Osborne was also generous and insisted that if it proved to be the other "nigger" who was with the company, Coffin should have half the reward.How the young Quaker outwitted the tyrant, gained his point, sent Jack on his way to liberty, and at the same time retained the confidence of Osborne so that upon their return home he was definitely engaged to assist Osborne in finding Sam, is a fascinating story.The abolitionist won from the slaveholder the doubtful compliment that "there was not a man in that neighborhood worth a d--n to help him hunt his negro except young Levi Coffin."Sam was perfectly safe so long as Levi Coffin was guide for the hunting-party, but matters were becoming desperate.For the fugitive something had to be done.Another family was planning to move to Indiana, and in their wagon Sam was to be concealed and thus conveyed to a free State.The business had now become serious.The laws of the State affixed the death penalty for stealing a slave.At night when young Coffin and his father, with Sam, were on their way to complete arrangements for the departure, horsemen appeared in the road near by.They had only time to throw themselves flat on the ground behind a log.From the conversation overheard, they were assured that they had narrowly escaped the night-riders on the lookout for stray negroes.The next year, 1822, Coffin himself joined a party going to Indiana by the southern route through Tennessee and Kentucky.
In the latter State they were at one time overtaken by men who professed to be looking for a pet dog, but whose real purpose was to recover runaway slaves.They insisted upon examining the contents of the wagons, for in this way only a short time previous a fugitive had been captured.
These incidents show the origin of the system.The first case of assistance rendered a negro was not in itself illegal, but was intended merely to prevent the crime of kidnapping.The second was illegal in form, but the aid was given to one who, having been set free by will, was being reenslaved, it was believed, by an unjust decision of a court.The third was a case of outrageous abuse on the part of the owner.The negro Sam had himself gone to a trader begging that he would buy him and preferring to take his chances on a Mississippi plantation rather than return to his master.The trader offered the customary price and was met with the reply that he could have the rascal if he would wait until after the enraged owner had taken his revenge, otherwise the price would be twice the amount offered.A large proportion of the fugitives belonged to this maltreated class.Others were goaded to escape by the prospect of deportation to the Gulf States.The fugitives generally followed the beaten line of travel to the North and West.
In 1826 Levi Coffin became a merchant in Newport, Indiana, a town near the Ohio line not far from Richmond.In the town and in its neighborhood lived a large number of free negroes who were the descendants of former slaves whom North Carolina Quakers had set free and had colonized in the new country.Coffin found that these blacks were accustomed to assist fugitives on their way to Canada.When he also learnt that some had been captured and returned to bondage merely through lack of skill on the part of the negroes, he assumed active operations as a conductor on the Underground Railroad.
Coffin used the Underground Railroad as a means of making converts to the cause.One who berated him for negro-stealing was adroitly induced to meet a newly arrived passenger and listen to his pathetic story.At the psychological moment the objector was skillfully led to hand the fugitive a dollar to assist him in reaching a place of safety.Coffin then explained to this benevolent non-abolitionist the nature of his act, assuring him that he was liable to heavy damages therefor.The reply was in this case more forcible than elegant: "Damn it! You've got me!"This conversion he publicly proclaimed for the sake of its influence upon others.Many were the instances in which those of supposed pro-slavery convictions were brought face to face with an actual case of the threatened reenslavement of a human being escaping from bondage and were, to their own surprise, overcome by the natural, humane sentiment which asserted itself.For example, a Cincinnati merchant, who at the time was supposed to be assisting one of his Southern customers to recover an escaped fugitive, was confronted at his own home by the poor half-starved victim.Yielding to the impulse of compassion, he gave the slave food and personal assistance and directed the destitute creature to a place of refuge.
The division in the Quaker meeting in Indiana with which Levi Coffin was intimately associated may serve to exemplify a corresponding attitude in other churches on the question of slavery.The Quakers availed themselves of the first great anti-slavery movement to rid themselves completely of the burden.
Their Society itself became an anti-slavery organization.Yet even so the Friends had differences of opinion as to fit methods of action.Not only did many of them disapprove of rendering aid to fugitives but they also objected to the use of the meetinghouses for anti-slavery lectures.The formation of the Liberty party served to accentuate the division.The great body of the Friends were anti-slavery Whigs.
