So usually, our articles about the race riots and massacres of the past 400 years end with the deaths of hundreds of black folks in each incident at the hands of their oppressors. Those who weren’t killed lived to pass on the history to their ancestors because it is not taught in schools. As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t believe some of those textbooks if they told me… “I was black…” Anyway, the Christiana Riot was different because somebody got a whooping… and it wasn’t us.
Stop And Put Yo’ Hands On That Tree
So, in 1850, ten years before the Civil War, the North and South were trying to work something out about the escaped enslaved people running to the North. They came up with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 (FSA). Now mind you, there was already a fugitive slave act enacted in 1793, folks were just not paying attention to it, especially black folks. As soon as the “massa” turned his back… “Boom!'” we were gone…
Massa: “Now Jed bring yo’ no account ass over here. Bring me some nails and hold up this beam so the ceiling don’t fall on me while I nail it back in place… Jed? JED?? WHY YOU WORTHLESS…!!”
Meanwhile just across the freedom line…
Leroy: “…. and you left him on that ladder holding up the ceiling?”
Jed: “Yep… and I took all the nails with me…”
So yeah, a lot of folks in the 1700s were escaping to the North and getting away with it. By that I mean, there weren’t a lot of people looking for them. However, that changed when cotton became the economic engine of the South and the price of an enslaved black person skyrocketed. After that, escaping to the North was as dangerous as sitting in a front row at a Trump rally with a Barrack Obama tee-shirt on. Racist: “We may have to “kell” him…” If you are familiar with Ava Duvernay’s “The 13th,” then you’ll get the last joke… if not, then just click here. Anyway, not only did the FSA make escaping to the North ten times more dangerous, but it spawned a new industry… “Paddy Rollers (PR)”.
So, paddy rollers were the guys that went after escaped enslaved people and they were also the guys who were charged with preventing escapes.
PR: “Naw nigra… I don’t believe you going to New York to see yo’ cousin and then you’ll be right back…”
Beethoven: “Suh, I didn’t say I was going to New York to meet my cousin… I said I was going back to meet my massa at the fork… the fork in the road…”
PR: So, I’m a liar then nigra… right!!?
Beethoven: No Suh…
PR: “Here… take this gun…
Beethoven: NO SUH!! I DON’T WANT YO’ GUN!! NO SUH!!
PR: “I said take this gun boy or Ima shoot you in yo” black ass!!
Beethoven: “OH MY GAWD!!!” ( Massa arrives)
Massa: “Now hold on Billy… that nigra’s mine and I told him to meet me at the fork…”
PR: “Well Earl, this nigra called me a liar…”
Massa: “Did you call him a liar Beethoven?”
Beethoven: “Yes su…”
PR: “BANG!! BANG!! Earl, you need to control yo’ nigras… this one here was going to New York and was trying to take my gun…”
So yeah, just being off the plantation even if given permission, could cost you. Fortunately for Beethoven, the PR just shot him in the ass, and he was able to hobble back to the plantation and pick some more cotton before nightfall.
The name paddy rollers are derived from the word patrollers. They were also known as patty rollers and patter rollers. Some people say that they were the first organized police force. This is not true. Policing started in the US around the middle part of the 17th century. Boston started one in 1636, New York followed in 1658 and Philadelphia created one in 1700. They employed individuals as guards during the nighttime to look out for fellow colonists engaging in prostitution, gambling, and stealing. That didn’t work out too well because sometimes the people they hired were the same ones engaged in crimes. The first publicly funded, organized police force with officers on duty full-time was created in Boston in 1838. Now that’s not to say that paddy rollers haven’t been chasing escaped enslaved people since forever… just that it wasn’t organized, and they usually worked for bounties.
Cold As A Witches Whatchamacallit…
So that brings us to this week’s article, the Christiana Riot. I really hate calling this a riot. Every time we fight back, it’s a riot. When they fight back, it’s a protest… Anyhow, as we said earlier, the FSA of 1850, provided for the capture of enslaved people in free states and that the paddy rollers could request the aid of local officials in capturing them. Fines as high as $1000 could be levied against anyone aiding an escaped black person. That’s almost $40,000 in today’s money!
Me: “Yes suh, Mr. Bo, I saw two Nigras hiding out in Racist Bob’s barn… and he fed them potato salad and I even saw him put some raisins in it!!”
Yep, that’s how free black folks got back at a Moe if they violated, lie and tell the man they saw some Nigras on their property. Petty… absolutely… but you gotta do what you got to do… Anyhow, our story starts in Maryland with a man named Edward Gorsuch. He fancied himself as a good slave owner. He never whooped his slaves on Sunday and if he whooped them during the week, he always tried to leave a little bit of the black on them. As the story goes, he owned twelve slaves, and it was said he even freed some of them and offered them seasonal work too. Now freeing some of his slaves wasn’t all out of the kindness of his heart. Those that live in Maryland know that although it is considered a Southern state, it has the same seasonal changes that are often associated with states much farther up North. I mean it rains, it snows, it can be hotter than hell and it can be as cold as a witch’s whatchamacallit… sometimes all in the same day. So, the need for slaves was not as great in Maryland as in other traditional Southern states, like Mississippi, Georgia or Alabama. Those areas had relatively stable weather year-round and the need for enslave people to get at that cotton was greater. In Maryland, you still had to feed and house yo’ Nigra’s even when it was winter and there were no crops to be looked after. It was cheaper to free them. Now I mentioned that Gorsuch fancied himself as a good “Massa.” The good part came from him not selling his Nigra’s down the river. Many Maryland slave owners instead of freeing their enslaved blacks sold them to plantations in the south. That’s where that saying, ‘he was sold down the river,’ comes from. They would take them to the Mississippi River and put them on barges headed down South to be sold at auction.
Slave Auctioneer: Now what can I get for this fine specimen!! OPEN YO’ MOUTH!! As you can see, his previous master only knocked out five of his teeth and as an added bonus on this one.. we have them in this bag right here… that we will give to you at no extra charge!! They are great if you need replacements for yo own!! I’ll start the bidding at $500!! I got $500 there… anybody else? Going once… going twice… sold to the gentleman with the green smile!! Now this next nigra comes all the way to us from Maryland… hardly a days’ worth of work on this one… TURN AROUND!! Look at that back!! Only one lash on it… this here is a good boy… you won’t get no trouble out of this one… give me his papers Dutch… it says here… his master lashed him one time and then the nigra… Omg!! … BEND OVER NIGRA!! WE GONNA START THE BIDDING AT $1.00…!!”
So yeah, being sold down the river meant a lifetime of toil and pain and depending on what your papers said… revenge.
Anyway, one day Gorsuch went to his barn and discovered five barrels of wheat was missing. He was told some of his slaves had stolen it. Four of his slaves were missing and he found out that they had fled to Pennsylvania. History says he believed they had been “enticed to leave,” and that if he could talk to them, they would return.
Gorsuch: “Look… I know ya’ll stole my wheat. Unfortunately, I had to work in the field myself to harvest some more on my hands and knees. The wheat ya”ll stole I was gonna sell to pay the bank for the loan they gave me to buy ya’ll. I had to give them my plow or they said they would have me arrested and put in a cell with that darkie with the one lash. My back was so faqued up after picking that wheat into the wee hours of the morning, I had to ask some men to bring me home in my wheel barrel. The said they wanted me to pay them for wheeling me home or else they would cut something off and burn my house down with me inside… Since I didn’t have no money, I had to give them the wheat I harvested and my wheel barrel… but I don’t care… I just want ya’ll back here right in front of me… that’s all I dream of and pray for… seeing ya’ll back here… right here in front of me … I ain’t gonna do nothing to ya… I ain’t got nothing but love for ya…”
Okay, I don’t know if that’s what he said, but yeah, he wanted them to come back. Now Gorsuch had heard that the four men who had fled his enslavement were in Christiana, Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania was a free state and Christiana which was twenty miles north of the Maryland border had become a refuge for blacks escaping slavery. Christiana was also a stronghold for free blacks, meaning they had guns up in there. Still the PRs frequented the area looking for escaped black men. Local blacks had organized self-protection crews that thwarted the re-capture of black men by the PRS, and even rescued some that had been captured. The leader of the crew in 1851 was William Parker, a twenty-nine year old black man who had escaped slavery.
Come On In…
So, when a slaver went to re-enslave a black man in a free state, he had to go to the federal courts to get a warrant. The FSA was a federal law. Now although the free states had to abide by the law, their heart was not in it and if you were a slaver looking for help from them, then they would be glad to show you the nearest haystack. The slavers also had to watch out for a group named the “Special Secret Committee (SSC)” This group reported on whom the slavers were looking for and warned them.
As I said earlier, Gorsuch wanted those Nigras bad. He got a federal warrant for their arrest. A man named Henry Kline was authorized to make the arrest. He was a federal marshal. Gorsuch also hired two other men to assist. They were police officers from Philadelphia. Their names were John Agan and Thompson Tully. As if that wasn’t enough, Gorsuch also hired some more good old boys because those Nigras had VIOLATED!! He also needed the extra men because he wasn’t in Dixie no more, he was going to Chocolate City where they wished a Moe would.
Now as soon as they left Philadelphia where they obtained the warrants, they were followed by a man named Samuel Williams. Williams was a member of the SSC. Agan and Tully knew that Williams had followed them and that their plan for surprising the four men they were after was gone. Willams had rode ahead and just like Paul Revere in the Revolutionary War, he warned everybody… “THE RACIST ARE COMING!! THE RACIST ARE COMING!!” Tully and Agan returned to Philly because they knew better than to faque with them angry armed black men by themselves in a free state talking about they are looking for run-away slaves. You could easily get yo’ azz shot off messing around like that. So, Tully and Agan thought they would capture the runaways themselves, and had planned to meet up with Marshall Kline, Gorsuch and the rest of the men to bring those violating Nigras back to their lawful owner and Massa. Of course, Willams put a stop to that when he put the mouth on them by warning everybody. On the morning of September 10, 1851, they caught up with Gorsuch and the rest of the men. The next day at midnight all of the men rode into Christiana.
House where Peter Willams was confronted by Edward Gorsuch and his men.
Oh My Goodness…
So, Gorsuch also made another move earlier and had hired a guide. This guide was a very light skinned black man who they thought was white. He took them to one house where supposedly one of the wanted men was hiding. Gorsuch changed his mind about capturing this man first and the guide led him to another house where supposedly two of the wanted men were hiding. Gorsuch figured he could go back and persuade the one man to come out after he had captured these two men, because the man he left behind wife was still enslaved back at his plantation in Maryland. The two men were hiding at William Parkers house, the escaped twenty-nine year old angry black man who was in charge of the resistance. Anyway, the guide left, and it is not known if he deliberately led them to the heart of the resistance. Parker saw the group heading toward his house and knew they were looking for the escaped men. Now there were a lot of people in Parkers house. His wife, Eliza, her sister, Hannah, Hannah’s husband, Alexander Pinckney, and Abraham Johnson. In addition, also in the home was Joshua Kite, also known as John Beard, who was one of Gorsuch’s escaped slaves, Nelson Ford, and Samuel Thompson, another of the escaped slaves who had taken a new name. Sarah Pownall, a white neighbor and wife of Parker’s landlord was there also and telling them it might be good if they started heading for the Canadian border. I guess she knew this hot mess was only going to end one way… with bullets flying and she didn’t want to be in the middle of it. Sarah: Look ya’ll sneak out the back door and head to Canada while I delay them…” Parker: Don’t you know even know that Canada in 200 miles away… sit yo’ azz down!!” As the men got closer to Parkers house, they ran into Joshua Kite who was acting as a look out. Gorsuch recognized him as one of his enslaved black men. Kite hauled azz back up to the Parker house.
Gorsuch: “Nigra if you give yourself up peacefully, I won’t hang you until we get back to Maryland…”
Parker and his people moved to the second-floor arm to the teeth and had a birds-eye view of Gorsuch and his men coming up the hill.
Who Art In Heaven…
Gorsuch and his men surrounded the house, and the US Marshal announced their legal authority to seize Nelson Ford…
Marshal: “We come for that nigra Nelson Ford or as we like to call him Platt!! Give him up now or we gonna come in there and get him!! Now you know if you shoot a white man there gonna be some explaining to do. So, we can do this the easy way or the hard way. You can give up Platt and any other nigra we want, or you can explain to the preacher on the gallows how you was baptized and deserve to go to heaven. You got 2 minutes!!”
Parker refused to give up Ford, but not without debate…
Some of Parker’s Crew: “Them white folks ain’t playing out there… I ain’t afraid or nothing cause I’ve been baptized but shit…”
Parkers wife blew the horn alerting the other local blacks that help was needed. Right away shots were fired as Gorsuch and his men tried to enter the house. History does not record if Gorsuch and his men fired first or if it was Parker and his men. Gorsuch’s men wanted to leave and get reinforcements. Meanwhile Parker yelled out the window that they need more time to figure out what they wanted to do… Parker and his men discussed again whether it was time to give up Ford and the other men Gorsuch was looking for.
Some of Parker’s Crew: Look I ain’t been baptized… so I don’t know…
Now I know it looks like Parker and his men were punking out and getting ready to tap dance and sing for the Massa, but nothing was farther from the truth. Parker was just buying time for reinforcements to arrive. Thirty minutes later, Gorsuch estimated between one hundred and one hundred and fifty armed black men showed up… along with some white men. The marshals thought the white men came to help them, but they told Gorsuch and his men to leave before there was bloodshed! The white folks then begged the black men not to shoot Gorsuch and his men. The marshals warned the white folks that they were breaking federal law by not helping them. So, while this was happening, Parker and some of his men came out of the house. Among them was one of Gorsuch former slave. His name was Samuel Thompson. When Gorsuch saw him, he confronted Thompson.
Gorsuch: “Nigra… you coming back with me… and if you think that nigra in “12 Years A Slave” had a hard time… hold my beer!!!!”
It would be the last thing Gorsuch would say to the man… Thompson clubbed Gorsuch. Gorsuch fell and was killed by multiple gun shots. His son, Dickerson went to his aid but was also shot multiple time. Another white man helped him to escape. He was taken to a hospital, where they expected him to die, but he survived. The rest of Gorsuch men hauled ass. A couple of them were shot on the way out, but also survived. Of course, even though this was in the North, black folks gunning down white men was a no-no. William Parker, Gorsuch former enslaved men, and some others fled to Canada. Parker knew Fredrick Douglas and hid at his house, while Douglas arranged for passage to Canada. They had known each other when they were enslaved together in Maryland. Now the Christiana Riot was just one in an increasing number of armed confrontations between slave catchers and the men they hunted. There had been several high-profile cases before this encounter, including an encounter with an escaped slave named Shadrach Minkins. Minkins was a fugitive from Virginia. He was caught and arrested under the FSA. While in jail, members of the Boston Vigilance Committee broke him out and helped him get to Canada. Two men were prosecuted in Boston for helping free him, but they were acquitted by the jury. The feds were getting to feel some kinda way about every time they turned around, they were having to enforce the FSA. There was this dude named Thomas Sims. Sims had escaped slavery from “Nigra If You Don’t Stop Crying…” Georgia, and fled to Boston. He was one of the first blacks returned to slavery under the FSA. Uncle Sam had to send marshals and federal troops up there to keep them white folks from acting up. They hated the compromise between the North and South which required them to return escaped enslave black folks back to slavery. It’s hard to believe that today, Boston is one of the most racist cities in America. Anyway, the feds became harsher in their punishments in relation to people helping escaped slave. The Christiana Riot was a big thorn up in there, because out of all the other incidents, this latest case was the only one where a white slave owner had been beaten and shot… multiple times… by multiple people.
Picture of Castner Hanson and two of the men tried in federal court.
You Are Sentence To “Toe’s Dangling..”
President Fillmore called out the Marines to go to Christiana and investigate the killing of Gorsuch. They arrested thirty-six black men and five whites. To appease the South, the men were charged with the severe crime of treason. The Southerners were delighted, because wanted to see toes dangling, and if they didn’t, they were prepared to secede. The Northerners were not as happy and viewed the whole thing as showing of the reach of slave power into the federal government. In all forty-one people were indicted. The cases were held across two jurisdictions, the District Court to the Circuit Court indicted thirty-eight of the forty-one people arrested and the Grand Jury of the United States District Court, Philadelphia, indicted all of them. Parker and his crew were chilling in Canada but were also among the indicted. They knew what they were doing running to Canada. If they “eeeven” stepped a foot back on US soil they ass was grass, and we are just talking about the feds. If the Southerners would have gotten their hands on them… well let’s just say…” He leadeth what’s left of me… besides still waters…” Of the forty-one people indicted, five were white. Castner Hanway, thought to be the ringleader of the white resistance was acquitted. The jury took fifteen minutes to decide. The prosecutor dropped all of the rest of the charges and the white men were set free. By the way, Hanway was a Quaker. We owe a lot to the Quakers alive back then. They were a major part of the Underground Railroad. Anyway, with the acquittal of Hanway, most of the other 38 black men were also acquitted. History says “most’ of the black men were acquitted, but most does not mean all. My research doesn’t say what happened to the men who were found guilty, but treason is a toe’s dangling offense.
Epilogue
William Parker was joined by his wife and children and settled in Buxton, Ontario. He died sometime before 1881. His wife, Eliza, died in 1899. His descendants still live there.
Castner Hanway moved from Pennsylvania in 1878 and settled in Wilber, Nebraska, where he died in 1893.
Gorsuch’s youngest son, Thomas Gorsuch along with his schoolmate, “John Wilkes Booth,” swore revenge for his father’s death. John Wilkes Booth was the man who assassinated Abraham Lincoln.
As for Thomas, they shot him in the ass during the Civil War and we ain’t heard a peep out of him since… okay… I don’t know if they shot Thomas in the ass… but there is no more about him in history.
In September 1911, a memorial with both the descendants of Edward Gorsuch and William Parker was presented. Memorial medal were cast and both sides received one. Peter Woods was also there. He was sole survivor of the Christiana Riot and Treason Trials. He also received a memorial medal. The featured image is a picture of him and his family in 1911. Woods is the one in the center. It is not known where and when he died.
In 1998, a historical marker for the Christiana Riot was placed in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, near what is known as the Christiana Riot House. Now for my peeps in who live in Baltimore County, Maryland, in Glencoe, Maryland on York Road, there is a historical marker at Gorsuch Tavern where Edward Gorsuch and his family met to plan the raid.
Well, that is the satirical story of the Christiana Riot. I hope you enjoyed it. Please come back next week for more black history from Hill1News.
Thanks for reading ©Hill1News.
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