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The Pearl Incident in 1848 was the largest recorded nonviolent escape attempt by slaves in United States history. On April 15, 1848, seventy-seven slaves attempted to escape Washington D.C. by sailing away on a schooner called ''The Pearl''. Their plan was to sail south on the Potomac River, then north up the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware River to the free state of New Jersey, a distance of nearly 225 miles. The attempt was organized by both whites and free blacks, who expanded the escape to include many more slaves. Paul Jennings, a former slave who had served President James Madison, helped plan the escape. The slaves, men, women and children, found their passage delayed by winds running against the ship. Two days later, they were captured on the Chesapeake Bay near Point Lookout in Maryland by an armed posse traveling by steamboat. As punishment, the owners soon sold most of the slaves to traders who took them to the Deep South. Freedom for the two Edmonson sisters was purchased that year with funds raised by Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, New York. When the ship and slaves were brought back to Washington, a pro-slavery riot broke out in the city. The mob tried to attack an abolitionist newspaper and other known anti-slavery activists. Extra police patrolled for three days to try to contain the violence, until the unrest ended. The events provoked a slavery debate in Congress. They are believed to have influenced its provision in the Compromise of 1850 that ended the slave trade in the District of Columbia, although not slavery in the jurisdiction. The escape inspired Harriet Beecher Stowe in writing her novel, ''Uncle Tom's Cabin'' (1852) and added to abolitionist support in the North. Three white men were initially charged on numerous counts with aiding the escape and transporting the slaves; the captains Daniel Drayton and Edward Sayres were tried and convicted in 1848. After serving four years in prison, in 1852 they were pardoned by President Millard Fillmore. ==Background== Like the surrounding states of Maryland and Virginia and others to the South, Washington, DC was a "slave society," as defined by the historian Ira Berlin in his ''Many Thousands Gone: A History of Two Centuries of American Slavery''. It had a major slave market and was a center of the domestic slave trade; with its connection to the Chesapeake Bay by the Potomac River, it was a transit point for slaves being shipped or marched overland from the Upper South to markets or owners in the Deep South. Numerous families in the city held slaves, generally as domestic servants and artisans. Some owners hired out their slaves to work as servants or on the waterfront and in other urban jobs. Abolitionists, both free blacks and whites, were active in the city in trying to end the slave trade and slavery. In addition, since the 1840s, there had been an organized group that supported the Underground Railroad in the district.〔Mary Kay Ricks, ''Escape On The Pearl: The Heroic Bid For Freedom On The Underground Railroad,'' New York: William Morrow, 2007〕 White supporters included the abolitionists William L. Chaplin and Gerrit Smith of New York, who helped find the captain Daniel Drayton and pay for a ship. The black community made the project its own, notifying so many families that soon there were 75 slaves who wanted to be part of the escape.〔 In 1848 free blacks outnumbered slaves in the District of Columbia by three to one; the community demonstrated in its planning for the escape that it could act in a unified way.〔(Mary Beth Corrigan, "The Legacy and Significance of a Failed Mass Slave Escape" ), H-Net Reviews: Josephine Pacheco, ''The Pearl: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac'', April 2006, accessed 12 Jan 2009〕 They wanted to plan an event that would capture the attention of Congress (which was dominated by representatives from the South because of the three-fifths compromise under the Constitution) and the country to promote an end to slavery in the District of Columbia. For two days prior to the slaves' escape, many city residents had been celebrating the news from France of the expulsion of King Louis Philippe and the founding of the French Second Republic, with its assertion of universal human rights and liberty. Some free blacks and slaves had plans to gain such freedom for many slaves.〔 People gathered to hear addresses in Lafayette Square in front of the White House. As the historian John H. Paynter recounted, "Among the addresses which aroused the large crowd to enthusiasm were those of Senator Patterson of Tennessee and Senator Foote of Mississippi. The former likened the Tree of Liberty to the great cotton-wood tree of his section, whose seed is blown far and wide, while the latter spoke eloquently of the universal emancipation of man and the approaching recognition in all countries of the great principles of equality and brotherhood."〔(Note: Patterson was not elected as senator until 1866; in 1848 he was still an attorney in Greeneville, Tennessee.)〔("David T. Patterson" ), ''Biographical Dictionary of the United States Congress''〕 Paul Jennings, a former slave of President James Madison, was among the free black organizers of the escape.〔 Among the slaves planning to leave were six siblings of the Edmonson family, and a variety of other families. The Potomac River and Chesapeake Bay provided a water route to the free states of New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but the organizers had to acquire a ship to transport the slaves over the 225 miles of water. Jennings confessed his role in organizing the escape in a letter to his mentor, the northern senator Daniel Webster, an abolitionist. Jennings escaped public notice at the time for his role.〔 The captain Daniel Drayton was from Philadelphia and supported abolition,〔 but admitted that he was offered money to transport the slaves. He found a ship and willing partner in Edward Sayres, the pilot of the 54-ton schooner, ''The Pearl.''〔Josephine F. Pacheco, ''The Pearl: A Failed Slave Escape on the Potomac,'' (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2005), 53, 55-58.〕 His only other crew was Chester English, a cook. "In the darkness of the night seventy-six colored men, women, and children found their way to the schooner."〔Wilhelmus Bogart Bryan, ''A History of the National Capital: From its Foundation through the Period of the Adoption of the Organic Act,'' 2: 1815-1878 (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1916), 385. Note: Ricks' 2007 book and other sources state the number of slaves as seventy-seven.〕 With Drayton and Sayres accepting the risk of transporting them, on Saturday night, April 15, the slaves boarded the ship. Chester English, the cook, was on ''The Pearl'' to supply the passengers until they reached freedom.〔 The slaves included six grown siblings from the family of Paul and Amelia Edmonson; because Amelia was a slave, their fourteen children had been born into slavery. Paul Edmonson was a free black. The two sisters and four brothers had all been "hired out" by their master to work for pay in the city.〔 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Pearl incident」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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