The Journal of Negro History Volume V Part 4

[8] _Liberator_, October 4, 1850.

[9] _Ibid._, October 18, 1850.

[10] _Ibid._, October 4, 1850.

[11] _Ibid._, April 25, 1851.

[12] _Ibid._, May 2, 1851.

[13] Siebert, _Underground Railroad_, p. 249.

[14] _Ibid._, p. 249.

[15] Stevens, Anthony Burns, a _History_, p. 208.

[16] American Anti-slavery Society, _Eleventh Annual Report_, 1851, p.

31.

[17] _The Voice of the Fugitive_, April 9, 1851.

[18] _Cong. Herald_, May 13, 1861, quoted in American Missionary a.s.sociation, 15th annual report, 1861, p. 28. There is evidence that the Fugitive Slave Law was used in some cases to strike fear into the hearts of Negroes in order to cause them to abandon their property.

_The Liberator_ of October 25, 1850, quotes the _Detroit Free Press_ to the effect that land speculators have been scaring the Negroes in some places in the north in order to get possession of their properties.

[19] American Anti-slavery Society, _Twenty-seventh Annual Report_, 1861, p. 49.

[20] In _The Liberator_ of July 30, 1852, a letter from Hiram Wilson, at St. Catharines, says: "Arrivals from slavery are frequent."

[21] _The Voice of the Fugitive_, July 29, 1852.

[22] _Ibid._, July 1, 1852.

[23] _St. Catharine's Journal_, quoted in _The Voice of the Fugitive_, September 23, 1852.

[24] Quoted in _The Liberator_, September 12, 1851.

[25] _Liberator_, February 14, 1851.

[26] _The Voice of the Fugitive_, August 27, 1851.

[27] Quoted in American Anti-slavery Society, Twenty-seventh Report, 1861.

[28] American Anti-slavery Society, Twenty-seventh Annual Report, 1861, pp. 48-49.

[29] P. 157.

[30] Rhodes, _History of the United States_, I, 210.

[31] _Ibid._, I, 224-25. See also Ward, _Autobiography of a Fugitive Negro_, p. 127.

[32] _Ibid._, I, 222-23. See also _The Voice of the Fugitive_, June 3 and July 1, 1852.

[33] Schauler, _History of the United States_, V, 290-291.

[34] Troy, _Hairbreadth Escapes_, pp. 39-43.

[35] _Liberator_, June 11, 1852. See also _The Voice of the Fugitive_, June 17, 1852.

[36] _Ibid._, July 30, 1852.

[37] _Liberator_, Sept. 12, 1851; _The Voice of the Fugitive_, Sept.

24, 1851; Anti-slavery Tracts, New Series, No. 15, p. 19.

[38] Sandusky _Commercial Register_, Oct. 21, 1852; _Liberator_, Oct.

29, 1852; Anti-slavery Tracts, New Series, No. 15, p. 24.

[39] _The Voice of the Fugitive_, February 12, 1851.

[40] Ninth Annual Report, N. Y., 1855, p. 47

[41] American Anti-slavery Society, Eleventh Annual Report, 1851, p.

100.

[42] _The Voice of the Fugitive_ of January 15, 1851, and November 18, 1852.

[43] _Ibid._, January 1 and May 20, 1852.

[44] Troy, _Hair-breadth Escapes_, pp. 108 and 122.

[45] "The Canadian government reckoned that there had been not less than 40,000 Canadian enlistments in the American Army during the Civil War."--Goldwin Smith's _Correspondence_ (letter to Moberly Bell), p.

377.

RICHARD HILL[1]

Richard Hill, one of Jamaica's most famous sons, was born at Montego Bay on the first of May, 1795. In 1779 his father, also named Richard, came to Jamaica from Lincolnshire, where the family had lived for several centuries, and along with a brother settled at Montego Bay.

There he became a substantial merchant, and on his death in 1818 left his property in Jamaica to his son and two daughters, Ann and Jane.

Hill's mother, who had East Indian as well as Negro blood in her veins, survived her husband many years, her son being constant in his attention to her up to the last.

At the early age of five Hill was sent to England to reside with his father's relations then living at Cheshunt, there to remain till his fourteenth year when he was sent to the Elizabethan Grammar School at Horncastle to finish his education. Upon the death of his father in 1818 Hill returned to Jamaica. Although his property came into the possession of his son and two daughters the father's death in some way involved Richard Hill in irksome money obligations which hara.s.sed him for many years, and even after he had discharged them left a gloom over his life.

His father was a man in advance of his times, hating and deploring the intolerance and the tyranny that grew out of slavery as it then existed in Jamaica. On his death-bed he made his son solemnly pledge himself to devote his energies to the cause of freedom, and never to rest until those civil disabilities, under which the Negroes were laboring, had been entirely removed; and, further, until slavery itself had received its death-blow.

The time and opportunity for fulfilling this pledge soon came, for in the year 1823 the Negroes in Jamaica commenced their agitation for obtaining equal privileges with their white brethren. It does not appear that Hill attached himself openly to any of the societies that were formed for the purpose of carrying on this agitation. But he freely gave them the benefit of his abilities, helping the whole movement with his advice and with his pen.[2]

In the year 1826 Hill visited Cuba, the United States and Canada, and then went on to England, landing there in September. In 1827 he was deputed by the organization in Jamaica to use his efforts in England to secure the a.s.sistance of the leading members of the Anti-Slavery party. During his stay there he was on terms of close intimacy with Wilberforce, Buxton, Clarkson, Babington, Lushington and Zachary Macaulay,[3] all members of the Anti-Slavery Society, as well as Pringle and other men eminent for their philanthropy and talents and noted for the deep interest they took in all that related to the elevation and welfare of the Negroes of the British West Indian colonies. The pet.i.tion from the people of color of this island to the House of Commons for the removal of their civil disabilities, was entrusted to Hill, who upon the occasion of presenting it was permitted "within the bar" of the House. On that occasion Canning delivered his last speech a splendid effort in favor of the pet.i.tioners. Hill remained several years in England and contributed largely by his pen and his speeches to enlighten the public mind of England as to the real character of West Indian slavery. But the remittances from the "people of color" in Jamaica, never very large, soon became few and far between. So Hill, always independent in every way, even in his friendships and political alliances, maintained himself and his sister, Jane, almost entirely by his contributions, literary and scientific, to several popular newspapers and periodicals.[4]