Cincinnati’s Underground Railroad

THE CITY OF CINCINNATI. Being located on the Ohio River in Cincinnati, the sixth largest city in the nation during the 1850s, presented a wealth of economic opportunities for those who wanted to take advantage of the emerging pork packing and steamboat industries. Simultaneously, the Queen City became a safe haven for thousands of fugitive African Americans who sought to gain their freedom. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

CINCINNATI AND THE OHIO RIVER. While African Americans who lived north of the Ohio River were free, they still faced harassment and persecution from Cincinnati’s pro-slavery majority. The rights of African American Cincinnatians were minimal at best and their very safety was precarious, with gangs on the lookout to kidnap and sell them into slavery. The city’s emerging steamboat industry granted employment opportunities for African Americans and provided a way to transport black Americans escaping from the South to the North without detection. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

CINCINNATI’S CONNECTION TO THE INTERNAL SLAVE TRADE. The internal or domestic slave trade illustrated the falseness of the slaveholding-class claim that enslavement was a benign institution. Driven primarily by economic necessity, large profits, or a desire to curtail the notion of running away, owners in the upper South, as well as in lands that bordered parts of the Ohio Valley region, developed complex plans to expand the institution. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

OHIO ANTI-SLAVERY SOCIETY. In 1832, the New England Anti-Slavery Society was formed; within five years, it had several hundred local chapters, primarily in Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. In late 1833, William Lloyd Garrison allied with black and white abolitionists to form the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS) which had, as associate members, interracial female antislavery societies in Philadelphia and Boston. This society also grew quickly and had almost a quarter of a million members by 1838. In Cincinnati, Garrison helped to lead the antislavery crusade. His publications were so powerful and potent that a reward for his capture was issued by a group of white citizens. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

RUNAWAY SLAVE AD. As a result of increased numbers of runaway enslaved individuals who escaped during the antebellum period, owners began to produce hundreds of advertisements throughout the Ohio Valley region, especially in Cincinnati. Seeking the return of their property, owners wrote out tens of thousands of notices that included descriptions of special or unique facial features, speech patterns, intellectual qualities, skin color, gender, and other features that might lead to the recapture of their slave. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

JOHN MALVIN. Not all African Americans who traveled to Canada to live were former enslaved persons looking to escape the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. Some free black Americans moved to Canada to avoid the continuous racism and racial prejudice of the United States throughout the antebellum period. One such person was John Malvin, a former resident of Cincinnati who had originally moved to the Queen City during the 1820s. (Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society.)

JOHN RANKIN. Born on February 4, 1793, in Tennessee, John Rankin attended Washington College in Virginia, became a minister in the Presbyterian Church, and quickly dedicated himself to the destruction of the system of enslavement throughout the nation. In 1818, Revered Rankin formed an antislavery society in Carlisle, Kentucky, but eventually fled the state and moved to Ripley, Ohio, where enslavement was illegal. While many Ohioans opposed the ending of the peculiar institution, the Buckeye state generally was more receptive to abolitionists. Once in Ripley, Reverend Rankin and several of his sons began to participate in various Underground Railroad activities. The Rankin home stood on a 300-foot-high hill that overlooked the Ohio River, where he and his sons would signal runaways in Kentucky with lanterns when it was safe for them to cross the river. Harriet Beecher Stowe immortalized Rankin’s efforts to help African Americans in her book Uncle Tom’s Cabin, with the Rankin home being the first stop in Ohio for Eliza, one of the book’s main characters, as she sought freedom in the North. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

JOHN RANKIN’S LETTERS ON AMERICAN SLAVERY. During his first few years in Ripley, Ohio, Reverend Rankin learned that his brother Thomas, a merchant in Augusta County, Virginia, had purchased several enslaved persons of color; Rankin became so outraged that he began to write a series of antislavery letters to his brother that were published by an editor of the local Ripley newspaper, the Castigator, and subsequently became a book titled Letters on American Slavery. (Both, courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

LANE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. In 1829, Lane Seminary was built in Cincinnati. It was named after brothers Ebenezer and William Lane, who pledged $4,000 for the construction of the school, which produced numerous well-known abolitionists such as Theodore Weld and John G. Fee. One of the first books that the students read was Reverend Rankin’s Letters on American Slavery. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

LANE DEBATES. During the early 1800s, many Protestant seminaries were interested in sending pastors westward to the new territories. Because Ohio was a free state, many Presbyterian and Congregationalist settlers came here, specifically to Cincinnati. Lane Seminary became the site of a series of famous debates on the topic of enslavement. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

REV. JOHN G. FEE. Born in Bracken County, Kentucky, in 1816, John G. Fee was raised in a slaveholding family. After college he finished his undergraduate career at Miami University, in Oxford, Ohio, and enrolled into Cincinnati’s Lane Seminary, where the heated debates over the issues of slavery and abolition had a profound effect on him. Because of his radical antislavery opinions, Fee’s father eventually disowned him. (Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society.)

JAMES BRADLEY. At the age of three, young James Bradley was stolen from his African family and brought to South Carolina, where he was almost immediately sold to a slaveholder from Pendleton County, Kentucky. Several years later, Bradley’s owner decided to move his family to Arkansas, and soon James developed a plan to purchase his freedom. Once free, he attended Lane Seminary and eventually became the first African American student at Oberlin College. (Courtesy of Richard Cooper.)

THEODORE DWIGHT WELD. Born on November, 23, 1803, in Hampton, Connecticut, Theodore Dwight Weld eventually became a prominent reformer, educator, and abolitionist. In 1819, he enrolled into the Phillips Andover Academy, but had to withdraw due to various health problems. However, by 1833, with his health problems behind him, Weld became a student again and eventually a professor at the Lane Seminary in Cincinnati. (Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society.)

A LETTER BY JOHN RANKIN ABOUT LANE SEMINARY. This is the cover page to a 31-page essay titled “Review of the Statement of the Faculty of Lane Seminary in Relation to the Recent Difficulties in that Institution,” which was written by Rev. John Rankin of Ripley, Ohio. In the essay, Reverend Rankin, pastor of the Presbyterian Church of Ripley, defends students who in 1834 established an antislavery society at Lane Seminary. (Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society.)

JAMES BIRNEY. Born in 1792 in Danville, Kentucky, as the son of a wealthy slave owning family, Birney was educated at Princeton and eventually became a successful lawyer. However, he gave up his career as state senator in Kentucky and then Alabama to work to end the system of human bondage. In 1832, he became a member of the American Colonization Society. He founded the abolitionist newspaper The Philanthropist in 1836 in Cincinnati. (Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society.)

ABOLITIONISTS BEWARE. When Birney restarted the publication of The Philanthropist, a mob of local whites went on a rampage throughout the city, intent on destroying Birney’s press for good as well as harassing members of the free African American community. A local proslavery group began to post advertisements that warned abolitionists of the treatment they might receive if they entered the state of Ohio. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

THE PHILANTHROPIST. James G. Birney’s antislavery newspaper was first published in Mount Pleasant, Ohio, in September 1817. Its first editor was Charles Osborn, who was a member of the Society of Friends. Osborn called for an immediate end to slavery and hoped his paper would educate white northerners about the injustice of the system of enslavement. The Philanthropist was the first antislavery newspaper in the United States. Osborn emerged as one of the leading abolitionists in Ohio because of the paper. Other prominent abolitionists joined The Philanthropist’s writing stable, including Benjamin Lundy, who contributed several articles. In October 1818, Elisha Bates acquired the newspaper from Osborn and continued to publish it until 1822. Several years later, in 1838, James Birney published another antislavery newspaper, also titled The Philanthropist. (Both, courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

DESTROYING JAMES G. BIRNEY’S PRESS. In 1836, James Birney began to publish another antislavery newspaper titled The Philanthropist in Cincinnati. Birney advocated an immediate end to slavery and also believed that African Americans were entitled to equal rights and opportunities. Many white Cincinnatians opposed Birney’s views and activities. Many were former slave owners who had moved to the Queen City but continued to believe that African Americans were inferior to whites in every way. However, some people opposed slavery but believed that African Americans would move to the North and deprive white people of jobs. So to prevent Birney from printing his antislavery periodicals for a time, a mob of white Cincinnatians destroyed the newspaper’s printing press on July 12, 1836. Despite this horrible act, Birney obtained another press, remained in the city, and continued to publish his periodical under great distress. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

NARRATIVE OF THE LATE RIOTOUS PROCEEDINGS. During the 1830s, an Ohio Anti-Slavery Society branch was formed in Cincinnati with a biracial focus, that sought the immediate end of enslavement and rejected any colonization plan. (Courtesy of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.)

JAMES BIRNEY, FUGITIVE FROM JUSTICE. Numerous Cincinnatians were involved in harboring fugitives who had decided to escape the city. One of those individuals was James G. Birney. Upon his arrival in the city, Birney became a very active member of the Underground Railroad. In 1837, he was arrested and convicted of harboring a fugitive enslaved African American, but this decision was overturned by the Ohio Supreme Court. (Courtesy of the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center.)

ACHILLES H. PUGH. Born in Chester County, Pennsylvania, on March 10, 1805, Achilles Pugh and his family settled in Cadiz, Ohio, in 1809. In 1835, the Ohio Anti-Slavery Society was formed and Pugh quickly became supporter and later an editor of The Philanthropist. Because of various attacks, Pugh moved his press and paper to Springboro, Ohio. Pugh shipped the newspaper to Cincinnati on the Miami-Erie Canal. (Courtesy of the Ohio Historical Society.)

A.H. PUGH PRINTING COMPANY. Pugh was the founder of the A.H. Pugh Printing Company, a publishing firm located in Cincinnati. In April 1836, Pugh’s company began publishing The Philanthropist. As a member of the Society of Friends, Pugh shared Birney’s opposition to slavery. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

ANNA DONALDSON. Donaldson was one of the few women involved in the antislavery movement during the antebellum period. She and her two sons Christian and William moved to Avondale, a suburb of Cincinnati, in 1824. There, they gradually became involved in the inner workings of the antislavery movement. Although some of their neighbors were against such activities, the Donaldsons continued their abolitionist work for many years. (Courtesy of the New Richmond Historical Society.)

PRESBYTERIAN REFORM. The original Reformed Presbyterian (or Covenanter) Church of Cincinnati, which was reorganized in 1844, initially was established in 1810 and had been located in various parts of Pennsylvania and New York before coming to Cincinnati. By the mid-1830s, many members of its congregation had become abolitionists or active in the local Underground Railroad. Pictured here is Professor Willson of the Covenanter Church. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

CINCINNATI RACE RIOT OF 1841. Cincinnati’s Fifth Street Market in 1840 symbolized the tranquil and pristine community life the city had emerged into from its inception early in the century. Many African Americans had traveled to the city in hopes of securing employment in the continuously expanding economic market. However, the entire atmosphere changed the following year. In 1841, the city experienced a powerful and deadly race riot that would be repeated several more times before the beginning of World War I. This specific conflict occurred after a long drought had created widespread unemployment in the city. Over a period of several days in September, unemployed white Cincinnatians attacked hundreds of local blacks, who fought back. As a result, African American Cincinnatians, some of whom had escaped from enslavement only a few weeks or months previously, were rounded up and jailed “for their own protection,” according to the local authorities. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

LOCAL ANTISLAVERY SOCIETY’S LITERATURE. One of the main arguments used to justify the 1841 race riot was the belief that African Americans were inferior to whites and thus did not deserve to be recognized or protected by the legal system. However, the state and local antislavery societies organized a campaign to dispel this notion with a series of positive images. Pictured here is a pamphlet published by the Ohio Antislavery Society that shows the powerful work ethic that all African American Cincinnatians possessed. (Both, courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)

ANTISLAVERY CONVENTIONS. During the 1850s, a series of antislavery conventions and conferences were held in Cincinnati, which were attended by both well-known and obscure local and national leaders. The first was held in 1851 at a local church. One year later, in 1852, the speakers included a cadre of powerful local, regional, and national speakers who had obtained a great following, such as George Julian, Frederick Douglass, Henry Bibb, and John M. Langston. William Lloyd Garrison presided over the 1853 Cincinnati Convention. The public controversy that accompanied Garrison wherever he spoke resulted in extensive press coverage and large audiences in the city. By this time, Garrison had become one of the most sought out antislavery orators in the nation. His fiery prose could move most audiences in a matter of minutes. (Courtesy of the Cincinnati Historical Society.)