03302cam a2200385 i 4500 950219224 TxAuBib 20231004120000.0 230418s2023||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2023012436 9781250843210 HRD 30.00 1250843219 HRD 30.00 TxAuBib rda Shane, Scott, 1954-, author. Flee north [BOOK] : a forgotten hero and the fight for freedom in slavery's borderland / Scott Shane. First edition. New York : Celadon Books, 2023. viii, 340 pages, 8 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color) ; 25 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier Includes bibliographical references and index. The Most Inhuman System That Ever Blackened the Pages of History -- Until No Slave Should Be Found in Our Land -- That Mock Metropolis of Freedom -- The Flesh-Mongers -- Slavery's Borderland -- Safe from the Fangs of Robert Gilmor -- The Laughingstock Letters -- That Vile Wretch Slatter -- Very Vigilant Officers! -- Between Two Fires -- A Fugitive from Justice -- Perhaps Reckless -- Let the Strife Go On -- Fly to Canada, and Begin Anew -- Resident Capitalist -- No Breeze Comes. Born into slavery, by the 1840s Thomas Smallwood was free, self-educated, and working as a shoemaker a short walk from the U.S. Capitol. He recruited a young white activist, Charles Torrey, and together they began to organize mass escapes from Washington, Baltimore, and surrounding counties to freedom in the north. They were racing against an implacable enemy: men like Hope Slatter, the region’s leading slave trader, part of a lucrative industry that would tear one million enslaved people from their families and sell them to the brutal cotton and sugar plantations of the deep south. Men, women, and children in imminent danger of being sold south turned to Smallwood, who risked his own freedom to battle what he called “the most inhuman system that ever blackened the pages of history.” And he documented the escapes in satirical newspaper columns, mocking the slaveholders, the slave traders and the police who worked for them. At a time when Americans are rediscovering a tragic and cruel history and struggling anew with the legacy of white supremacy, this Flee North -- the first to tell the extraordinary story of Smallwood -- offers complicated heroes, genuine villains, and a powerful narrative set in cities still plagued by shocking racial inequity today. -Provided by publisher. 20231004. Smallwood, Thomas 1801- (Main entry to be updated & alt. id.) Torrey, Charles T Charles Turner 1813-1846. Slatter, Hope H Hope Hull 1790-1853. African American abolitionists Biography. Abolitionists United States Biography. Underground Railroad. Slave trade United States History 19th century. Fugitives from slavery United States History 19th century. Toronto (Ont.) Biography.