Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North - Softcover

Slaughter, Thomas P.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 019504634X ISBN 13: 9780195046342

Publisher: Oxford University Press USA, 1991

Synopsis

The Christiana Riot occurred in Pennsylvania, near the Maryland border, in 1851. The Fugitive Slave Law, passed in 1850 as part of the famous Compromise of that year, granted the right of Southern slaveholders to recover and have returned to them runaway slaves, even if they had fled into territories in the North that were free of slavery. In this incident, four slaves escaped from the farm of Edward Gorsuch in Maryland and fled to Pennsylvania. When Gorsuch and a posse pursued them, a gun battle occurred in Christiana in which Gorsuch and several of his party were killed. The slaves subsequently escaped to Canada. The Pennsylvania courts refused to prosecute anyone involved in the riot on the slaves' side, nor were the courts prepared to enforce the Fugitive Slave Law.

The Christiana Riot became a cause celebre, with the South denouncing the Pennsylvania courts and treating Gorsuch as a martyr. Slaughter sees the Riot as a key event leading to the Civil War, for it indicated that the nation was incapable of resolving disputes over slavery without resorting to force that eventually led to the sectional war. The book also puts the Riot in the context of the overt racism that existed in America, both north and south, in these pre-Civil War years.

About this title

About the Author

Author of The Whiskey Rebellion (OUP/USA 1986)

From the Back Cover

A compelling analysis of racial violence in pre-Civil War America as seen through the prism of the September 1851 riot in Christiana, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania....Slaughter...is a very good storyteller....He neatly weaves together the threads of local, regional, and national crises to offer a persuasive account of the importance of the Christiana Riot in the coming Civil War...An eloquent and insightful story that is respectful of the past, yet speaks to our present concerns with clarity and conviction.

Edition details

• Publisher: Oxford University Press USA
• Publication date: 1991
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 019504634X
• ISBN 13: 9780195046342
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272