"George Debaptistie"[1815-1875]

He was born to free African American parents in Fredericksburg,Virginia.As a young man,he apprenticed to a barber in Richmond,Virginia.Subsequently,George secured employment as a manservant to a wealthy Southern.Later her serve as a personal valet to General William Harrison.When William became President of the United States,George was appointed as a steward in the White House.After William's death,George and his wife returned to their former home in Madison,Indiana.
Madison,Indiana overlooks the Ohio River and was a destination for runaway slaves from Kentucky.The Ohio River served as a fluid boundary between free Indiana and slaveholding Kentucky.George had briefly been employed on riverboats and may have used his knowledge slaves across the Ohio River to an underground Railroad agent in Indiana.When riots against free African Americans broke out in 1845 and 1846,George moved his family to Detriot Michigan.
Detriot had established a free African American community when George arrive in 1846.There was an African American Baptist Church,a school for African American children in the church building and several African American-owned businesses.George engaged in successful commercial ventures:he purchased an interest in a barber shop,owned a catering business,and bought real estate.He rose in African American political circles and became known as an abolitionist and an important agent on the underground railroad.
The activities of the Underground Railroad in Detriot intensified in 1850 when when the federal government passed the Fugitive Slave Law.The law permitted the apprehension and return of escaped slaves who had settled in free states.Detriot's proximity to Canada,where African Americans lived freely,made the city uniquely important to stop on the underground Railroad.The Detriot River was a bustling port and an avenue of escape.
In 1850,George purchased the steamboat,T.Whitney,and hired a white man to pilot it.The boat could use as a commercial vessel as a conveyance,secretly transporting ex-slaves to freedom in Canada.On March 12,1859,George was one of of the locally prominent abolitionist who met in Detriot with Frederick Douglass & John Brown to listen John's plan for armed rebellion at Harper's Ferry,West Virginia.
When the Civil War began,George energetically worked to form the Michigan Colored Infantry and was appointed the unit's sutler.At war's end,George returned to Detriot,sold the T.Whitney and devoted devoted his time to political causes;notably the passing of the Fifteenth Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States.He devoted considerable energy to abolish slavery in the United States and to guarantee the vote for all African American males George witnessed the achievement of both goals by the time in Detriot.