"Thomas- Elkins" (1818-1900"

An inventor,abolitionist ,and trained  medical professional, Dr. Thomas Elkins played a significant role in supporting the Underground Railroad in Albany,New York during the 1840s and 1850s.He also made an important contribution to the development of refrigeration techniques,and patented  several inventions for other household furniture items during the latter part of his life. 

Born in New York City.Thomas studied surgery and dentistry,possibly with one of the founders of the Albany Medical College. He went on to operate a pharmacy in Albany for several decades and offered dental services as well. Additionally, the 1881 edition of the Albany Handbook identifies him as " district physician," a position recognized by the city.

Beginning in the 1840s,Thomas became a member of the Albany Vigilance Committee,serving as its secretary during the the 1850s.Vigilance committees were a key part of the Underground Railroad, 

providing all manner of assistance ( food,legal aid,medical attewntion) to those seeking freedom. One of the leaders in Albany was Stephen Myers,publisher of the Northern Star and Freeman's Advocate among other papers.

During the Civil War,Thomas served as the medical examiner for the famed 54th and 55th Massachusetts regiments. Appointed by Massachusetts' abolitionists governor John A.Andrew,Thomas joined a group of other African American from Albany who volunteered  for service.After the war, Thomas traveled internationally, including to Liberia.

Beginning in the 1870s, he successfully filed a series of patents. On February 22,1870,for example,his invention

"Augustus-Washington" {September 21 1820-June 7,1875}

He was an African American abolitionist and photographer specializing as Daguerretotypist.

From Trenton,New Jersey he was the son of a former slave and a woman of South Asian decent.His mama died when he was a young a step mama,also a former slave raised him.Augustus struggled to obtain schooling,first in Trenton and later at Oneida Institute in Whitesboro,
New York,Kimball Union Academy in New Hampshire,and Dartmouth College.In 1843,he moved to Hartford and opened a daguerrean studio to help finance his education.Finishing school in 1847,he returned to Hartford;opens a a studio for a short period of time.During this time many of his portraits were of political and social figures of the era and reflect his sentiment about slavery.

In 1851 he expressed pessimism about prospects of African Americans in American society in a letter to New York Tribune.In 1853 he immigrated to Liberia to work as a schoolteacher,farmer stone operator
and Dagurretotypist.One year later,Augustus he expressed enthusiasm about his adopted land in a letter,stating that,I believe that I shall do a thousand times more good for Africa." The last reference to Augustus work as a Daguerretypist dates from 1858.

He never regretted his decision to immigrate to Liberia,and when he died in Monrovia.His death was mourned as a "severe loss to Western Africa."

"Andre-Pinto-Reboucas" [January 13,1838-April 9,1898]

Was a Brazilian military engineer,
abolitionist and inventor,son of Antonio Pereira Reboucas (1798-1880) and Caroline Pinto Reboucas.Lawyer,member of Parliament (representing the state of  Bahia) and an adviser to
Pedro II of Brazil,his daddy,was the son of a manumitted slave and
a Portuguese tailor.His brothers
Antonio Pereira Reboucas Filho and Jose Reboucas were also engineers.

Despite racial prejudice,racial prejudice,his daddy,a mulatto,
was an important and prestigious man at the time.Self-taught to read and write,he had been granted the right to practice law throughout the country represented  Bahia in the House of  Representatives on a range of legislature,was secretary of the Provincial  Governship  of Sergipe,advisior to the Empire, and had receive the title of Knight of the imperial order of the cross in 1823.

"Henry-Highland-Garnet" {December 23,1815-February 13,1882}

Was an African American abolitionist,minister,educator and  orator.An advocate of militant abolitionism,Henry was a prominent member of the movement that led beyond moral  suasion toward more political action.Renowned  for his skills as a public speaker,he urged African Americans to take action and claim their own destines.For a period,he supported emigration of African Americans to Mexico,Liberia or the West Indies,but the Civil War ended  that effort.

Henry was born into slavery in New Market,Kent County,Maryland.According to James McCune Smith,Henry's daddy was George Trusty and his mama "of extraordinary energy.In 1824,the family which included a total of 11 members,secured permission to attend a funeral,from there,they all escaped in a covered wagon,first to Willington,Delaware and then to New York City.When Henry was ten,his family reunited and moved to New York City,where from 1826-1833,Henry attended the African Free School,and the Phoenix High School for Colored Youth.While in school,Henry began his career in abolitionism.With fellow schoolmates,he established the Garrison Literary and Benevolent Association.It garnered mass support among whites,but the club ultimately had to move due to racist feelings.Two years later,in 1835,he started studies at the Noyes Academy in Canaan,New Hampshire.

Due to his abolitionist activities Henry was driven away from the Noyes Academy by an angry segregationist mob.He completed his education at the Oneida Theological Institute in Whitesboro,New York,which had recently admitted all races.Here he was acclaimed for his wit,brilliance and rhetorical skills.After graduation in 1839,the following year he injuried his knee playing sports. It never recovered and his lower leg had to be ampulated in 1839.

He married Julia Williams,whom he had met as a fellow student at the Noyes Academy.Together they had three children,only one of whom survived to adulthood.

In 1839,Henry moved with his family to Troy,New York,where he taught school and studied theology.In 1842,Henry became pastor of the Liberty Street Presbyterian church,a position he held for six years.During this time,he published papers that combined both religious and abolitionist themes.Closely identifying with the church,Henry supported the temperance movement and became a strong advocate of political antislavery.

He later returned to New York City,where he joined the American Anti-Slavery Society,and frequently spoke at abolitionist conferences. One of his most famous speeches,"Call to Rebellion," was delivered August 1843 to the National Negro Convention in (,New York."Upon  the conclusion of the Negro National Convention of 1843,Henry led a state convention of Negroes assembled in Rochester.These conventions by African American activists were called to work for abolition and equal rights. Henry said that slaves should act for themselves to achieve total emancipation. He promoted an armed rebellion as the most effective way to end slavery.Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison,along with man abolitionist both black and white,Henry's ideas were too radical could damage the cause by arousing too much fear and resistance among whites.Henry supported the Liberty Party,a party of reform that was eventually absorbed into the Republican Party.Henry disagreed with with the later Republicans.

Women's participation in the abolitionist movement was highly contentious at this time,which led to a split in the American Anti-Slavery Society.This led to the founding of American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society (AFAS) by Arthur Tappan,Lewis Tappan, "and a group of African Americans ministers, including Henry.The American and Anti-Slavery Society " was committed to political abolitionism and to male leadership at the top levels.

By 1849 Henry began to support emigration of African Americans to Mexico,Liberia,or the West Indies,where he through they would have more opportunities.In support of this,he founded the African Civilization Society.Similar  to the British African Aid Society,it sought establish a West African colony in Yoruba (present-day Nigeria).Henry advocated a kind of African American nationalism in the United States,which included establishing separate sections of the nation to be African American colonies.

In 1850,he went to Great Britain at the invitation of the Free Labor Movement,which opposed by rejecting the use of products produced by slave labor.He was a popular lecturer,and spent two and half years lecturing.In 1852 Henry was sent to Kingston,Kingston,as a missionary.He spent three years there,until his health forced him back to the United States.

When the Civil War started,Henry's hope ended for emigration as a solution for African Americans.He worked to found African Americans army units to aid the Union cause.In the three-day New York draft riots of July 1863,mobs attacked African Americans and African American owned buildings.Henry and his family escaped attack when his daughter quickly chopped their nameplate of their door before the mobs found them.

When the federal government approved creating African Americans units,Henry helped with recruiting United States Colored Troops.He moved with his family  to Washington,DC so that he could support the African American soldiers and the war effort. He preached to many of them while serving as pastor of the Liberty (Fifteenth) Street Presbyterian Church from 1864-1866.During this time,he was the first African American minister to preach to the House of Representatives,addressing them on February 12 1865 about the end of slavery.

After the war in 1868,Henry was appointed president of  Avery College in Pittsburgh,Pennsylvania.Later he returned to New York City as pastor at the Shiloh Presbyterian Church (formerly the First Colored Presbyterian Church,and now St.James Presbyterian Church in Harlem).

His first wife Julia died.In 1879,Henry married Sarah Smith Tompkins,who was a New York teacher and school principal,suffragist,and community organizer.

Henry's last wish was to go to Liberia to live,even for a few weeks,and to die there.He was appointed as the U.S. Minister to Liberia in late 1881,and died in Africa two months later.He was given a state funeral by the Liberian government and was buried at Palm Grove Cemetery in Monrovia.Frederick Douglass,who had not been on speaking terms with Henry for many years because of their differences,still mourned Henry's passing and noted his achievements.

"Sarah-Mapps-Douglass" (September 9,1806-September 8,1882)

Born in Philadelphia,Sarah was the daughter of Robert Douglass & Grace Bustill Douglass.Her granddaddy was Cyrus Bustill,a Quaker,who owned a bakery,operated a school,and was one of the early members of the Free African Society,the first African-American charity organization.Her mama operated a millinery store next to the family bakery.sarah entered the "colored" school that her mama and the wealthy,African American ship builder James Forten established in 1819.

Around 1827,Philadelphia established a school a school for African American children was to be self-supporting,by 1838,the the leveling of funding was insufficient and the Philadelphia Female Anti-Slavery Society took over.Sarah was a member and attended a number of the board of directors,of the committee on annual fairs,of the education committee,as a librarian,and a comesponding secretary.

During the 1830s,some of the Quakers challenged the city's segregation practices,and Sarah" efforts in the cause were significant.When William Bassett of Lynn,Massachusetts,undertook a plan to bring his fellow New England Quakers into the antislavery movement,Sarah provided him with important information on the Arch Street Meeting's segregated seating practices.She also supplied abolitionist Sarah Grimke,a white woman,with imformation that Sarah Grimke used in writing her 1837 statement "Subject of prejudice against color amongst the Society of Friends in the United States," written in response to her censure by the Quakers for insisting on sitting beside Sarah and her mama at service.When Angelina Grimke & Theodore Weld,a prominent abolitionist,were married in May 1838,Sarah and her mama were among the Negro guests at the wedding.The Philadelphia press called the incident and intolerable act of abolitionist' "amalgamated" practices.

Two days later,a mob burned down the Pennsylvania Hall,the state antislavery society's newly built headquarters,and fire to the Shelter for Colored Oprhans,Sarah continued her teaching career.In 1853 she was appointed head of the girls' primary department of the institute of  Colored Youth.The institute was the forerunner of Cheney (Pennsylvania) State College.Sarah remained there until her retirement in 1877.In 1855,she married William Douglass,a rector of St.Thomas Protestant Episcopal Church, a widower with several children.After her husband's death in 1881,Sarah devoted her time to antislavery activities and continued her teaching.

When the Civil War ended,Sarah became -vice-woman of the Woman's Pennsylvania Branch of the American Freedmen's Aid Commission.

"David-Walker" September 28,1796-August 6,1830)

Was an outspoken African American Abolitionist and anti-slavery activist.In 1829,while living in Boston,Massachusetts,he published An appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World,a call for African American unity and self-help in the fight against oppression and injustice.

The work brought attention to the abuses and inequities and political tenets.At time,some people were outraged and fearful that the reaction the pamphlet would have.Many abolitionists through the views were extreme.

Historians and liberation theologians cite the Appeal as an influential political and social  document of the 19th century.David exerted a radicalizing influence on the abolitionist movements of his day and inspired future African American leaders and activists.

His son Edward Garrison Walker,was an attorney and one of the first African American men elected into the Massachusetts State Legistature in 1866.

David was born in the Cape Fear area of North Carolina.His mama was free and his daddy,who had died before his birth,had been enslaved.Since American law embraced the principle partus sequitur ventrem,literally "that which is brought forth follows the womb," David inherited his mama's status asa free person.

Despite his freedom he found the oppression of fellow African Americans unbearable."If I remain in this bloody land,he later recalled thinking " I will not live long... I cannot remain where I must hear slaves' chains continually and where I must encounter the insults of their hypocritical enslavers.Consequently,as a young adult,he moved to Charleston,South Carolina,a mecca for upwardly mobile free African Americans.He became affliated with a strong African Methodist Episcopal Church community of  activists,members of the first African American denomination in the United States.He later visited and likely lived in Philadelphia, a shipbuilding center and location of an active African America community,where the AME Church the AME Church was founded.

David settled in Boston by 1825,slavery had been abolished in Massachusetts after the American Revolutionary War.He started a used clothing store in the city market.He married between 1826 & 1828.His wife may been Emily or Eliza,a fugitive slave.Another theory is that she was Eliza Butler,from a notable African American family in Boston.David next owned a clothing store on Brattle Street near the Wharfs.He aided runaway and helped the "poor and needy."

David took part in a variety of civic  and religious organizations in Boston.He was involved with Prince Hall  Freemasonry,an organization formed in the 1780s that stood up the against discriminatory treatment of African Americans; became a founder of the Massachusetts General Colored Association,which opposed colonization of free African Americans to Africa,and was a member of  Rev.Samuel Snowden's Methodist church.David  also spoke publicly against slavery and racism.

Thomas Dalton and David oversaw the publication of  John Telemachus Hilton's An address,delivered before the African Grand Lodge of Boston,No.459,June 24th,1828,by John Telemachus Hilton: On the Annual Festival of St.John the Baptist (Baptist,1828).

Although they were not free from racism hostility and discrimination,African American families in Boston lived in realtively benign conditions in the 1820s.The level of African American competency and activism in Boston was particulary high.As historian Peter Hinks documents:"The growth of black enclaves in various cities and towns was inseparable from the development of an educated and socially involved local African American leadership.

There were three used clothing merchants,including David,who went to trial in 1828 for selling stolen property.The results are unknown.

David served as a Boston subscription sales agent and a writer for New York City's short-lived but influential Freedom's Journal (1827-29),the first newspaper owned and operated by African Americans,in the United States.

By the end of 1828,David became Boston's leading spokesman against slavery.

In September 1829,David published his appeal to African American people entitled Walker's Appeal in Four Articles;Together Together with a Preamble,to the Coloured Citizens of the world,but in particular and Very Expressly to Those of the United States of America.The purpose of the document was to encourage readers to take an active role in fighting their oppression,regardless of the risk,and to press white Americans to realize the moral and religious failure of slavery.

David challenged  the racism of the early 19 century.He specitifically targeted groups like the American Colonization Society,which sought to depot all free and freed African Americans from the United States to a colony in Africa (this was how Liberia was established).He wrote against published assertions of black inferiority by the late President Thomas Jefferson,who died three years before David's pamphlet was published.As he explained,"say,that unless we refute Mr.Jefferson's arguments respecting us,we will only establish them.

He rejected the white assumption in the United States that dark skin was a sign of inferiority and lesser humanity.He challenged critics to show him "a page of history, either sacred or profane,on which maintains that the Egyptians heaped  the insupportable insult upon the Children of Israel,by telling them that they were not of the human family," referring to the period when they were enslaved in Egypt.


By the 1820s and 30s,inviduals and groups had emerged with degrees of commitments to equal rights for African Americans men & women,but no national anti-slavery movement existed at the time David's Appeal was published.

The appeal described the pernicious effects of both slavery and the subservience of and discrimination against free Africa Americans.Those outside of slavery were said to neeed regulation "because they could be relied on to regulate themselves they might overstep the boundaries society had placed around them.

David's appeal argued that African Americans had to assume responsibility for themselves if they wanted to overcome oppression.According to historian Peter Hinks, David believed that the "key to the uplift of the race was a zealous commitment to the  tenets of individuals moral improvement: education,temperance,protestant religious practice,regular work habits,and self-regulation.

David has often been regarded as an abolitionist with Black Nationalist views,in large measure because David envisioned a future for African Americans that included selfrule. As wrote in the Appeal,Our suffering will come to an end,in spite of all the Americans this side of eternity.Then we will want all the learning and talents,and perhaps more,to govern ourselves.

David distributed his pamphlet through African American communication networks along the Atlantic coast,which included free and enslaved African American civil rights activists,laborers,African American church and revivalist networks,contacts with free African Americans benevolent societies,and Maroon communities.

Southern officials worked to prevent the appeal from reaching its residents.African Americans in Charleston and New Orleans were arrested distributing the pamphlet while authorities in Savannah,Georgia instituted a ban on the disembarkation of African American seamen.Various southern governmental bodies,meanwhile,labeled the Appeal seditious and imposed harsh penalties on those who circulated it.Despite such efforts,David's pamphlet was widespread by early 1830.Having failed to contain the Appeal,southern offcials criticized both the pamphlet and its author.Newspaper like the Richmond Enquirer railed against what it called Walker's "monstrous slander" of the region.Outrage over the Appeal even led Georgia to announce an award of $10,000 to anyone who could hand over David alive,and $1,000 to anyone who would murder him.

David Appeal did not gain the favor of  most abolitionist or free African Americans because its message was considered too radical.

A handful of white antislavery advocates were radicalized by the pamphlet.The Boston Evening Transcript noted in 1830 that some African Americans regarded the Appeal "as if it were a star in the east guiding them to freedom and emancipation.White southerns" fears about black-led challenge to slavery-fears the Appeal storked-came to pass just a year later in the Nat Turner Rebellion,which inspired them to adopt harsher laws in an attempt to sudue and control slaves and free African Americans.

William Lloyd Garrison one of the most influential American abolitionists,began publishing The Liberator in January 1831 not long after the Appeal was published.Early weekly editions of William's newspaper,in fact,largely focused on David's pamphlet.William,who belived slaveowners would be punished by god, rejected the violence David advocated but recognized that slaveowners were courting disaster by refusing to free their slaves."Every sentence that they write-every word that they speak-every resistance that they make,against foreign oppression,is a call upon their slaves to destroy them," William wrote.

David's Appeal and the slave rebellion led by Nat Turner in Virginia in 1831 struck fear in into the hearts of slave owners.There is no evidence to suggest that the Appeal specifically informed or inspired Nat,the two events,which occurred just a few years apart,intensified white anxiety in the South about the potential for future insurrections.Southern states passed laws restricting free blacks and slaves.Many white people in Virginia and neighboring North Carolina speculated that Nat may have been influenced by David's appeal or other abolitionist literature.

Just five years after he arrive in Boston,David died suddenly in the summer of 1830.Through rumors suggested that he had been poisoned,most historians believe David died a natural death from tuberculosis,as listed in his death record.The disease was prevalent and his only daughter,Lydia Ann,had died a walk before David him self passed away.David is buried in a South Boston cemetery for African Americans.His probable grave site remains unmarked.

When Daid died his wife was unable to keep up the annual payments to George Parkman for the purchase for their home.She subsequently lost their home,an eventually David himself had,in a sense,predicted in his Appeal:

"But I must,really,observe that in this very city,when a man of color,dies if he owned any real estate it must generally falls into the hands of some white persons.The wife and children of the deceased may weep and lament if they please,but the estate will be kept snug enough of its white possessor.

His son Edward Garrison Walker was born after David's death.In 1866 he became the first African American elected to the Massachusetts State Legislature.

"Andre-Pinto-Reboucas" (January 13,1838-April 9,1898)

Was a Brazillian military engineer,abolitionist and inventor,son of Antonio Pereira

Reboucas (1798-1880) and Carolina Pinto Reboucas.Lawyer,member,of Parliament (representing the Brazillan state of Bahia) and advise to Pedro II f Brazil,his daddy was the son of a manumitted slave and Portugese tainlor.His brothers Antonio Pereira Reboucas Filho & Jose Reboucas were also engineers.


Andre became famous in Rio de Janeiro,at the time capital of the Empire of Brazil,solving the trouble of water supply,bringing it from fountain-heads outside the town.


Serving as military engineer during the Paraguayan War in Paraguay,Andre developed a torpedo,which was used successfully.


Alongside Macado de Assis and Olavo Bilac,Andre was a very important middle class representative with African descent,he also was one of the most important voices for the abolition of slavery in Brazil.
 
He encouraged the career of  Antonio Carlos Gomes,author of  the opera O Guarani.


In the 1880's,Andre began to participate actively in the abolitionist cause,he helped create the Brazilian Anti-Slavery Society,alongside Joaquim Nabuco,Jose do Patrocino and others.


After the Republician coup dEtat Andre went exile with Pedro II Europe.For two years he stayed exiled in Lisboa,as a correspondent for The Times of  London.


In 1892,facing financial problems,Andre went to Launda,and after that,Funchai,in Maderia.In 1898 his body was found at the shoreline.He supposedly  committed suicide.

"Mary Edmonson" (1832-1853) Emily Edmonson (1835-1895)

Mary Edmondson is standing.

Were African Americans who became celebrities in the United States abolitionists movement after gaining their freedom from slavery.On April 15,1848,they were among the seventy-seven slaves who tried to escape from Washington,DC on the schooner The Pearl to sail up the Chesapeake Bay to freedom in New Jersey.


Although that effort,failed,they were freed from slavery by funds raised by the Congregational Church in Brooklyn,New York,whose pastor was Henry Ward Beecher,an abolitionist.After gaining freedom,the Emondsons were supported to go to school;they also worked.They campaigned with Henry throughout the North for the end of slavery in the United States.
The sisters were the daughters of Paul & Amelia Edmondson,a free African American black and an enslave woman in Montgomery County,Maryland.Mary & Emily were two of thirteen children survived to adulthood,all of whom were born into slavery.Since the 17th century,law common to all slave states decreed that the children of an enslaved mama inherited their mama's legal status,by the principle of partus sequitur ventrem.


Their daddy Paul Edmondson,was set free by his owner's will.Maryland was a state with a high percentage of free African Americans.Most descended from slaves freed in the first two decades after the American Revolution,when slaveholders were encouraged to manumission by the principles of the war and activist Quaker and Methodist preachers.By 1810,more than 10 percent of African Americans in the Upper South were free,with most of them in Maryland and Delaware.By 1860,49.7 percent of the African Americans in Maryland were free.


Paul purchased land in the Norbeck area of Montgomery County,where farmed and establish his family.Amelia was allowed to live with her husband,but continued to work for her master.The couple's children work at an early age as servants,laborers and skilled workers.Beginning about age 13 or 14,they were "hired out" to work in elite private homes in nearby Washington, D.C. under a type of lease arrangement,where their wages were sent to the slaveholder.This practice of "hiring out" grew from the shift away from the formerly labor-intensive tobacco plantation system,leaving planters in this part of the United States with surplus slaves.They hired out slaves or sold them to traders for the Deep South.Many slaves worked as servants in homes and hotels of the capital.Men were sometimes hired out as craftsmen,artisans to work at the ports on the Potomac River.


By 1848 four of the older Emondson sisters bought their freedom (with the help of husbands and family),but the master had decided against allowing any more of the siblings to do so.Six were hired out for his benefit,including the younger sisters.


On April 15,1848,the scooner Pearl docked at a Washington Wharf.The Emondson sisters and four of their brothers joined a large group of slaves (a total of 77) in an attempt to escape on the Pearl to freedom in New Jersey.Starting as a modest attempt of escape for seven slaves,the effort had been widely communicated and organized within the communities of free African Americans and free slaves,changing it to a major ans unified effort,without the knowledge of the white organizers or crew.In 1848 free African Americans outnumbered slaves in the District of Columbia by three to one;the community demonstrated it could act in a unified way.Seventy-seven slaves boarded the Pearl,which was to sail down the Potomac River and up the Chesapeake Bay to the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware Canal,from where they would travel up the Delaware River to freedom in New Jersey,a total of 225 miles.At the time,Emily was 13 and Mary was 15 or 16.


The Pearl,with the Fugitives hidden among boxes,began its way down the Potomac.It was delayed by the shift in tides and then had to wait out rough weather from its anchor down the bay.In Washington the alarm was raised in the morning,as numerous slaveholders found their slaves had escaped.Historical accounts conflict and are not clear as to what details are known.Slaveholders put together an armed posse that went downriver on a steamboat.The steamboat caught up with the Pearl at Point Lookout,Maryland;and the posse sized it,towing the ship and its valuable cargo back to Washington,DC.if the posse had gone north to Baltimore,another likely escape route,the Pearl might have gotten away and reached its destination.


When the Pearl arrived in Washington,a mob awaited the ship.Daniel Drayton & Edward Sayers the two white captains,had to be taken into safety as pro-slavery people attacked them for threating their control of property.The fugitive were taken to a local jail.It was later reported that when somebody from the crowd asked the Edmondson girls if they were ashamed for what they had done,Emily replied proudly that they would do exactly the same thing again.Three days of riots and disturbances followed,pro-slavery offices and presses in the city in an attempt to suppress the abolitionist movement.Most of the masters of the fugutives  slaves decided to sell them quickly to slave traders,rather than provide another chance to escape.Fifty of the slaves were transported by train to Baltimore,from where they were sold and transported to the Deep South.


Despite Paul Edmondson's desperate efforts to delay the sale of his children so he could raise sufficient money to purchase their freedom,the slave trading partners Bruin & Hill from Alexandria,Virginia a bought the six Edmondson siblings.Under inhumane conditions,the siblings were transported by ship to New Orleans.New Orleans was the largest slave market in the nation,and well known for selling "fancy girl" (pretty light-skinned enslaved young women) as sex slaves.


Hamilton Edmondson,the eldest of the siblings,had already been living a freeman for several years.He worked as a cooper.With the help of donations from a Methodist minister arranged by their daddy,Hamilton arranged for the purchase of his brother Samuel by a prosperous New Orleans cotton merchant to work as his butler.When the merchant died in 1853,Samuel moved with that family and its other slaves to what is now the 1850 House in the Pontalba Buildings on Jackson square.


In New Orleans,the other siblings were forced to stay in an open porch facing the street waiting for buyers.The sisters were handled brusquely and exposed to obscene comments.Before the family could rescue the remainder of its members,a yellow fever epidemic erupted in New Orleans.The slave traders transported the Edmondson sisters back to Alexandria as a measure to protect their investments.


Ephraim Edmondson & John Edmondson,two other brothers who had tried to escape on the Pearl,were kept in New Orleans.Their brother Hamilton worked for and eventually obtained their purchase and freedom.


In Alexandria,the Edmondson,sisters were hired out to laudering,ironing,and sewing,with wages going to slave traders.They were locked up at night.Paul continued his campaign to free his daughters while Bruin & Hill demanded $2,250 for their release.


With letters from Washington-area supporters,Paul met Harry Ward Beecher,a young Congregationalist preacher with a church in Brooklyn,New York who was known to support abolitionism Harry's church members raised the funds to purchase the Edmondson sisters and give the freedom.Accompanied by William Chaplin,a white abolitionist who had helped pay for the Pearl for the escape attempt,Harry went to Washington to arrange the transaction.


Mary & Emily were emancipated on November 4,1848.The family gathered for a celebration at another sister house house in Washington,Harry's church continued to contribute money to send the sisters to school for their education.They first enrolled at New York Central College,an interracial institution in Cortland,New York.They also worked as cleaning servants to support themselves.


In the summer of 1850,the Edmondson sisters attended the Slave Law Convention,an an anti-slavery meeting in Cazenovia New York organized by local abolitionist by local abolitionist Theodore Dwight Weld and others to demonstrate against the Fugitive Slave Act soon to be passed by the U.S. Congress.Under this act,slave owners had powers to arrest fugitive slaves in the North.The convention declared all slaves to be Prisoners of war and warned the nation of an unavoidable insurrection of slaves unless they were emancipated.


At this convention,the sisters were included in a historic daguerreotype photograph taken by Theodore Dwight Weld's Brother,Ezra Greenleaf Weld.Also included in the picture are abolitionist Abby Kelley Foster and the legendary orator Frederick Douglass.


While there were many slaves "whom it was impossible to tell from white," The Edmondson sisters' mixed-race appearance may have well suited their role as two of the " public faces" of America slavery.


In 1853,the Edmondson sisters attended the Young Ladies Preparatory School at Oberlin College in Ohio through the support of Harry and his sister,Harriet Beecher,Stowe,author of Uncle Tom Cabin.Since its founding in the 1830s,the school had admitted African American & whites,and was a center of abolitionist activism.Six months after arriving at Oberlin Mary died of  Tuberculosis.


That same year,Harriet included part of the Edmonson sisters' history with other factual accounts of slavery experiences in A Key to Uncle's Cabin.


Eighteen-year-old Emily returned to Washington with her daddy,where she enrolled in the Normal School for Colored Girls.Located near the current Dupont Circle,the school trained young African American women to become teachers.For protection,the Edmonson family moved to a cabin on the grounds.Emily Edmonson & Myrtilla Miner the founder of the school,learned to shoot.


At age 25,in 1860,Emily married married Larkin Johnson.They returned to the Sandy Spring,Maryland area and lived for twelve years before moving to Anacostia in Washington,DC. There they purchased land and became founding members of the Hillside Community.At least one of their children was born in Montgomery County before their move to Anacostia.Emily remained her relationship with fellow Anacostia resident Frederick Douglass,and both continued working in the abolitionist movement.Even after the ratification of the 13th Amendment,they remained so close that Emily's granddaughters observed that they were like "brother & sister." Emily died at her home.

"Luis-Gonzaga-Pinto-Gama" (Luis-Gama) (June 21,1830-August 24,1882)

Was a Brazilian poet,journalist,legal activist,abolitionist leader,and former

slave.He was born a free mulatto in Salvador,the capital of Brazil's Bahia province.

The legal knowledge Luis had gained in previous years allowed him to help free over five hundred slaves.Without formal legal training,he argued successfully in court for the freedom of people who had been enslaved in violation of an 1831 law that had declared all incoming Africans to be free.The self-made lawyer was immensely passionate and provocative in the courtroom,sometimes openly calling for slave rebellion.

His mama,Luisa Mahin,was a black woman who had formerly been enslaved.Luisa made a living for a time selling vegetables and fruits in the streets before helping to lead two slave revolts.Her involvements in the rebellions resulted in her being deported back to West Africa.
In 1873 the party drafted and approved a bill that called for the gradual liberation of enslaved blacks in Brazil. Luis wanted immediate rather than gradual emancipation and angrily left the party because of it.

His daddy was a Portuguese aristocrat about whom little is known.

Luis was sold into slavery at age 10 by his daddy who was trying to pay off gambling debts.The sale was illegal,as Luis had been born to a free mama and trade of slaves was no longer allowed in Brazil.Nonetheless,Luis lived and worked as a house slave for eight years in Sao Paulo.

In 1847 the seventeen-year-old befriended Antonio Rodrigues de Prado,a law student who taught Luis how to read and write,and pipqued  Luis interest in learning more about law.

Antonio also encouraged Luis to gather documentation proving the illegality of his sale into slavery.Once he had gathered these documents,Luis  ran away and join the army.While serving there he worked as a clerk at the private law firm of Francisco Maria de Sousa Furtado Mendonca,who mentored Luis in law and would later become the godfather of Luis son.Luis served in the military for six years,he was discharged in 1854 for insubordination.


After discharge luis began working in Sao Paulo police stations as a copyist and clerk while working a book on the side,Primieras Trovas Burlescas,which was published in 1859.Primieras was a collection satirical social commentary in the form of poetry.Its publication made Luis a prominent and controversial figure.


Some of the best-known poems from the collection criticized Brazillian mulatto society for disregarding their oppressed black countrymen and for romanticizing was accompanied by Luis increasing with abolitionism.


Luis joined the growing liberal political movement in Brazil and helped establish the anti-monarchy,pro-democracy Brazilian Republican Party.Not all abolitionists were antimonarcy,nor were all in favor of black participation in abolitionists activities.There were also division in the party over the time frame for the emancipation of slaves in Brazil.In 1873 the party drafted and approved a bill that called for the gradual liberation of slaves in Brazil.In 1873 the party drafted and approved a bill that called for the gradual liberation of slaves in Brazil.Luis immediate rather than gradual emancipation and angrily left the party because of it.


The legal knowledge Luis had gained in previous years allowed him to help free over five hundred slaves.Without formal legal training,he argued successfully in court for the all incoming Africans to be free.The self-made lawyer was immensely passionate and provocative in the courtroom,sometimes openly calling for slave rebellion.


Luis established an abolitionist journal called Diabo Coxo in 1864.Four years later he also began writing anti-slavery pieces for a prominent newspaper,O Ipiranga and in 1869 he joined the editorial board of of a newspaper called Radical Paulistano.


In 1881,Luis started a fund,Caixa Emancipation Luis Gama,to purchase the freedom of slaves.The following year he founded the Abolitionist Center of Sao Paulo.


Unfortunately,the preeminent Brazillian abolitionist's life was cut short as slaves in his nation were near liberation.Luis died of diabetes complications.Six years later later,in 1888,Princess Isabel,the Brazilian sovereign,signed the Golden Law,freeing the remaing slaves in her nation.

"William-Wells-Brown" [1814-November 6 1884]

Was a prominent African American abolitionist lecturer,novelist,playwright,and historian in the United States.Born into Slavery in Montgomery County,Kentucky,near the town of Mount Sterling,William escaped to Ohio in 1834 at the age of 20. He settled in Boston,where he worked for abolitionist causes and became a prolific writer.His novel Clotel (1853), considered the first novel written by an African American was published in London,where he resided at the time: it was later published in the United States.


William was a pioneer in several different literary genres,including travel writing,fiction and drama. In 1858 he became the first published African American playwright,and often read from this work on the lecture circuit.Following the Civil War.In 1867 he published what is considered the first history of African Americans in the Revolutionary War.He was among the first writers inducted to the Kentucky Writers Hall of Fame. A public school was named for him in Lexington,Kentucky.


William was lecturing in England when the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law was passed in the US; as it provisons increased the risk of capture an re-enslavement,he stayed he stayed overseas for several years.William traveled throughout Europe.After his freedom was purchased in 1854 by a British couple,he and his two daughters returned to the US,where he rejoined the abolitionists lecture circuit in the North.A contemporary of Frederick Douglass,William was overshadowed by the charismatic orator and the two feuded publicly.


William was born into slavery near Mount Sterling,Kentucky where his mama Elizabeth was a slave.Elizabeth was held by Dr.John Young and had seven children,by each by different daddies.(in addition to William,her children were Solomon,Leander,Benjamin,Joseph,Miford,and Elizabeth.)William's daddy was George W.Higgins,a white planter and cousin of his master Dr.Young.George had formally acknowledged William as his son and made his cousin Dr.Young promise not to sell William.Dr.Young did sell him with his mama.Will was sold several times before he was twenty.


William spent the majority of his youth in St.Louis. His masters hired him out on steamboats on the Missiouri River,then a major thoroughfare for steamships and the slave.His work allowed him to see many new places.In 1833,he and and his mama escaped together across the Mississippi River,they were captured in Illinois.In 1834,William make a second attempt,successfully slipping away from a steamboat when it docked  in Cincinnati,Ohio,a free state.In freedom,he took the names of Wells Brown,a Quaker friend who helped him after his escape by providing food,clothes,and some money.William learned to read and write,and eagerly sought more education,reading reading extensively to make up for what he had been deprived.


In 1834,his first year of freedom,at age 20 William married Elizabeth Schooner,with whom he had two surving daughters,Clarissa & Josephine.William & Elizabeth later became estrangled.Elizabeth died in the United States.

From 1836 to about 1845,William made his home in Buffalo New York,where he worked as a steamboat man on Lake Erie.He helped many fugitive slaves gain their freedom by hiding them on the boat to take them to Buffalo,or Detriot,Michigan or across the lake to Canada.He later wrote that during the seven-month period of time from May to December 1942,he had helped 69 fugitive reach Canada.William became active in the abolitionist movement in Buffalo by joining several anti-slavery socities and the Negro Convention Movement.

Tens of thousands of slaves escaped to Canada.The first report of the Anti-Slavery Society of Canada estimated that by 1852,30,000 "Negro refugees"had reach Canada.

In 1849,William left the United States with his two young daughters to travel in the British Isles to lecture against slavery.He wanted them to gain the education he had been denied.He was also selected as a representative of the US that at the that year at the International Peace Congress in Paris.Given passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 in the US,he choose to stay in England until 1854,when his freedom was purchased by friends.As a highly visible public figure in the US,he was at risk for capture as a fugitive and re-enslavement.Slave catchers were paid him bounties to return slaves to their owners,and the new law required enforcement even by free states and their citizens, although many resisted.

At the International Peace Conference in Paris,William faced opposition while representing the country that had enslaved him.Later he confronted American slaveholders on the grounds of the Crystal Palace.

Based on this journey,William wrote Three Years in Europe: or Places I Have Seen and People I Have Met..His travel account was popular with middle-class readers as recounted sightseeing trips foundational of Europe culture.In his letter XIV,William wrote about his meeting with the Christian philosopher Thomas Dick in 1851.

After his return to the US,William gave lectures for the abolitionist movement in New York and Massachusetts.He soon focused on anti-slavery efforts.His speeches expressed his belief in the power of moral suasion and the importance of nonviolence.He often attacked the supposed American ideal of democracy and the use of religion to promote.

Due to his his reputation as powerful orator,William was invited to the National Convention of Colored Citizens,where he met other prominent abolitioniststs.When the Liberty Party formed,he chose to remain independent,believing that abolitionist movement should avoid becoming entrenched in politics.He continued to support the Garrisonian approached to abolitionism.He shared experiences and insight into slavery in order to convince others to support the cause.

In 1847,he published his memoir,the Narrative of William W.Brown,a Fugitive Slave,Wriiten by Himself,which became a bestseller across the United States,second only to Frederick Douglass' slave narrative memoir.William critiques his master's lack of Christian values and the customary brutal use of violence by owners in master-slave relations.

When he lived in Britain,he wrote more works,including travel accounts and plays.William first novel,entitled Clotel,or The President's Daughter: a Narrative of Slave Life in the United States,was published in London in 1853.It portrays the fictional plight of two mulatto daughters born to Thomas Jefferson and one of his slaves.His novel is believed to be the first written by an African American.

He also wrote several histories,including The Black Man: His Antecedents,His Genius and his Achievements (1863); The Negro in the American Rebellion (1867), considered the first historical work about African American soldiers in the American Revolutionary War;and The Rising son (1873).His last book was another memoir, My Southern Home (1880).

William stayed abroad until 1854.Passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Law had increased his risk of capture even in the free states.Only after the Richardson family of Britain purchased his freedom in 1854 (they had done the same for Frederick Douglass),William return to the United States.He quickly rejoined the anti-slavery lecture circuit.

William died in Chelsea,Massachusetts.

"William-Goodridge" {November 12,1805-January 15,1873}

He was born to an African American mama and an unknown white

daddy.Unfortunately little is known about his early years other than the fact that he and his mama were slaves.His master unexpectedly freed him when he was 16.William is said to have left York around 1822,and he learned the barber trade,possibly in Marietta,Pennsylvania.He returned to York between 1823 & 1825 and opened a barbershop on Centre Square,known today as Continential square.The barbershop grew into a grand,sky lighted photography studio and emporium.Historically,many free African Americans became barbers.It also known that their clientele was very diverse,and sought-after barbers like William were able to interact with prominent white citizens due to trust and respect William's interaction with influential white businessmen  allowed him to form his business decisions.

Due to his successful business transactions,by 1845,William had become a wealthy and talented businessman in York.Apart from being a retailer of various commodities,William owned  about twenty commercial and residential properties in York.In 1847,he built a five-story building known as centre Hall and is also credited with introducing the sales of daily newspapers in York.William also entered the railroad business with the Goodridge Reliance Line of Burthen Cars offering services between York,Philadelphia,and more 20 other cities.

William  put his wealth to good use by providing aid to the Underground Railroad.His Railroad operation often moved enslaved African-Americans on the way to freedom.His network on the Underground Railroad made him a key " conductor" and "station master." He befriended Frederick Douglass,John Brown,Frances Harper,Stephen Smith and other abolitionist change agents.On the third floor of the Goodridge building in Centre Square he concealed Osborn Perry Anderson following his participation with John Brown in the 1859 insurrection at Harper's Ferry.Osborn fled to Canada and was the only participant in that ill-fated event to survive thanks in part to William and members of Pennsylvania's Underground Railroad.After the Civil War,he remained a prosperous York businessman and his inpact on the community continued.

William moved from York to Minneapolis to live with his daughter,Emily,and her busband,Ralph Grey.The family had been in Minnesota since the late 1850's and was active in the anti-slavery movement in Minnesota.They were instrumental in helping a woman named Eliza Winston in 1860.The Grey's second son,Toussaint L' Ouverture Grey,named after the liberator of Haiti, was born in 1859,the first African-American Child born in St.Anthony.Toussaint died from died from hear disease on June 28,1868,at the 9.William died from congestive heart failure.He is buried in the Southwest corner of Minneapolis Pioneers and Soldiers Memorial Cemetery next to his son,Glenalvin,and his grandson,Toussaint Grey.Despite the prominent role that William played in the underground railroad,his accomplishments have not been widely known in Minnesota.Once family members left the state,the location of his grave was forgotten.Friends of the Cemetery rediscovered in June 2003.