"Who Would Be Free Themselves Must Strike the Blow": An Archaeology of Armed Resistance at Christiana, PA

Summary

This is an abstract from the session entitled "African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion" , at the 2022 annual meeting of the Society for Historical Archaeology.

In the aftermath of the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, profiteering vigilantes and corrupt local officials consipred to kidnap and enslave African-American people in the border states of the Mid-Atlantic. Banding together in mutual aid and vigilance societies, those who had self-emanciapted joined with those who had been born into freedom in multiple acts of resistance against the deprivations of the "slave-cathchers" and kidnappers. One such act took place near the small town of Christiana, Pennsylvania, where a kidnapping attempt was repelled through armed resistance. This paper discusses invocative archaeological evidence of this event, which was immortalized as the Christiana "Riot," and which led to mass charges and a trial for treason, but which resulted in partially neutralizing the worse effects of the Fugitive Slave Act.

This Resource is Part of the Following Collections

• African American Voices In The Mid-Atlantic: Archaeology Of Elusive Freedom, Enslavement, And Rebellion   •
• Society for Historical Archaeology 2022

Keywords

Individual & Institutional Roles

Contact(s): Society for Historical Archaeology