The Escape of the Pearl

Transcription

1 The Escape of the Pearl Social Education 67(5), pp National Council for the Social Studies Teaching about slavery with primary source documents = Susan Hoffman Fishman As an education consultant to the Harriet Beecher Stowe Center in Hartford, Connecticut, I was conducting research during the summer of 2000 in preparation for a Teacher Institute to be held the following July. The one-week institute, entitled This Question of Slavery : Perspectives from Primary Sources, was to take place at the nineteenth century home where Stowe lived from 1873 until her death in The institute was intended to expose middle and high school teachers to primary source documents on slavery and innovative strategies for using the documents in American history classes. 1 In my research, I was specifically looking for materials that would illustrate the enormous complexities that fueled the passions of abolitionists, politicians and pro-slavery advocates in America before the Civil War, as well as engage teachers and students in an intriguing story involving conflict and a host of characters from all levels of American society. In August, I came across a little documented but highly controversial event, described in the summer issue of the magazine American Legacy, which proved to be the perfect vehicle for achieving these goals. Written by novelist Thomas Fleming, and entitled, The Flight of the Pearl, the piece referred to a dramatic incident that occurred in our nation s capital on April 15, 1848, involving the attempted escape of seventy-six slaves hidden aboard a ship called the Pearl. Although the plot itself failed, many of the most prominent members of American society at the time became involved in the ensuing public debate surrounding the ultimate fate of the captured slaves and crew of the Pearl. The event became a rallying cry for abolitionists; it enraged slaveholders and pro-slavery advocates; and it ensnared Congress in ugly rhetoric and innuendos. 2 Given the list of important national figures involved, I wondered why the Pearl had never become a chapter in the official history of antebellum America. I began to conduct further research and found three significant primary sources relating to the Pearl and, in addition to the Fleming article, three secondary sources written in the twentieth century, all of which were based, in large part, on the same few primary documents. 3 In reading these sources, I was puzzled that each version of the story was slightly different. The facts of the incident that were consistent in all of the sources are as follows: On April 15, 1848, seventy-six (or seventy-seven, depending on the version) slaves from forty-one of the most prominent families in Washington, D.C., and Virginia (for example, both Sen. Daniel Webster and Dolly Madison owned slaves aboard the Pearl) boarded the Pearl in the dark of night. The ship set sail. There were three hands on board: Captain Sayres, who owned the ship, Captain Daniel Drayton, who was in charge of the cargo, and Chester English, the cook/mate. The Pearl was forced to drop anchor during the evening at the mouth of the Potomac River because of a contrary wind that prevented the ship from entering the Chesapeake Bay. 4 The slaveholders awoke the next day to find their slaves gone. Someone revealed the whereabouts of the slaves to the frantic slaveholders. The slaveholders boarded a ship posthaste and captured the Pearl, which was then towed back to Washington. The crew was shackled and led through the streets of Washington, which were lined with an angry and violent mob of several thousand persons. They were placed in jail under heavy guard and charged with 77 counts of theft. The slaves, who had also been shackled and marched through the angry mob, were also taken to jail. Most were given over to slave traders and sold. A series of trials took place in which Drayton and Sayres defended the charges against them amidst an atmosphere of public outrage. (English was released after four months in jail, when it was determined that he had no knowledge of the plot.) Horace Mann, one of the most prominent lawyers of the time, defended Drayton at no cost. He claimed the charges of theft made against Drayton were erroneous because it was not possible to steal a person who desired to leave of his own free will. Despite Mann s eloquent defense, Drayton and Sayres were sentenced to the Washington jail where they remained for more than four years until President Millard Fillmore pardoned them in Harriet Beecher Stowe was so moved by the fugitives of the Pearl that she included the incident in the pages of Uncle Tom s Cabin, 5 the anti-slavery novel that stirred the nation in 1852 and was referred to by Abraham Lincoln as the book that started the Civil War. 6 S e p t e m b e r

2 To this day, many of the basic facts about the Pearl incident remain in question: Who hired Captain Drayton? When and where was he hired? How did the slaves communicate with each other and organize such a daring plan? Who betrayed the slaves and for what reason? The story of the Pearl and the subsequent furor it raised in antebellum America is a microcosm, an encapsulated illustration of the conflict that arose in this country over the existence of slavery in what was considered a free and democratic society. The event also provides us with the opportunity to pose questions about the nature of history itself: How is official history recorded? Historical versions of events such as this are based on available information. If the points of view of important witnesses are not gathered, the official version of the story is only partially complete. In this case, Drayton, Sayres, English and more than seventy slaves were the principal participants of the escape plot. Even though Drayton was offered $1,000 and was guaranteed to be let off easy if he divulged the history of the expedition, he adamantly refused to reveal who had contracted with him. 7 When he published his memoir five years after the incident, Drayton maintained his silence on that issue. The other two members of the crew did not have access to the information that Drayton possessed. The fugitive slaves were never officially interviewed and, in accordance with the law, were not allowed to testify in court. Their point of view was not considered valid and is missing from the historical record. Only Harriet Beecher Stowe bothered to get such information. She gathered data on six of the slaves, members of the Edmonson family, because the father of the fugitive slaves appealed to her brother, Henry Ward Beecher, for financial help. She recorded that material in A Key to Uncle Tom s Cabin, a compilation of facts and research on slaves and slavery that she published to prove the validity of her novel. 8 Using the story of the Pearl and the intriguing issues it raises, master teacher Liz Devine and I designed an activity for the Teacher Institute entitled, Storytelling Using Primary Source Documents. Teaching Teachers: Storytelling Using Primary Source Documents Storytelling is one of the most basic and most compelling forms of communication, dating back to a time when history was transmitted orally from generation to generation. Our objective in utilizing the format of storytelling was to immerse the teachers in an intriguing story (one with a gripping plot, colorful characters and a riotous setting) as an effective and innovative way of teaching about the following subjects: (1) the conditions of slavery in antebellum America and the effect on its human victims; (2) the extreme passions generated on all sides of the slavery debate; (3) the consequences of an The Historical Society of Washington, D.C. S o c i a l E d u c a t i o n 262

3 attempted escape from slavery on those who assisted the escape and on those who fled; (4) the origins of official history or the ways in which history is documented and written; and (5) the qualities that drive some individuals to risk their lives for freedom and justice. The twenty teachers from urban, rural and suburban middle and high schools in Connecticut who participated in the 2001 Summer Teacher Institute were divided into seven small groups. Each group was asked to read one of seven versions of the Pearl incident. After electing a spokesperson or storyteller, each group constructed the story of the Pearl, using only the facts contained in the group s assigned source material as well as guideline questions that we prepared for them. Taking on the persona of the original author, the seven storytellers recited their versions of the April 15, 1848 event and the related events that occurred during the next year. The storytellers also identified the point of view of the document s author, the author s relationship to the incident and his or her intended audience. A designated recorder noted the facts that differed from story to story. Each of the contested facts then became the impetus for a discussion on the conditions of slavery. For example, in discussing the contested identity and ultimate motivation of the person who devised the escape plan, the teachers examined the question of why some slaves attempted to run away, knowing it could cost their lives and affect the lives of their families, and why others did not reach this point. The teachers acknowledged that even though the slaves involved in the Pearl incident were living with masters and mistresses who treated them relatively well, their innate desire for freedom forced them to take action. The fugitives of the Pearl represented a blatant contradiction to the arguments of pro-slavery activists such as George Fitzhugh, a lawyer and planter from Port Royal, Virginia, who, like others, claimed that the Negro slaves of the South are the happiest, and, in some sense, the freest people in the world. 9 Returning to school in the fall of 2001, Liz Devine and her colleagues at Hall High School and Conard High School in West Hartford, Connecticut, took the Pearl material a step further and created an innovative, interactive program on slavery, democracy and freedom for 180 advanced placement U.S. history students. The Pearl: An Interactive Simulation Initial work for the two and a half-month project began in October of 2001 when the five West Hartford A.P. teachers assigned Uncle Tom s Cabin to all of their students. Having been reintroduced during the Teacher Institute to the book s power in engaging readers, Devine wanted to use the story and its characters as a way of discussing the institution of slavery and its impact on nineteenth century American society. Teachers and students conducted a series of class discussions on the novel during which they posed critical questions on the nature of slavery, morality and freedom such as the following: (1) Is there such a thing as a good slaveholder? (2) Was the character Topsy, who challenged her mistress by joyously acting out, stealing, and lying, actually freer than other slaves who obediently followed orders? and (3) Were members of the white society, represented by slaveholders such as St. Clare and Simon S e p t e m b e r Legree, as enslaved by the system as those who were physically enslaved? During the month of November, students received the packet of primary and secondary source documents related to the Pearl incident and participated in the activity Storytelling Using Primary Source Documents. They examined seven versions of the story (six excerpts of which are included on the next page) in small groups and analyzed the reasons for the conflicting facts and approaches. Many students expressed a sense of excitement, passion and even intrigue as a result of being confronted for the first time by an historical event that was not presented as an absolute truth in a textbook. The point of this activity was to demonstrate that historical events cannot be accurately documented if all of the relevant information is not gathered, as was the case in the question of who hired Drayton (see sidebar). Neither the teachers at the institute nor the high school students who participated in this exercise tried to determine the answer to this question because the facts were inconclusive. What the activity did do was enable them to discuss why the facts were in contention and how history like this is recorded. The culminating activity of the Pearl project, the simulation, enabled students to respond to issues of democracy and freedom through the eyes of the characters in Uncle Tom s Cabin and the major players in the Pearl incident. Ten students, divided among the two schools and eight classes, were given the roles of individuals whose opinions on slavery covered the spectrum of views in antebellum America: Angelina Grimke, Frederick Douglass, Daniel Drayton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Abraham Lincoln, Senator Francis Gillette (Conn.), Stephen Douglass, Jefferson Davis and Senator Foote (Miss.). The students were asked to prepare a short speech in the voice of their assigned characters revealing the characters own definitions of democracy and freedom as the students understood them, considering both the Declaration of Independence and the events related to the Pearl case. The remaining 170 students sat in the audience in small groups representing twenty-one additional characters. Their job was to respond to the individuals on stage and engage them in dialogue. A teacher in costume, playing the part of a newspaper editor in the nineteenth century, acted as moderator and posed questions when necessary to clarify positions and statements. During one impassioned conversation, which exemplified how successfully the students analyzed the historical documents, applied the information they had learned and drew insightful conclusions, the character of Martin Delaney (abolitionist and advocate for colonization) questioned the character playing Senator Foote of Mississippi on his definition of slaves as property. Foote responded by stating that his definition came from the Founding Fathers and that preservation of his property was one of his most sacred rights. Philip Barton Key (the prosecutor in the Drayton case) then confronted Daniel Drayton with the accusation that his actions in stealing other men s property were worse than those of Simon Legree (the evil slaveholder in Uncle Tom s Cabin who eventually beats the slave, Tom, to death) because Drayton broke the law referred to by Foote, whereas Legree was entitled to conduct himself in any manner he chose Continued on page 266

4 Who Hired Drayton? What Six Sources Say The following excerpts, which offer different versions of the same event, demonstrate the challenges of reconstructing history. Drayton himself says: I talked pretty freely... about myself, the circumstances under which I had undertaken this enterprise, my motives to it, my family, my past misfortunes, and the fate that probably awaited me; but they failed to extract from me, what they seemed chiefly to desire, any information which would implicate others.... Though I was firmly resolved not to yield in this particular, yet I was desirous to do all I could to soften this feeling against me; and it was doubtless this desire which led me to make the statements sworn to by Orme and Craig, that I had no connection with the persons called abolitionists, which was true enough; that I had formerly refused offers made to me by slaves to carry them away; and that, in the present instance, I was employed by others, and was to be paid for my services. From the National Era, an abolitionist press in Washington, D.C., as reported in the April, 28, 1848 issue of The North Star: Last Saturday night, we learn, some seventy or eighty slaves escaped from this place, in a sloop or schooner, and proceeded down the river.... A great of deal of excitement was the result; and the cry soon arose among the crowd, that the National Era was the cause of the mischief.... The rumor that the office of the National Era was concerned in the escape of the slaves in the Pearl is utterly groundless--that its originators know, but they are willing to use it to inflame popular feeling against our press. From A Key to Uncle Tom s Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe, as related to her in an interview with Milly Edmonson, whose six children were passengers on the Pearl: A respectable colored man, by the name of Daniel Bell, who had purchased his own freedom resided in the city of Washington. His wife, with her eight children, were set free by her master, when on his death-bed. The heirs endeavored to break the will, on the ground that he was not of sound mind at the time of its preparation. The magistrate, however... was enabled to defeat their purpose.... On the death of this magistrate, the heirs again brought the case into court, and, as it seemed likely to be decided against the family, they resolved to secure their legal rights by flight and engaged passage on board the vessel of Captain Drayton. Many of their associates and friends, stirred up, perhaps, by the recent demonstrations in favor of liberty, begged leave to accompany them. From The Fugitives of the Pearl by John H. Paynter: Coincident with this celebration there had arrived at Washington the schooner Pearl with Daniel Drayton as super-cargo, Captain Sayres, owner, and a young man, Chester English, as sailor and cook. Drayton witnessed the great demonstration near the White House and, as might have been expected, the sentiment that seemed to have won all Washington found a natural and active response, for when the news of the purpose of his visit was communicated by the woman for whose deliverance he had agreed to make the trip, he was appealed to on behalf of others and consented to take all who should be aboard by ten o clock that night. From The Flight of the Pearl by Thomas Fleming: In 1848 Drayton met Paul Jennings, the instigator of the escape plan, who was the black butler of Sen. Daniel Webster of Massachusetts.... Technically Jennings wasn t a slave, since the senator had bought him on a visit to the South and freed him after Jennings agreed to work off his purchase price at the rate of eight dollars a month in addition to his board, clothes and washing. Jennings still had a year to go when he decided to make his freedom genuine by heading north. He began negotiating with Drayton on his own behalf and that of several friends who were also eager to escape the South. From Escape on the Pearl by Mary Kay Ricks: Three men, key figures in the Pearl escape plan, slipped away to inform trusted friends that a freedom ship would be ready for boarding on Saturday evening.... One was Paul Jennings, Sen. Daniel Webster s butler... Jennings had open access to Webster s library and traveled north with him frequently. He apparently met Capt. Drayton during a visit to Philadelphia.... The second black conspirator was Daniel Bell, who was the free husband of a slave family and is credited with financing the venture to bring his wife and children to freedom.... The third man was a hired-out slave named Samuel Edmondson, whose family plays the central role in this story. S o c i a l E d u c a t i o n 264

5 Memoirs of Daniel Drayton Passage from Personal Memoirs of Daniel Drayton... p. 27 Meanwhile, both houses of Congress became the scenes of very warm debates, growing out of circumstances connected with our case. In the Senate, Mr. Hale... asked leave to introduce a bill for the protection of property in the District of Columbia against the violence of mobs. This bill, as was stated in the debate, was copied, almost word for word, from a law in force in the State of Maryland (and many other states have--and all ought to have--a similar law), making the cities and towns liable for any property which might be destroyed in them by mob violence. In the House the subject came up on a question of privilege, raised by Mr. Palfrey, of Massachusetts, who offered a resolution for the appointment of a select committee to inquire into the currently-reported facts that a lawless mob had assembled during the two previous nights, setting at defiance the constituted authority of the United States, and menacing members of Congress and other persons... It was upon this occasion, during the debate in the Senate, that Mr. Foote, then a senator from Mississippi, and now governor of that state...threatened to join in lynching Mr. Hale, if he ever set foot in Mississippi, whither he invited him to come for that purpose. This part of the debate was so peculiar and so characteristic, showing so well the spirit upon which the District of Columbia was then blazing against me, that I cannot help giving the following extract... Passage from Personal Memoirs of Daniel Drayton... p. 9 My trading up and down the bay, in the way which I have described, of course brought me a good deal into contact with the slave population. No sooner, indeed, does a vessel, known to be from the north, anchor in any of these waters and the slaves are pretty adroit in ascertaining from what state a vessel comes that she is boarded, if she remains any length of time, and especially over night, by more or less of them, in hopes of obtaining a passage in her to a land of freedom. During my earlier voyagings, several years before, in Chesapeake Bay, I had turned a deaf ear to all these requests. At that time, according to an idea still common enough, I had regarded the negroes as only fit to be slaves, and not been inclined to pay much attention to the pitiful tales which they told me of ill-treatment by their masters and mistresses. But my views upon this subject had undergone a gradual change. I know it was asserted in the Declaration of Independence that all men are born free and equal, and I had read in the Bible that God had made of one flesh all the nations of the earth. I had found out, by intercourse with the negroes, that they had the same desires, wishes and hopes, as myself. I knew very well that I should not like to be a slave even to the best of masters, and still less to such sort of masters as the greater part of the slaves seemed to have. The idea of having first one child and then another taken from me, as fast as they grew large enough, and handed over to the slave-traders, to be carried I knew not where, and sold, if they were girls, I knew not for which purpose, would have been horrible enough; and, from instances which came to my notice, I perceived it was not less horrible and distressing to the parties concerned in the case of black people than of white ones. I had never read any abolition books, nor heard any abolition lectures... But for the life of me, I could not perceive why the golden rule of doing to others as you would wish them to do to you did not apply to this case. Primary Source Documents Drayton, Daniel. Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, for Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner: For Charity s Sake in Washington Jail Including a Narrative of the Voyage and Capture of the Schooner Pearl. Boston, Mass: Bela Marsh; New York: American and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, Memoir of the captain who agreed to take the fugitive slaves to freedom. Available in The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Library. Online text available through the digital library of Cornell University, Making of America, cdl.library.cornell.edu/moa/. Excerpts from numerous issues of The North Star, an African American newspaper that was published from December 3, 1847 through April 17, 1851, edited by Frederick Douglass and M. R. Delaney. The newspaper was established to see in this slave-holding, slavetrading, and negro-hating land, a printing-press and paper, permanently established, under complete control and direction of the immediate victims of slavery and oppression... Relevant excerpts run from April 28, 1848, just after the Pearl incident occurred, to June 12, Stowe, Harriet Beecher. A Key to Uncle Tom s Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon Which the Story is Founded Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work. Boston, Mass.: J. P. Jewett, Part II, Chapter VI describes, in Stowe s words, the Pearl incident and, in great detail, the Edmonson family. Available in The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center Library. Online text available through the University of Virginia s website, Uncle Tom s Cabin and American Culture: jefferson.village.virginia.edu/utc/. Secondary Source Documents Paynter, John H. The Fugitives of the Pearl. Excerpted and reprinted from The Journal of Negro History 1, no. 3, July Summary of the incident sixty-eight years after it occurred. Online text available from Howard University ArchivesNet, edu/paynter1.htm. Fleming, Thomas. The Flight of the Pearl. Contemporary article in American Legacy, a joint venture of RJR Communications, Inc., and The American Heritage Group, a Division of Forbes, Inc. Summer 2000 issue. Lewis, David L. The Pearl Affair, in District of Columbia: A Bicentennial History, New York: W.W. Norton and Company, Inc., This history of Washington, D.C. by David Lewis, is one volume in a series entitled, States and the Nation. Using Drayton s memoir and Paynter s Fugitives of the Pearl as source material, Lewis reconstructs the Pearl affair. Ricks, Mary Kay. Escape on the Pearl. Article that appeared in The Washington Post on Wednesday, August 12, 1998, 150 years after the Pearl incident and one week after descendants of the Edmonsons attended a commemorative family reunion. S e p t e m b e r

6 towards his legal property. When Drayton responded by arguing that he was following a higher law, based on human dignity and morality, Key stated adamantly that the only law recognized in this land was the Constitution itself. As a final assessment of the full project, all of the students wrote a three-page essay in which they incorporated citations from the Pearl documents, Uncle Tom s Cabin, and the simulation and responded to the following question: The slavery issue brought out conflicting definitions of freedom. How did the Pearl case and Uncle Tom s Cabin reflect this conflict? As a result of studying the compelling story of the unlikely hero, Daniel Drayton, and his unsuccessful attempt to carry more than seventy slaves to freedom aboard the Pearl, students became passionately engaged in debates over the issues of morality and law, slavery in a democratic society and the nature of history itself. By examining primary and secondary source materials and then participating in activities involving storytelling and role-playing, they developed insights, raised questions and drew conclusions that paralleled those occupying the minds and hearts of the nation more than 150 years ago. Notes 1. The Summer 2001 Teacher Institute, This Question of Slavery : Perspectives From Primary Sources, was sponsored by and held at The Harriet Beecher Stowe Center, 77 Forest Street, Hartford, CT, For further information on the Teacher Institute, contact the Stowe Center at or online at The Teacher Institute was supported by The Connecticut Collaborations for Teaching the Arts and Humanities, a partnership of the Connecticut Humanities Council and the Eisenhower Program of the Department of Higher Education. Printed source materials for students participating in the interactive simulation, described on pages 7 through 9 of this paper, were paid for through a grant from the Foundation for West Hartford Public Schools. 2. Thomas Fleming, The Flight of the Pearl, American Legacy (Summer 2000): See References for list of documents on the Pearl used by teachers and students. 4. Daniel Drayton, Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton, For Four Years and Four Months a Prisoner: For Charity s Sake in Washington Jail Including a Narrative of the Voyage of the Schooner Pearl (Boston, Mass: Bela Marsh, 1853): Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom s Cabin (New York and London: W. W. Norton & Co., 1994): Upon meeting Harriet Beecher Stowe in the White House in 1862, Abraham Lincoln is credited with saying to her, So you re the little woman who wrote the book that started this great war! Joan D. Hedrick, Harriet Beecher Stowe: A Life (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1994): vii. 7. Drayton, Harriet Beecher Stowe, A Key to Uncle Tom s Cabin; Presenting the Original Facts and Documents upon Which the Story is Founded Together with Corroborative Statements Verifying the Truth of the Work (Boston, Mass: John P. Jewett & Co., 1853): George Fitzhugh, Cannibals All! or, Slavery Without Masters (Richmond, Va.: A. Morris, 1857): 29. Susan Hoffman Fishman is an education consultant for museums, historic sites and arts institutions. She lives in West Hartford, Connecticut, and can be contacted at shfishman@aol.com. S o c i a l E d u c a t i o n 266