Stealing Freedom Along the Mason-Dixon Line

Thomas McCreary, the Notorious Slave Catcher from Maryland
Erscheinungsjahr 2016
ISBN: 978-0-9965944-4-8
Verlag: Maryland Center for History and Culture

Buch, Englisch, 254 Seiten, Format (B × H): 150 mm x 226 mm, Gewicht: 408 g

Slavery, freedom, and kidnapping in the mid-Atlantic.

This is the story of Thomas McCreary, a slave catcher from Cecil County, Maryland. Reviled by some, proclaimed a hero by others, he first drew public attention in the late 1840s for a career that peaked a few years after passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Living and working as he did at the midpoint between Philadelphia, an important center for assisting fugitive slaves, and Baltimore, a major port in the slave trade, his story illustrates in raw detail the tensions that arose along the border between slavery and freedom just prior to the Civil War. McCreary and his community provide a framework to examine slave catching and kidnapping in the Baltimore-Wilmington-Philadelphia region and how those activities contributed to the nation’s political and visceral divide.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Diggins, Milt

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Regional- & Stadtgeschichte
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Weltgeschichte & Geschichte einzelner Länder und Gebietsräume Geschichte einzelner Länder Amerikanische Geschichte

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Preface & Acknowledgments
Introduction
1. The Maelstrom
2. A Failed Compromise
3. "Hanging the First Abolitionist that They Catch in Maryland"
4. The Trials of Rachel Parker
5. Kidnapping. or Slave Catching?
6. End of an Era
Afterword
References
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Diggins, Milt
Milt Diggins, an independent scholar, is a former editor of the Cecil Historical Journal and a frequent contributor to local publications.