1/17/20
In 1851, a Maryland Farmer Tried to Kidnap Free Blacks in Pennsylvania. He Wasn’t Expecting the Neighborhood to Fight Back
Breaking Newstags: African American history, Pennsylvania, uprisings
James Delle is an archaeologist at Millersville University, in Millersville, Pennsylvania. He is the author of The Archaeology of Northern Slavery and Freedom.
The muse for this story is a humble piece of stone, no more than an inch square. Sometime in the mid-19th century, it had been fashioned into a gunflint—an object that, when triggered to strike a piece of steel, could spark a small explosion of black powder and propel a lead ball from the muzzle of a gun with mortal velocity.
Archaeologists often come across gunflints. That’s because during the 19th century, firearms were considered mundane items, owned by rich and poor alike. Gunflints, like shell casings now, were their disposable remnants.
But this gunflint is special.
In 2008, my students and I, working with nearby residents, unearthed this unassuming little artifact during an archaeological dig in a little Pennsylvania village known as Christiana. We found it located in what today is a nondescript corn field, where a small stone house once stood.
For a few hours in 1851, that modest residence served as a flashpoint in America’s struggle over slavery. There, an African American tenant farmer named William Parker led a skirmish that became a crucial flareup in the nation’s long-smoldering conflict over slavery.
It’s been 160 years since the uprising, which for most of its history was known as the Christiana Riot, but is now more often referred to as the Christiana Resistance, Christiana Tragedy, or Christiana Incident. In taking up arms, Parker and the small band of men and women he led proved that African Americans were willing to fight for their liberation and challenge the federal government’s position on slavery. Finding a broken and discarded flint offers a tangible piece of evidence of their struggle, evoking memories of a time when the end of slavery was still but a hope, and the guarantee of individual liberty for all people merely a dream.
comments powered by Disqus
News
- The Enduring Appeal of the BBC's "Desert Island Discs" – the Longest Running Interview Show
- White Conservative Parents Got an Educator Fired, then Chased Her to Her Next Job
- Teaching Black History in Virginia Just Got Tougher
- If Ending Roe Isn't Enough, SCOTUS May Blow Up the Regulatory State
- "All the President's Men": From Misguided Buddy Flick to Iconic Political Thriller
- Belew to Maddow: Fascist Groups are "Nationwide Paramilitary Army"
- Far Right Extremism, Paramilitarization, and Misogyny – Statement of Alexandra Stern to the January 6 Committee
- Northwestern Prof and Evanston HS Teachers Engage Illinois Black History
- Jamie Martin: The Rotten Roots of the IMF and World Bank
- Review: Gary Gerstle Argues the Pandemic Killed the Neoliberal Era (But Democrats Don't Know It Yet)