brethren being taken back
into Savory at the risk of our own lives. William
Parker then became the kidnappers' greatest enemy and the man
they most wished to be rid of. Meanwhile, a local
abolitionist would describe William as being quote ball as a lion,
the kindest of men, and the most steadfast of friends,
adding that in his estimation, William quote could have commanded

(17:42):
an army had he been educated, While another abolitionist would
describe his role among the black community by saying that
they quote regarded him as their leader, their protector, the Moses,
and their lawgiver all at once. Now, William Parker, who
was often referred to as the Preacher by others, was
described as being tall, thin, and well muscled. Most importantly,

(18:03):
though Parker was a runaway save in his own right,
he had been born and enslaved and Maryland, much like
Frederick Douglas had been, And indeed the two men had
actually crossed paths while enslaved, only to then later meet
againis freedmen after each individually escaped from bondage. Indeed, Douglas
would go on to become a staunch supporter of Parker,
who he would call a quote sober well behaved, a

(18:24):
religious man of color. Now, William's mother Louisa Habeny fieldhad,
who died when he was quite young. As for his father,
William did not seem to know him, and so he
might have lived on a different plantation altogether. Regardless, young William,
following the death of his mother, was left within a family,
and so from an early age he was forced to
stand up for and defend himself. In Parker's own words, quote,

(18:47):
how desolate I was no home, no protector, no mother,
no attachments. We might at any moment be sold to
satisfy a dead or replenish a failing purse. I found
myself to be what I really was, a poor, friendless
slave boy. The harshness of life is a saved and
fortune of Parker, the type of man who was both
capable and willing to use violence to defend his personal

(19:10):
freedom in that of his community, some of which started
during the cold nights of his childhood, where people gathered
around the fireplace to stay warm, with William noting that quote,
my rights at the fireplace were won by my child fist,
as he had to fight and earn a spot by
the fire at night, in the same way than his
quote rights as a free man were under God secured

(19:32):
by my own right arm. Just as he had fought
to get a spot by the fire as a child,
so was he prepared to fight to defend his right
to live free as an adult. Now. Parker's owner had,
like Edward Gorsuch, not been overly cruel, as according to William,
he did not see them believe in having the people
he owned beaten like many other saveholders did these better

(19:52):
than average conditions, and much like Frederick Douglass had said,
allowed William to better see the cruelty of slavery and
thus make the dream of freedom seemed that much more realistic.
Speaking of, while William and the other and save that
he lived with were not regularly being unabused, that did
not mean they were not readily exposed to the cruelties
of slavery. Indeed, Parker's memoir, even though it was not

(20:13):
published until after the end of the Civil War, still
very much feels like a traditional anti savory document as
he lays out the inherent cruelty of America's system of
channel slavery by running things like quote without a word
of warning, and for no fault of their own parents
and children, husbands and wives, brothers and sisters were separated
to meet no more on earth. A slave sale of

(20:34):
this sort is always as solemn as a funeral, and
partakes of its nature in one important particular, the meeting
no more in the flesh. Indeed, was he seemingly annual
slave sales at as much as anything else made William
Parker determined to leave, for it did not matter whether
or not his quote unquote owner did not allow a
saves to be being like other masters. If he and

(20:55):
the whole system allowed such inherently cruel scenes like this
to happen, William than beg began making plans to flee.
All he needed, though, was an excuse, as, according to
Parker himself, quote much as I disliked my condition, I
was ignorant enough to think that something beside the fact
that I was a safe was necessary to exonerate me
from blame and running away. A crossword, a blow, a

(21:16):
good fright, anything would do. It mattered not whence nor
how it came. His master's disposition, though, did not readily
provide Parker with the excuse he was looking for. Therefore,
William seemingly decided to provoke his own justification, as one day,
when he was about sixteen or seventeen, William refused to
work in the fields because it was raining, he was tired,

(21:36):
and he simply did not want to work that day.
In response, his master, according to Parker quote, picked up
a steak use for an ox gad and said, if
I did not go to work, he would whit me
as sure as there was a god in heaven. With this,
Parker had at long last go toed his master into
giving him the excuse he needed. Now to be clear,
it was not the hei was this move for this

(21:57):
safe order to try and personally physically confront the and
say man who had made a habit of setting up
prize fights for as you see, William's owner would from
time to time Parker against some other safeholders and slave
person so they could then bet on the winter, with
William apparently always coming out of these clashes as the victor.
It then should not come as a surprise that when

(22:17):
the safeholder moved to hit him, Parker quote caught the stick,
and we grappled and handle each other roughly for a time.
When he called for assistance, he was badly hurt. I
let go my hold, bade him goodbye, and ran for
the woods. William Parker and his brother, who he had
told to be ready to make a run for it
whenever such a time came. Both led the plantation that day.
The brothers, then under the cover of night, made their

(22:40):
way north, eventually ending up in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, whereupon
arriving in Columbia, they were likely helped out by William Whipper,
a wealthy African American lumber merchant who was also a
major part of the Underground Railroad's activities in the area.
The brothers that looked to settle down, finding agricultural work
to support themselves in their new lives, and for a
time they were happy to simply bask in their new

(23:01):
found freedom. As time passed, though, William Parker could not
help but think of quote my fellow servants left behind
bound in the chains of slavery. As he did, Parker
quote thought that if I had the power, they should
soon be as free as I was. And I formed
a resolution that I would assist in liberating everyone within
my reach at the risk of my life, and that

(23:22):
I would devise some plan for their entire liberation. You
can see that that William's attitude was not one of well,
I got out, That's all that matters. Instead, his focus
seems to have pretty consistently been upon the larger community
in helping others out me and mom. Parker also soon
discovered that quote to preserve my stolen liberty and must
pay unrelentingly and almost sleepless vigilance, meaning he had to

(23:46):
almost always be on guard as he could not trust
his new white neighbors. Indeed, according to Parker himself, quote,
the whites of that region were generally such Negro haters
that it was a matter of no moment to them
where fugitives were carried, whether to Lancaster, Harrisburg er elsewhere
in d Between eighteen thirty two and eighteen forty nine,
there were five major anti black riots in Philadelphia, as

(24:09):
well as similar riots that took place in both Pittsburgh
and Columbia, Pennsylvania. While in eighteen thirty eighth the new
state Constitution for the first time legally disenfranchised blacks. As such,
it was then up to the black residents of Lancaster
County to defend and protect themselves because no one else
was going to do so. According to William Parker then, quote,

(24:29):
a number of us had formed an organization for mutual
protection against safe orders and kidnappers, and had resolved to
prevent any of our brethren from being taken back into
Savory at the risk of our own lives. Now, the
Self Protection Society did not actively seek the fight. However,
the quote insulent and overbearing conduct of the Southerners went
on such errands to Pennsylvania forced me to my course

(24:51):
of action. They did not hesitate to break open doors
and to enter without ceremony the houses of colored men
and win refused admission or winning men, and determined spirit
was shown. They would present pistols and strike and knock
down men and women indiscriminately. The reality then was that
quote ourselves, our wives, our little ones were insecure, and
all we had was viable to seizure faced with such

(25:15):
a consonant, awe consuming threat. It was William Parker's opinion
then that quote we must have trouble before we could
have peace, meaning their only choice was to fight and
defend themselves to the creation of this mutual defense organization,
the purpose of which was to ensure that the black
residents of Lancaster County would be protected from any attempts
to kidnap and enslay them, regardless of whether or not

(25:36):
the kidnappers have legal backing for their actions, as according
to parkerhim solve quote, whether the kidnappers were clothed in
legal authority or not, I did not care to inquire,
as I never had faith in nor respect for the
Fugitive Slave Lall. Meanwhile, even though Parker's group existed well
before the passage of the eighteen fifty Fugitive Slave Lall,
many other African American communities in the North and in

(25:58):
Canada would form vigilance organizations of their own in reaction
to that law, which they saw as a threat to
their continued existence and freedom. Notably, these various black mutual
protection organizations were not all that dissimilar to the way
maroon communities had functioned since the sixteenth century, with maroon
communities being the groups of runaways that came together and

(26:19):
formed their own little societies in forests and swamps in
the South. Groups had then fought a gorilla type of
warfare against any slave catchers who dared to invade the
wilderness that they claimed as their own. In this way, then,
these self protection organizations served much the same purpose in
being Ethorne in the side of the system of slavery
by not only providing protection for those who had gotten
the way, but by serving as a source of inspiration

(26:41):
for those who had not yet escaped. Among those saved
by William Parker's group was a black girl named Elizabeth,
who had been captured by a gang of kidnappers intent
on bringing her to Virginia. Elizabeth uc had been working
for a way quicker man when the kidnappers arrived and
whist off, with the quicker being unable to do anything
due to his dedication to pacifism. This dedication, though, did

(27:02):
not stop him from raising the alarm and learning those
like Parker who did not hold to his creed and
thus would be able and willing to intervene. Meanwhile, these
safe catchers, after encountering no resistance from the Quakerman, tied
up Elizabeth and then stopped to have breakfast at the
Mount Vernon Tavern, believing themselves safe, which they most certainly
were not, as upon learning of the kidnapping, William Parker,

(27:24):
along with six or seven other individuals, had taken off
in pursuit, at which point, according to Parker's recollection, they
quote proceeded with all speed to a place called the
Gap Hill, where we overtook them and took the girl away.
Then we beat the kidnappers and let them go. We
learned afterwards that they were all wounded badly, and that
two of them died in Lancaster, and that the other

(27:45):
did not get home for some time. Only one of
our men was hurt, and he had only a slight
injury in the hand. Now, apparently the death of these
two kidnappers was largely down to the fact that even
the local whites, who were generally unfriendly to the African
Americans among them hold even more scored for the slave
catching kidnappers. Indeed, when the kidnappers saw medical aid for

(28:06):
their wounded companions, the members of the Gap Gang were
told by one person that there were surely plenty of
doctors down south in Maryland who could treat their wounds,
while another white man would reportedly tell them bluntly quote
men coming after such property ought to be killed. Now,
the Gap Gang would find some sympathy from an innkeeper
in Lancaster City. Indeed, this innkeeper was so outreached by

(28:29):
the treatment they had suffered just for trying to kidnap
a black girl, and how they were looked down upon
by his white neighbors. That he responded by declaring that
he would never hire another n word. In fact, he
showed how serious he was by firing the black servant
girl who weren't at the inn right then and there now.
This loud and vocal support for the kidnappers, though, would
prove to not be the smartest move, as it was

(28:50):
long before the innkeeper's barn mysteriously burned down. To be clear,
though this mutual protection organization wasn't always successful, far from it.
In fact, for example, they would be late to help
the likes of Henry and John Williams, who would successfully
be taken back to encaitement. Still in any hope of
assistance in combating such gangs of kidnappers was better than nothing. Meanwhile,

(29:13):
the organization was also not just concerned with white kidnapping gangs,
as sometimes they also had to deal with spies within
their own community. For example, when it was learned that
a man was kidnapped and brought back to the South
had been betrayed by the black man he had been
staying with, the protection society hunted the betrayer down and
brutally beat him. Meanwhile, when another individual was discovered to

(29:33):
have also been aiding the kidnapper gangs, their house would
be burnt to the ground by Parker and his people.
The thing was, much of this happened before the new
Fugitive Slave Ball was passed in eighteen fifty, at which
point things got even worse. Is now more than ever,
the black community was on their own as under the
new law, officials could no longer resist the efforts of

(29:54):
these safe catchers, while some even seemed to welcome the law,
but regardless, by eighteen fifty one, a not insignificant part
of the general public seemingly just accepted any new law.
As for William Parker, by eighteen fifty one, he was
about twenty nine years old, but his determination to resist
Savory had not diminished one bit. Indeed, if anything, he

(30:15):
the members of the Mutual Protection Society were more determined
than ever to fight back against these savers and their agents.
Which is to say that Edward Gorsuch and his group
were about to unwittingly stumble into an incredibly hostile situation,
all for a court to us says, who did not
truly financially benefit Gorsag all that much, and who he
had promised to free in a couple of years anyway,

(30:36):
although it's not like I've ever accused racists and safeholders
of having anything resembling intelligence or common sense, to be fair,
though Edward's son Dickinson had apparently urged his father to
not follow through with this plan, pursued into Pennsylvania, but
the only apparently could not be reason with. He wanted
his property back, plain and simple, and that was apparently
all that mattered. After arriving at Philadelphia, Edward Gorsuch would

(31:15):
go to fugitive slave commissioner Edward Ingram, from whom he
would obtain four warrants for the rest and return of
the foreign save men who had fled from his farm
two years earlier, a man who again he had promised
to free when they turned twenty eight. Regardless, defeuted a
slave commissioner who provided Gorsich with these warrants. Further instructed
one Deputy Marshal Henry H. Kline to lead Gorsig's posse,

(31:37):
a job that Cleine was no stranger to, as who
is known to the anti Savory press as he quote
notorious lying slafe catching Deputy Marshall Kleine. Meanwhile, also joining
Klein on this expedition were two Philadelphia policemen who were
paid up front by Edward Gorsuch for their assistance. They, though,
would not travel together to Lancaster County, as instead they
would split up so as to arrive separately and hopefully

(31:59):
not else suspicion which might result in their quarry getting away.
To this end, Edward Gorsuch would depart alone from Philadelphia
head of these others as he made his way to Lancaster,
while Marshall Klein would start off by first traveling by
a train before dissembarking to take a wagon the rest
of the way. As the two Philadelphia cops, John Aigan
and Thomas Tully, they would travel together, taking a later

(32:21):
train than Marshall Klein. Meanwhile, the rest of Gorsuch's neighbors
and relatives would make their way off from Baltimore, with
everyone planning to link up at a tavern in Lancaster,
with the idea again being that by staggering their arrivals
and showing up separately, they would not raise any kind
of alarm among the local community and would therefore be
able to take the men that were after by surprise,

(32:41):
The thing was, this plan was anything but fool proof. Indeed,
things would start to unravel almost immediately, as Klein's wagon
would break down on the way there, a mishap that
forced the Marshall to walk his horses back to the
place where he had rented the wagon just to get another,
which then delayed his arrival and ensure that he missed
the plan meet up with the rest of the party,
a situation that then required Marshall Klein to try and

(33:04):
casually wander about Lancaster County in search of Gorsuchess Posse
all the Wall, pretending that he was there looking for
horse thieves. Few, if any, though, bought this story, one,
with Klein having a reputation of being the quote notorious
lying Slafe catching Deputy Marshall Kleine. Yet, even if he
had arrived on time, it seems as if their activities
were at least to some degree, already known as throughround

(33:27):
his time trying to casually wander about Lancaster County pretending
to be looking for horse thieves, Klein was followed by
one Samuel Williams, a black man who ran in tavern
in Philadelphia, called the Bolivar House. More importantly, though, Williams
was a member of the Underground Railroad and the Philadelphia
Vigilance Committee, a group led by one William Still, who
were constantly on the lookout for safeholders seeking warrants in

(33:48):
the city and the safe catchers who aided them. This group, then,
knowing who these safe catchers were, had their various spies
and agents keep an eye out for them and anyone
they interacted with, especially if they were new to the city. Indeed, Williams,
Still on the Vigilance Committee, had been alerted to Edward Gorsuch,
and soon they kept an eye on him in his
activities while in Philadelphia. In particular, they made note of

(34:09):
the fact that he had been seen quote in close
converse with a certain member of the Philadelphia barr who
had lost the little reputation he ever had by continual
dabbling in negro catching, as well as by association with
and support of the notorious Henry H. Klein, a professional
kidnapper of the Basis Stamp. Knowing this, Samuel Williams had
been dispatched to follow Klan and gather more information on

(34:31):
a sposse and their plans, so that the locals could
be warned in the self defense committee could repair because,
in Samuel's estimation, the Klein and Gorsuch party, representing quote
the deepest, the most thoroughly organized, and the best planned
project for man catching that had been organized since the
infamous fugitive slave vall had gone into operation. All their

(34:52):
planning and attempted deception, though, was for not because Edward
Gorsuch and his posse had lost all element of surprise.
They had been ident and it was known why they
were there, something which Klin himself had been very much
aware of as soon as he spotted Samuel Williams following
him around. Indeed, at one point, as Klein entered a
tavern and started the rest of the Gorsage posse, all

(35:13):
the while sticking to a story of looking for horse thieves,
Williams would follow him in, at which point Williams proceeded
to tell the Deputy Marshall quote, I know the kind
of horse thieves you are. After they are all gone,
and you had better not go after them. The threat
implied by this statement was clear Clin should give up
his attempts to find the escape slaves for his own safety. Yet,

(35:34):
despite this Clein would continue visiting various taverns in his
search for the quote unquote horse thieves, all the while
Samuel Williams fall along behind him, watching his every move.
Marshall Klein would keep this up for the rest of
the day, unable to find the other members of his
slave catching party, until the following morning, when he finally
happened to encounter the two policemen from Philadelphia. The pair

(35:54):
then pointed the Marshal in the direction of Edward Gorsuch,
but in doing so they also informed Klein that they
were out. As you see, they too had spotted Samuel Williams.
In fact, he had taken the same train that they
had to Lancaster County. Most importantly, though, they knew that
his presence there meant that the local community was now
aware of them and their purpose. As such, they understood

(36:15):
they no longer had the element of surprise, which meant
that any hope they had of capturing the fugitives without
any kind of resistance had already phone out the window.
As far as they were concerned, then, they were not
being paid enough to take this kind of risk, and
as such they were heading back to Philadelphia. Yet, despite
losing the element of surprise in two members of their posse.

(36:36):
Client Stone carried on at long last, catching up with
Edward Gorsuch ran about nine a m. On the morning
of the tenth of September. Now Gorsuch, for his part,
was not happy with the Deputy Marshall, as he had
missed their plan made up the previous day, two which
Klin lied claiming that he had been late due to
having broken his wagon in his attempts to elude the
abolitionist spy Samuel Williams, who in reality had not started

(36:59):
to following Incline until after he arrived at Lancaster aboard
a second wagon. Regardless, upon being informed of the intentions
of the two Philadelphia cops to abandon their mission and
head home, Gorsett set off to meet with the two men.
During their discussion, the safeholder would apparently pay the men
even more money in an effort to convince them to stay,
which seemingly was enough to get them to agree to

(37:21):
continue participating in these slave catching efforts. There was just
one thing. They first had to take the train back
to Philadelphia, but they promised they were going to return
with reinforcements that very night. However, when the train returned
at eleven PM, the two men were not on board,
and nor were there any additional reinforcements. It's almost as
if you can't trust people who are willing to hunt

(37:41):
down and enslave people for money. There was, however, nothing
to be done about this desertion other than carry on
without them, which they did when at about four in
the morning on the eleventh of September, the remaining party
of safe Catchers departed from the gap, making for the
community of Christiana on foot, as that was where the
informer had told them three of the few dud as
we're living. Gorset's posse was accompanied on this journey by

(38:04):
a guide who may have been their informer, William Paget,
that looked to disguise our identity from the people they
were betraying by wearing a straw hat and abandoned to
conceal their face as they set off. Edward Gorsett to
apparently wanted to stick with the original plan that had
been presented to him by his informer, William Padget, who
had suggested the capture of his so called boys would
be a fairly easy task. Indeed, the informer had suggested

(38:26):
they could split into groups of two or three men
so as to capture all the runaways at roughly the
same time. Deputy Marshall Henry Klein, however, recognized how bad
of a plan this was, especially since their presence and
this point had clearly been noted. Perhaps this plan might
have warned had they had the element of surprise, but
as it was, he anticipated needing all hands on deck

(38:47):
to capture each of the fugitives. As far as he
was concerned, then splitting up their forces would be a
suicide mission. Meanwhile, as they set off in the wee
hours of the eleventh of September, Edward Gorsett apparently remained
convinced that he could actually persuade the men he had
enslaved to return to the farm simply by talking to them.
At the very least, he believed he could talk one man,

(39:07):
who had apparently left his wife behind in Maryland, to
return with him without too much difficulty, as Sachi decided
to leave him for last and instead go for the
house where the other two were reportedly residing. As they
neared their destination, the man guiding them, possibly William Pagett, departed,
leaving the posse to their work. Now, some have suggested
that Pagett might have knowingly been leading these men into

(39:29):
a trap, as he had led them right to the
home of William Parker, the head of the local medial
defense organization, who was currently sheltering the two men in question.
The idea of this being a trap, though, doesn't seem
likely to me. What does seem likely is that Paget
was a coward and was in particular afraid of William Parker.
As such, he was hoping to use klanning Gorsa to

(39:49):
capture Parker, who would then be forced back into a
life of insavement, which would then potentially break up a
self defense organization and thus make life easier for Patchett
and the arrest of the Gap Gang or other of
their elk. The place where the Gorsett inclined posse had

(40:36):
been gutted to was a small, two story stone house
that sat at the end of a short lane. On
one side of the home was a cornfield, while on
the other set a little orchard, all of which was
owned by Quaker farmer Levi Pownall, who rented the place
out to William Parker and his family. One local would
later describe the area, stating that quote this spot must
have been an ideal one for his seclusion, situated as

(40:58):
it was nearly fourth of a mile from any public
highway and standing well up on the northern sob of
a hill, surrounded by trees, being almost invisible to the
outside world, yet in such a position that the ever
resident could clearly scan u surrounding country for long distance
and note the approach of suspicious characters in time to
avert any impending danger, which again is to say that

(41:19):
this was not a good place of Gorsag and Espasio
safe catchers to try and deal with, as even if
they had not already lost the element of surprise, their
chances of catching the residents of this house completely by
surprise and unprepared were slim, especially since again this wasn't
the home of the two runaways from Gorsages Farm, but
the residents of the head of the Lancaster Mutual Defense Organization,

(41:39):
William Parker. Inside the home then, wasn't just the two runaway,
said Corsage intended to bring back to Maryland, but seven
people who were all expecting the slave catching party to
show up at any minute, As Samuel Williams had indeed
alerted the community to the arrival of the kidnapping party
with a new spreading quote through the vicinity like a
fire in the prairies, as messengers had carried the word in.

(42:01):
African Americans throughout Lancaster County had responded by arming themselves,
among them being the people inside the farmhouse in question,
who were William Parker, his wife, Eliza, her sister Hannah,
her husband, Alexander Pinckney, Abraham Johnson, a few to the
safe from Cecil County, Maryland, and the two runaways from
the Gorsag farm that Parker would identify and as memoirs

(42:21):
as Samuel Thompson and Joshua Kite, as he gave the
men fake names, as Parker, who is the only direct
African American participant to leave behind a written account, purposely
alter the names of some of the participants, something which
was a common practice refuted as saves a do even
when not leaving behind written records, as many took to
changing their names to obscure their identities so as to

(42:43):
prevent recapture for our purposes. While there seems to be
some confusion or disagreement over their actual identities, Joshua Kite
was apparently Nelson Ford, who had been living under the
assumed name of John Beard while in Lancaster, but I'll
just call him Nelson Ford for simplicity's sake, while Samuel
Thompson was a pair only Noah Beuley. Now. Earlier in
the night, Sarah Pnall, the wife of the man whom

(43:04):
they were renting the home from, had stopped by after
hearing word of the safe hunting party's arrival, which goes
to show you how far word had spread. The white
Quaker woman had then encouraged them to rather than fight
these safe catchers, to instead simply fleet at Canada, where
they would be safeer pursuit, a path that Sarah obviously
preferred due to the fact that as a Quaker she
was a pacifist. Parker, though, would respond that if the

(43:26):
laws actually protected colored men like they did whites, he
would happily embrace their belief in nonviolence and appeal to
the law for justice and protection. However, since quote the
laws for personal protection are not made for us, and
we are not bound to obey them. If they find
a curse, they want the whites to keep away. They
have a country and may obey the laws but we

(43:47):
have no country. Parker and his people then were prepared
to fight and defend themselves and their freedom. In doing so,
though he did not want his white neighbors to get
involved lest they become entangled with their issues. And now,
according to Parker's narrative of events, he had come home
the previous night completely unconcerned about the threat of slafe
catchers and had told everyone to go to sleep and

(44:08):
get some rest, which they did. Frederick Douglas, however, who
later interviewed the participants, would relate a different and more
believable account of where they had set up for a
long time the previous night before trying to go to
bed and ultimately failing to sleep. Indeed, it's quite obvious
that they were expecting trouble, as William and eliza three
children were not at home, but instead being looked after

(44:28):
by her mother in another location. It is likely, then
that Parker's autobiography makes this type of claimless supreme confidence
in the face of such danger, because safeholders, by definition
and by necessity, treated black men as less than. Such
treatment then resulted in a movement within the black community
within such narratives of having to assert their masculinity by

(44:48):
showing that they were just as manly as any white man.
This supposed to display of a complete lack of fear
in the face of such imminent danger then fits in
with that tradition. Regardless though, it was roundabout dawn, as
his son was just beginning to peek over the horizon
while the fog hung heavy over the ground that Edward
Gorsuch's nine man band of heavily armed perspective kidnappers began

(45:10):
making their way down the lane that led to the house.
Along the way they would be safecatchers, much to the
surprise of everyone involved, happened to encounter one of the
very men that they were after. Asked Nelson Ford, after
spending a likely sleepless night in William Parker's home, had
started down the lane, heading in the opposite direction as
he was either leaving to go to work or heading
at the serve as a lookout, when he ran right

(45:32):
into the man who still and claimed to own him.
Nelson then was understandably surprised by the sudden appearance of
Edward Gorsuch and his party, likely having assumed that if
they were going to do something and wouldn't have been
under the cover of night, yet surprised as he whilst
he smash, twenty three year old was still able to
elude the men who were after him as he took
off running back to the house, yelling about kidnappers as

(45:53):
he came, bursting through the front door. Knowing then that
at least one of the men they were after was inside,
the kidnapper moved to surround the house, with the men
splitting up so there was at least one of them
on each side of the house to ensure that no
one could escape. Meanwhile, Marshall Klein and Edward Gorsuch headed
for the front door as they plan on presenting their
warrants and explaining the nature of the fugitive slave law.

(46:15):
As he demanded that the two men they had come
to capture surrender themselves. While this was going on inside
the house, in response to Nelson bursting through their door
shutting about kidnappers, the five men, including Nelson and the
two women, responded by seizing their weapons and moving up
to the second floor of the house. A strategic move
was the only way up as a narrow staircase which
only one person at a time could ascend the stairway

(46:38):
then was a choke point that gave the defenders a
distinct advantage. Plus, While those in the house and a
relatively clear field of fire from their second story windows,
the kidnappers on the ground had a much harder time
of getting anything resembling a clear shot in them. Regardless,
Corsage Incline would enter through the front door there was
still open after Nelson had burst through it moments earlier.
Once inside, Edward Gorstitch would quote, I know your voice,

(47:02):
a reference to the fact that Nelson had been singing
as he departed the house and encountered the party of
slave catchers. Gorsett, then, still clearly under the delusion that
his boys would happily return home with him given the chance,
then continued quote, AH know you. If you come down
and go home with me without any trouble, I will
look over the past, meaning that if they simply returned

(47:22):
to the farm with them, he had no intentions of
punishing them for running away, likely actually believing that was
the only obstacle to their happy reunion, a clearly ridiculous offer,
to which a voice from upstairs called down a response quote,
if you take one of us, you must take us
over our dead bodies, clearly indicating their intentions to fight
and if necessary, die rather than be enslaved. Deputy Marshall

(47:46):
climbed them look to take over as he demanded to
see the owner of the house. This and was William
Parker's que to appear at the top of the stairs
from where he called down, demanding to know who this
man was who had invaded his home, to which Klein
responded that he as a US Marshall, a pronouncement they
did not seem to impress Parker one bit, as he
warned the man quote, if you take another step, I'll

(48:08):
break your neck. Kline, though, pressed on nonetheless, as he
declared that he was there to arrest a pair of
runaways for Edward Gorsuch. In fact, he even had warrants
with the authority of the United States government to back
him up. Again, though William Parker was unmoved as he
told the marshal that he didn't care about him or
the United States. Yet. While William Parker did not seem

(48:30):
to flinch even the slightest in response to this situation,
his brother in law was a different story, as he
was seemingly starting to crack. Indeed, the Marshall could hear
Pigney asking the others quote, where's the use of fighting?
They will take us anyway, which was of course music
Declines's ears as he called up that yes, they should
give up because quote, we can take you in any event,

(48:51):
before turning his focus back to William Parker, who he
told quote, I have heard many a negro talk as
big as you and then have taken him and all,
to which Parker smart responding quote, you have not taken
me yet. Parker's wife, Eliza, mean while, did not seem
to much appreciate her brother in law's talker surrender, as
she seized a hold of a corn cutter, which I

(49:13):
assume was something like a scythe as she warned them
all that she would be had the first person among
them who tried to give up. The twenty one year
old mother of three, you see, was apparently just as
tough as her husband, and a runaway from Marylyn in
her own right. Just like her mother, her brother, and
her sisters, Eliza then clearly had no interest in being
enslaved again. Indeed, William's own stern resistance was very likely

(49:36):
at least partially fueled by his wife's passion, as you
would note that her quote experience of slavery had been
much more better than my own. With no one on
the second floor of the house having any interest in
challenging Eliza, they all began loading bullets into their guns.
As they were doing so downstairs, climbed right through the
warrens three times, while Edward gorsuch anxiously waited, wanting to

(49:58):
just head upstairs, apparently stumble then he could simply talk
the men who had ran away to come back to
the farm with him. The Marshal, though, insisted that he
wait until he was done reading through the official documents,
as he was apparently just as delusional as he seemed
to believe that the people upstairs would be convinced to
give up just by being faced with the power of
the law. Indeed, Klein would wrap up his reading on

(50:20):
the war and spindy claring quote, now you see, we
are commanded to take you dead or alive, so you
may as well give up at once, at which point
Marshall Klein and Edward Gorstitch began ascending the stairs, with
Gorcerts leading away saying something along the lines of quote, come,
mister Klein, let's go upstairs and take them. We can
take them. Come follow me. I'll go up and get

(50:41):
my property. What's in the way. The law is in
my favor, and the people are in my favor. William Parker, though,
made clear what was in their way, as he warned
the two men quote, you can come up, but you
can't go down again. Once up here, you are mine. Yet,
despite this obvious threat, the obliquy his slaveholder continued the
mount of stairs, calling out the Nelson, who he had

(51:03):
seen on the road outside, promising that if Nelson would
just come back to the farm peacefully, he and the
others would be treated exactly like they had been before
they left, a promise that Gorsa surely believed was an incentive.
And regardless, the slaveholder continued that there was no point
in resisting. He had the legal authority to reclaim his property,
and he had the force of men in arms to

(51:24):
back up his claims. Yet, for all the two men's
talk about their authority and how there was no hope,
the second and sharp object flew in their general direction.
They both led not only back down the stairs, but
out of the house completely. During the subsequent standoff, a
bit of a conversation slash debate seemed to take place
as those in the house disagreed on multiple grounds with

(51:46):
the right of these men to try and force them
into servitude with William Parker, the man who was known
as preacher more than holding his own as Edward Gorser,
who was so proud of being a leader in his church,
tried to use scripture to defend his position, as Parker
more or less put an end to this debate when
he asked, quote, where do you see it in scripture
than a mancha traffic in his brother's blood, a comment

(52:08):
that caused a man who might do act like he
was a good father figure to all those living on
his farm, including his slaves, to let the mask slip
as he angrily responded quote do you call on inward
my brother, a question to which those inside the house
reportedly responded in unison quote yes, and which point Gorsuch
angrily declared that he was not there to hear abolitionist lectures.

(52:31):
As a staninoff continued, William Parker moved to the upstairs window,
where he stood illuminated by the early domn mind as
he asked if he was one of the fugitives at
Gorsuch and his men were after, to which Gorcich responded
that he was not. Parker then motioned to his brother
in law, Alexander Pinckney to come forward so he could
ask the same question, and again Gorsuch admitted that he

(52:52):
was not one of the men he was after. Up
next was Abraham Johnson, who openly challenged Gorsich as he
called down quote which a shriveled up bold safeholder, as
you own such a nice, genteel young man as I am,
a comment which Gorsach didn't take too kindly to. But
ultimately this whole exchange didn't really accomplish much, as just

(53:12):
because these three men were not the ones that were
after did not mean that their quarry was not inside
the house. Indeed, maybe this ruse woever worked, or at
least given them pause, had Gorsuch and his men not
literally run right into one of the men they were
after on their way to the house, a man who
they had all seen subsequently run into the house as
soon as they recognized one another. Kline then looked to

(53:34):
put on a show of his own as he threatened
to burn the house down while also pretending to send
a message to Harrisburg, requesting another one hundred men to
assist in the capture. Meanwhile, Edward Gorsuch continued to try
and convince his boys to return with the kind and
gentle savor to his farm. Yet, when he received no
response to the masks slipped again as Gorsuch angrily threatened

(53:55):
to punish both Josh and Nelson. Now, his son Dickinson
had a bit sense than his father, as he encouraged
the safeholder to back away from the house, as he
at least understood the danger inherent in the situation. Yet,
even though he agreed to put some distance between himself
and the house, Edward Gorsuch still had no intention of
backing down. He had, after raw, spent two years hunting

(54:18):
down his escaped property, and he was intent on having
them returned. After all, the law said he was in
the right to do this. Therefore, he insisted he would
have his property returned. Meanwhile, inside the house, William Parker's
wife Eliza, asked her husband if she should blow the horn,
as the horn was a signal for their community and
specifically for the members of the Mutual Defense Force. You see,

(54:41):
it was understood that if the horn was sounded especially
at an unusual hour. They were to all gather at
a location where the horn was being blown from. William, then,
perhaps worrying that there might be something Incline's threat to
set fire to the home or to call for back
from Harrisburg, agreed that the time had come to sound
the horn. Summoning their own assistance. Eliza then went up

(55:01):
to the attic and started blowing the horn through the
window up there. Eliza then went up to the attack
and started blowing the horn through the window up there.
At this the men outside, while they did not know
for sure what this meant, they still felt fairly confident
that this couldn't be good for them, and so they
began firing their guns at the woman blowing the horn.
As bullets began striking the houses attic, Eliza retreated, but

(55:24):
she did not stop blowing the horn. Instead, she went
down to the second floor to crouch below a window
there where the men outside could not reach her with
their bullets through the home thick stone walls. She then
rested the horn on the windowsill as she continued to blow,
plainly call out to their neighbors and allies to come
and help. According to William, Parker Eliza quote blue blast

(55:45):
after blast, while these shots poured thick and fast around her. Indeed,
boas were apparently flying pretty freely at this point, Although
it's not entirely clear who fired the first shot, as predictably,
when all was said and done, both sides were claimed
that the others had been the ones to fire the
first shot. For example, when William Parker's version of events,

(56:05):
the Posse had been the ones to fire first, doing
so when his wife Eliza had started sounding the horn.
In contrast, one of Edward Gorsuch's sons would claim that
the story he had been told was that his client
and his father retreated from the house quote. Just as
he got out, a gun was fired at his head
from one of the windows, but the aim was too high.
The marshal, coming out right behind him, fired his pistol

(56:25):
in the window. Now, for me, the story that the
shooting started as a way of trying to prevent Eliza
from sounding the horn makes sense. It would have been
fairly clear by that point that things were starting to
get out of hand, and so it makes sense that
the Posse would have been desperate to put a stop
to what they could only assume was a signal for help.
That being said, is it out of the realm of
possibility that one of the people in the house who's

(56:47):
very freedom was being threatened took a shot at the
man trying to enslave them, Not in the least regardless,
It seems fairly safe to say that with the sounding
of the horn, Bo's sons proceeded to openly shoot at
one another. That being he said, it does not seem
that either side was all that effective in their efforts,
as it seems that the only instances of contact involved
a piece of wood striking Joshua Gorsag on the shoulder

(57:09):
and doctor Pearce getting clipped above the eye, and which
point he returned fire with his pistol, or, to be
more precise, he'd tried to as his gun misfired. It
was clear at this point, then, as his son continued
to rise progressively higher in the sky, that things were
not going the way Edward Gorsuch and his companions had
thought it would. Much of their plan had relied upon
the element of surprise to take the fugitive men captive

(57:32):
and returned them to Maryland. That though had phone at
the window thanks to the efforts of Samuel Williams from Philadelphia,
who had alerted the region to the presence of the
would be safe catchers, as by the time the Posse
had made their move, it was obvious that the fugitives
had been waiting for them, as they were in the
company of several other people who were clearly ready and
waiting to defend themselves and their companions. With surprise already gone,

(57:55):
then the only real hope that remained for these safe
Catchers was intimidating those inside to surrender, which seemingly wasn't
happening as instead of surrendering or cowering in fear, they
were actively fighting back at this point. Plus now they
very likely just raised the alarm among a community that
was known to be hostile to the men from Maryland
and their efforts. For Dickinson Gorsuch, then the obvious course

(58:18):
of action was to pull back, as while he wasn't
smart enough to see the evil and stupidity inheritance Savory,
especially when it came to his own family, he did
have enough functioning brain cells to see that those inside
were not about to give up and that they had
just called for help. He then encouraged his father and
the marshal to pull back, and instead used their money
to get so many men to come and aid them

(58:39):
in this and never that defeated is would have no
choice but to admit defeat and surrender after off of
the Gorsaches. This clearly wasn't in question of money, It
was a matter of pride. Therefore money was no object.
The problem was the same stubbornness and sense of wounded
honor that had driven his father, Edward Gorsuch to this moment,
would not let him retreat, even if if the plan

(59:00):
was to still ultimately come back with more men to
capture the runaways. As Edward would respond to his son's protestations,
quote my property I will have or I'll breakfast inhale.
With the pressure now on, the gang of kidnapers again
attempted to negotiate with those inside the house, hoping to
resolve this situation before things got even more out of control.

(59:21):
To that end, they now made the offer that if
the two fugitives they were after, Josh and Nelson, surrendered themselves,
everyone else in the house would be allowed to go free.
And offer that those inside asked for like ten or
fifteen minutes to consider fifteen minutes would then pass without
any kind of response. The Posse then demanded an answer,
to which those inside asked for another five minutes to

(59:43):
debate amongst themselves, and the Posse again gave them that time,
seemingly actually believing that those inside the house were seriously
considering their offer and were thus about to surrender, because
of course they would. The Posse had the power of
the law behind them, Plus Corsach himself was promising leniency
for the runaways. Therefore, it just made sense that they

(01:00:04):
would admit the feed and accept the way things are
meant to be now. Of course, as you've likely surmised,
those inside the house were just playing for a time,
as it seems that no one inside the house, especially
after Eliza's threat, had any interest in surrendering at this point.
They were ready to fight and die if need be,
rather than be enslaved or to see one of their

(01:00:24):
own subjected to such a fate. Plase knew that after
sounding the horn, it was only a matter of time
before they save catching kidnappers were the ones who were outnumbered,
and indeed, before the latest allotment of time elapsed, people
began arriving at the Parker residence as African Americans, either
by themselves or in small groups, including reportedly another one

(01:00:44):
of Gorsag's escaped slaves, came marching through the fields from
all directions, with each and every one of them armed
in one way or another. Some had pistol, shotguns or
hunting rifles, while others wielded various dangerous farming implements, with
one man, Zeke Thompson, who was don as the quote
unquote Indian Negro, arriving carrying a scythe in one hand

(01:01:05):
and a revolver in the other. Also among those who
showed up that morning was a young man named Samuel Hopkins,
who carried a corn cutter that day, but during the
Civil War he would carry a musket as he again
took the fight to these safeholders by serving in the
thirty second United States Colored Infantry Regiment. Within half an
hour's time, then some fifty to seventy five black men

(01:01:26):
and women would arrive, with most of them carrying some
kind of firearms as they did. Meanwhile, some of their
white neighbors also showed up at the house in response
to hearing the horn sounded. Among the first to arrive
that morning was Parker's closest neighbor, a white miller named
Caster Hanway. Now Hanway, who had only been living in
the region for a few months, was seemingly the very
definition of an average man. Indeed, not much as known

(01:01:50):
about him, as he just seems to have been a
guy who wanted to apply his trade and support his family.
So if he was particularly religious or held any specific
political views, no one seems to have taken much note
of them. Yet still, Handway, upon being informed by a
local Quaker shopkeeper, Elijah Lewis that quote, William Parkersaus was
surrounded by kidnappers who were going to take him. The miller,

(01:02:11):
despite not feeling particularly well that day, made his way
over to the Parker residents by horseback, where he was
eventually joined by the man who had alerted him all
these events, Elijah Lewis, who had himself been informed of
the ongoing drama by a local African American farmer. Now,
the Gorsaches and their posse, being the ignorant, safeholding racist
that they were, simply assumed that Hanway, the unarmed miller

(01:02:33):
dressed and simple work clothes, had to be the mastermind
behind this organized resistance. As in their tiny racist brains,
it was impossible for African Americans to organize themselves like this. Indeed,
they convinced themselves that Hanway was the reason why the
men and women inside the house suddenly seemed to be
even more determined than ever to resist them. After all,

(01:02:54):
they had even lied on a hopeful yell round about
this time that had to be in response to the
all the nondescript white men, and not the dozens of
armed black neighbors showing up. Yet, while the Marylanders looked
at them with suspicion, Marshall Klein looked at Hanway and
Lewis as potential allies. After all, they were white, and
so he approached the two men, identifying himself as a

(01:03:16):
federal Marshall and presenting them with his warrens. However, despite this,
and despite the fugitive slave Lall, when Klein asked the
two men to assist him, they both flatly refused, with
Lewisy Quaker likely in doing so due to his religious convictions.
Hanway's motivations be while are unknown, but at the very
least he seemed to recognize that, in a very practical way,

(01:03:37):
that the Marshall and his allies law or no law
were not going to be allowed to take anyone away
from that house. Indeed, both Lewis and Hanway had poorly
asked of Marshall what William Parker had to say about
the situation, and upon being informed that Parker had told
him that he won't give up, both men Rey poorly
told Kleine, quote, if Parker says they will not give up,

(01:03:58):
you had better let them alone, for you will kill
some of you. We are not going to risk our lives,
with Hanway in particular, according to doctor Pierce, telling the
Marshal something along the lines of quote, you had better
go home. You need not come here to make a rest.
You cannot do it, Which does not necessarily mean that
the Miller had taken any kind of moral political stance

(01:04:20):
on the matter, as he could have simply been smart
enough to recognize the situation and how foolhardy was to
pursue this course with some fifty to seventy five individuals
gathered around who had no intention of allowing this kidnapping
to happen. Indeed, when some of the African Americans who
had gathered started threatening to shoot the members of the
Grsach posse. Hanway actually begged them not to shoot, suffice

(01:04:42):
it to say then that the message from William Parker's
white neighbors to Klin in the others was to leave
now so as to prevent bloodshed. The marshall, however, did
not seem interested in listening. Instead, he grew upset that
his authority was being ignored by these white men, as
he insisted that since he was acting under the authority
of the federal government, anyone who aided in the escape

(01:05:02):
of a feud to say fasty fine of a thousand
dollars in damages and five years of imprisonment. Yet, even
as he was making these angry pronouncements, more African Americans
continued to arrive at the farm, all of whom were
armed and ready to defend those inside and their freedom.
As the numbers tipped further and further against him, Klein
began to get noticeably nervous as he begged and pleaded

(01:05:23):
with Hanway and Lewis that they need not fire at
his men as they intended to withdraw. The two white men, though,
were insistent that they had no control over the gathered
black people or their actions, but they would still try
and speak to them. The two white men, true to
the word, apparently taught with some of those who had arrived,
informing them that the warnts appeared to be legal and
as such it would be a mistake to interfere with them,

(01:05:46):
with witnesses reporting that Henway in particular could be seen
encouraging the others to not shoot as he urged them
to disperse. Ban Mand Klein was encouraging his own men
to retreat, saying that he would hold Hanway responsible for
cors of its property, meaning that if the feuditives fled,
Hanway would be the one who would be held financially liable. Basically,
then it seems that Clein's plan was to go to

(01:06:07):
court and extract the costs of these saves from Hanway,
presumably because he was the first white guy who showed up,
with the logic here being that he had technically left
Handway in charge, and so if he did not ensure
that the fugitives surrendered, it would be the miller's fault. Therefore,
according to the fugitive slave law, he would then be
liable for the cost of the enslaved men. Now two

(01:06:28):
members of the a posse, Nathan Nelson and Nicholas Hutchins
were wise enough to immediately join the Marshall and moving
away from the Stone farmhouse. Meanwhile, both Hanway and Lewis
Parker's white neighbors also looked to extricate themselves from this scene,
as they too feared violence. Yet still, despite all that
had transpired, Edward Gorsuch would not leave now. He and
his men at this point were outnumbered something like eight

(01:06:51):
to one, but his pride would not let him leave
without recapturing his property, as throughout the course of the
morning it had become a common refrain of his but
he would have his property returned, and that he had
no interest in leaving without said property. Recognizing this, Edward's nephew,
doctor Pierce, went over to his uncle to try and
talk some sense to him. The doctor then attempted to

(01:07:12):
explain the need to extricate themselves from the situation as
he gathered, crowd was such that there was no weather
going to be able to make the arrest. Believing that
he had at last finally gotten through to the stubborn
old slaveholder, Pierson turned and started heading for Wherethy Marshall
and the others had gathered. Some distance away from the farmhouse,
assuming as he did that his uncle was following behind him. However,

(01:07:34):
when the doctor looked back a few moments later, he
saw Edward Gorsuch marching determinedly back toward the house, at
which point Pierce looked for Clown to try and aid
him in getting Gorocers to come away, but the Marshal
was nowhere to be seen. Edward Gorsuch then all by
himself walked back toward the stone house, apparently intent on
reclaiming his property, an extremely foolhardy move, as it seems

(01:07:57):
likely that the sense of anger and danger in the
air that morning had to be palpable. At this point,
everyone you see was pissed off about something. The member
of Corsa's posse, for example, were angry about being denied
their prize. As such, they were upset with all the
gathered black men and women who were menacing them with
their weapons, and they were none too happy with the

(01:08:17):
two local white men, Caster Handway and Elijah Lewis, whom
they were now convinced were abolitionist agitators who had to
be behind all this. Plus the are now also upset
in Martial Klan, as he had led them into this mess. Mean,
while the gathered black men and women were righteously pissed
off at these slave catchers for daring to invade their community,
a rage that had multiple origin points. For some, it

(01:08:40):
was memories of their own enclaitement that filled their anchor.
For others, though, it was to fear that they too
might one day be faced with such a situation, while
still others were driven by memories of all the other
kidnappings that had taken place. As such, this was their
opportunity to demonstrate that they were not going to stand
for regardless of what the law said. In such an environment,

(01:09:01):
it probably would have been advisable to not antagonize the
people who outnumbered you. Yet that's exactly what happened as
Edward Gorsuch stomped back toward the house, where he confronted
one of his former saves, who was identified by William
Parker Samuel Thompson, which means this was possibly no a beauty.
According to William Parker's recollection, then, quote unquote, Samuel told
Gorsuch that he had better just go back home to Maryland,

(01:09:24):
which was sound advice, but Gorsuch wouldn't hear of it
as he again insisted that quote, you had better give
up and come home with me, just apparently oblivious to
the reality of the situation he found himself in. Samuel, meanwhile,
by this point, had enough of this man who was
looking to ensave him, as he lashed out at Gorsage,
striking him in the side of the head with his

(01:09:45):
pistol and knocking the safe older to the ground. Edward
gorsuch Thou refused to take the hint as he started
to get back to his feet, and in doing so
reportedly signaled to his men to come to his aid,
for which the man he looked to and saved struck
him down again. At this the members of the Gorsach
posse reportedly started firing and rushing forward, at which point

(01:10:05):
Samuel and several others responded by shooting and killing the
old man who was the cause of all this, while
also returning fire upon the gang of would be kidnappers.
As as was happening, groser To's son Dickinson started rushing
to his father's aid pistol on hand, but someone knocked
the gun from his Graspatha club before he could do
anything with it. Meanwhile, William Parker's brother in law, Alexander Pinckney,

(01:10:26):
responded to this sudden aggressive movement by opening fire with
his shotgun. The blast then caught the slaveholder's son and
his signe, wounding but not killing him, as he would
survive and later have some seventy pounds removed from his
side and arm. With Edward Gorsich now laying dead on
the ground and his son Dickinson bleeding badly from a
myriad of wounds, their friends and relatives and his slave
catching party turned and fled for their lives, as did

(01:10:49):
Marshall Klein, Quicker, shopkeeper Elijah Lewis, and Miller cast her Henway.
Doctor Pierce, meanwhile, who was closer than the rest, after
trying to talk some sense into his uncle, was forced
to elbow his way through the crowded over a fence
before finally taking off running down the lane as he
chased after his fleeing compatriots, leaving with a number of
holes in his clothes as he did so from the
various bullets and shotgun pellets that had been fired after

(01:11:11):
him in his flight. Indeed, he had not gotten now
without a scratch, as one bullet had graced his scout,
while another had hit him in the rest, while a
third had hit him in the shoulder blade, and an
additional two had launched in his spine. Notably, the doctor
was saved from taking even more wounds as the miller
Hanway had placed his source in between the fleeing doctor
and those pursuing him and in effort to save his life.

(01:11:32):
Although as soon as someone ordered him to get out
of the way lest his life before fit as well,
Hanway obsted to flee rather than try to protect these
save folds any further. Doctor Pierce, meanwhile, was joined in
his flight by Joshua Gorsuch, Edward's cousin, who had suffered
multiple blows to his head as he fled from the
angry crowd. Together, the two wounded men ran as fast
as they could from those who had gathered round the

(01:11:53):
Parker residents to resist these save holders and would be kidnappers,
some of whom were now continuing their pursuit. As according
to Piers, I ran with Joshua for a time, but
finding that they were over taking us rapidly, I ran
off as quick as possible and left Joshua behind. Once
did doctor Fuddy put a safe amount of distance between
himself and his pursuers. He looked back and saw Joshua

(01:12:14):
being struck in the head with a gun, but he
too would eventually escape this speeding as well. It was
seemilarly then in part this choice to use guns as
clums that was likely a byproduct of the weapons slow
reloading times then ensured that so many of the would
be slave catchers escaped with their lives that day, as
the blows were struck with such force that they ended
up bending the guns barrels, thus robbing them of their effectiveness.

(01:12:36):
As for Joshua, he was lucky to run into Marshall Klein,
who now had to lead the man away from danger,
as he was down pretty seriously addle from repeated blows
to the head, which was protected only somewhat by the
heavy fur hat lined with handkerchiefs that he wore. In
their flighty two men saught aid, but they found that
no one in the area was willing to provide any
No one, for example, was willing to rent them a horse,

(01:12:58):
or even to simply point them in the direction of
a doctor. Indeed, one man, after briefly agreeing to take
them to a nearby village, ultimately opted to instead just
give them their money back, it seems, and then no
one was willing to aid these kidnappers, and so Marshall
Klein and a severely adult companion had to walk on
foot to a nearby town, where Klein put Joshua on
a train, sending him to relatives and another estate who

(01:13:20):
would look after him, while client stayed in the area,
trying to find and aid the others, but finding little
to know how from the locals as he did so.
As for Edward Gorsuch's son Dickinson, who had been broadsided
by a shotgun blast, most assumed he would be dead
before too long. Still, Dickinson would recall being given some
wonder by a white man, while the African Americans who

(01:13:41):
were there recalled that it was an old black man
who actually insisted that they provide him with some aid.
Dickinson then was eventually removed from the scene and handed
over to a physician who very much did not think
he was going to survive the night. Dickinson, though, would
linger on day after day until finally, three weeks later,
he was well enough to actually leave his bed. Meanwhile,
Edward Gorsag's body would eventually be retrieved and sent back

(01:14:04):
to Maryland after a corner's inquest, where no one was
particularly interested in hearing Marshal Klein's testimony, as the locals
seemingly found like the slaveholder had gotten what he deserved. Indeed,
the official corner's inquest would read quote, on the morning
of the eleventh, the neighborhood was thrown into some excitement
by the above deceased and some five or six persons
in company with him, making an attack upon a family

(01:14:25):
of colored persons living in said township near the brick mill,
about four o'clock in the morning, for the purpose of
arresting some feuditissays. As he elect, many of the colored
people of the neighborhood collected, and there was considerable firing
of guns and other firearms by both parties. Upon the
arrival some of the neighbors that the place had to
the right had subsided, found the above deceased laying on

(01:14:46):
his back or right side dead. Upon a post mortem
examination made by doctor s. Pattison and Martin in our presence,
we believe he came to his death by gunshot wounds
that he received in the above mentioned ride caused by
some person or persons to us unknown now. As you
might expect, the events in Christiana drew a lot of
attention and coverage in the press because while white safeholders

(01:15:07):
and save catchers, kidnapping or killing black individuals wasn't seen
as particularly newsworthy, as illustrated by the fact that when
some feuditive saves were killed by white slave catchers in
Pennsylvania just a few months later in April eighteen fifty two,
the press barely made a peep. In contrast, though, blacks
killing a white save holder and doing so in defiance
of a federal law. While that was apparently newsworthy, indicating

(01:15:31):
quite clearly whose lives actually mattered in the eyes of
the national press, the papers labeled this act of self
defense and resistance to being saved a riot, while headlines
blared quote Civil War the first blow Strock bi Mall
pro Savory papers and Savory supporters in general inflated the
numbers of African Americans who came to the aid of
the feuded as in Christiana, as they claimed that as

(01:15:53):
many as one hundred were involved in an attempt to
make it seem like the party of kidnappers and faced
even more overwhelming eyes and they actually had. After all,
they had to explain to themselves how superior white Southern
gentlemen could ever be defeated and even killed by lowly
inferior escaped slaves. Among those who looked to perpetuate this
storyline was Edward Gorsag's son Dickinson, who would write in

(01:16:16):
his diary, quote, went to the house where the boys
were thought to be. We were overpowered by the negroes
of the country about eighty two one hundred. Poppy was
knocked down and shot. I was shot and struck on
the cheek. Meanwhile, the pro savory Delaware State General would
look to ramp up the barbarity of the local black
community by claiming that quote a number of the murderous

(01:16:36):
looking weapons were found in the Negro hunts, with the
so called weapons in question being simple farm implements. Southerners
were especially outraged over rumors and black women had used
farm implements like corn cutters to mutilate Edward Gorsach's body
after he had been killed, as reportedly scalped him and,
according to some, even cut off his penis. The problem

(01:16:57):
was none of the official documents concerning the bonny actually
contained gained any indication of such mutilations, which of course
did not stop people like the Governor of Maryland from
referring to the mutilationcy following year in his addressed to
the State Legislature. In contrast to the barbarity of those
who participated in the ride with their murderous weapons, who
would mutilate a dead man's body, was the noble and

(01:17:18):
upstanding Edward Nor such whom the Governor of Maryland would
call a quote highly respectable citizen, while President Millard Fillmore,
in his second Annual Message in December eighteen fifty one,
would refer to him as a quote mistimable citizen. Others meanwhile,
held him up as a kindly safeholder, a man who
treated the people he enslaved well as he taught them

(01:17:40):
Christian doctrine, and even freed those he liked. This noble,
respectable citizen, who was kind to the people he enslaved,
had simply gone north with warrants in hand to retrieve
his property, and for this he had been killed. This
good man, then, had followed all the precepts of the
new feeddive slave law, and yet for this he had
lost his life. Furthermore, these Southern narratives seemed to have

(01:18:03):
it that the dastly Northern abolitionists were at the heart
of these events, as black people in their small, little
racist minds were not capable of this kind of resistance
on their own. As such, they had to be the
pawns for abolitionists. So while William Parker and the men
who had fled the Garsage farm had fought off this
attempt to capture them, thanks to the men and women
of their community in Christiana, Pennsylvania, their story wasn't done

(01:18:26):
as many in the country, the South in particular, one
a vengeance, both bloody and in the courtroom, lest they
warned the country might be headed for a civil war. However,
the story of that quest for vengeance and the fates
of those who were involved in the so called Christiana
Riot will have to for now remain a story for
another time. Thank you for listening to Distorted History. If

(01:18:51):
you would like to help out, please rate and review
the podcasts and tell your friends if you think they'll
be interested. If you would like ad for in early episodes,
I set up such a over at patreon dot com
slash to started history by paying ten bucks a month,
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available on Spotify or likely through your podcast app as
long as it uses an RSS feed. I will continue

(01:19:13):
to post sources on koffee and Twitter though, as it's
just a convenient place to go to access that information regardless,
once again, thank you for listening and until next time.

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