“The Christiana Tragedy”

Background: This account of the resistance in Christiana is from the Anti-Slavery Bugle, an abolitionist newspaper published in Salem, Ohio.

The tragedy which occurred near Lancaster, PA on the 11th, is the first we have had under the Fugitive act, where slaves defended themselves like men. The probability is, that it will not be the last. The wonder is, that colored men have heretofore submitted so tamely.

The account we give is from a correspondent of the New York Tribune, who received his facts from an eye witness.

From an individual just from that place, we learn that a slaveholder with his sons and nephew, from Maryland, accompanied by U.S. officers of this city and Baltimore, went to Christiana after two fugitive slaves. The blacks, having received notice of their coming, gathered, a considerable number of them, in the house which the slave-catching party were expected to visit. The door was fastened and the blacks retired to the upper part of the house. When the slaveholder and his company approached they were warned off. A parley took place, the slaveholder declaring, as it is said and believed, “I will go to h___ or have my slaves.” The door was broken in, a horn was sounded out of one of the upper windows; after an interval, a company of blacks, armed gathered on the spon, and the negroes in the house made a rush down stairs and crowded the whites out. Here the parley was resumed, the spokesman of the blacks telling the white men to go away; they were determined he said to die rather than go into slavery, or allow any one of their number to be taken. He declared moreover that the blacks would not fire, but if the whites fired they were dead men. Shortly, first the nephew, then the slave-owner and his son fired revolvers, wounding a number of the blacks, but not seriously—one man had his ear perforated by a ball. The clothes of the others were pierced and torn, but as the blacks said afterwards “the Lord shook the balls out of their clothes.” The fire of the whites was returned. The slave-owner fell dead, and his son was dangerously wounded. The white the returned. One of the U.S. officers summoned the posse, but in vain. Some of the neighbors, Quakers, and Anti-Slavery persons, went and took up the wounded man and carried him to one of their homes, where, while they told him in Quaker phrase, that “they had no unity with him in his acts,” and abhorred the wicked business in which he had been engaged. Every attention was paid him. Medical aid instantly sent for. The effect of this treatment upon the young man, as our informant told us, may easily be imagined. He wept and vowed, if he lived, to correct the impression people had at his home about the Abolitionists. The Doctor pronounced his wounds mortal...

Our informant, an aged and eminent member of the Society of Friends, does not profess to give the testimony of an eye witness; he had seen the dead body of the slaveholder. He knew the people who took charge of the wounded man. He knew that the blacks had been counseled against resistance. The friends of the slave and the fugitive, in that neighborhood are Quakers. Further than this, the above account is the account of a resident in that vicinity, who gives us what is the most probable truth of the case, according to the statements of those in the neighborhood best acquainted with the circumstances. In a few days, it is hoped that the truth will be ascertained with more certainty. Although, by some questioned at first, which fired first, the settled belief at the place is, that the whites fired first, as stated above.

Yours, for truth’s sake, W.H.F.

Source: “The Christiana Tragedy” Anti-Slavery Bugle, September 1851.