1829: The slaves of the Greenup revolt

ExecutedToday.com ^ | November 20th, 2015 | Headsman

[CheshireTheCat]

On this date in 1829, the Kentucky town of Greenup strung up martyrs to the slave economy.

Our incident begins with a slaver by the name of Gordon who, with the aid of two assistants, was driving 60 blacks “including all sexes and ages” from the flesh markets of Maryland where he bought them west to the Mississippi — likely there to be “sold down the river” into barges bound for still harsher bondage deeper South. Melancholy slave coffles* like this one crisscrossed Kentucky’s highways routinely, columns of chattel lashed two by two to a long chain with a wagon train of provisions alongside. (Source) The awful migrations peaked in the summer months — timed to cotton plantations’ coming labor demands for the autumn harvest.

Despite the frequency and visibility of these transits, Kentucky remained an uneasy northern frontier of the Slave Power; in the coming Civil War it would become a literal battleground claimed by both North and South. Greenup was a river town, and just across the river lay Ohio, an abolitionist state. Kentucky’s proximity to free soil had invited bloody slave revolts in the past; here, the North-South nexus also helped to propagate the story of the Greenup incident.

An editor in nearby Portsmouth, Ohio, which was not merely free territory but a hub of the Underground Railroad, ran a story that soon volleyed around the Republic as newspaper after neighboring newspaper reprinted the remarkable bulletin copied ultimately from Portsmouth’s Western Tiller. This version of it (with line breaks added for readability) comes from the New-Hampshire Sentinel of Sept. 18, 1829. It’s verbatim from what the Western Tiller had reported almost a month before.....

[FlingWingFlyer]

This “slave” booschidt that happened so long ago is getting to be a real pain in the ass. None of us were involved in that. The crybabies need to give it a rest. Africans living in America have had it a hell of a lot better than their ancestors did in that craphole, Africa. There aren’t any African nationals who became millionaires by throwing a ball in the circle of life or running up and down a rectangle carrying a pigskin.

[Tell It Right]

From the story within the linked article: A negro driver, by the name of Gordon, who had purchased in Maryland about 60 negroes, including all sexes and ages, was taking them, assisted by an associated named Allen, and the wagoner who conveyed the baggage, to the Mississippi.

Black-on-black slave trading in the U.S.

[moovova]

But articles like this make me cringe every time. Who in their right mind could ever think this was acceptable? Even today...man’s inhumanity to man continues unabated.

[FlingWingFlyer]

From what I’ve seen on various documentaries, some of the slave owners with the most slaves were black.

[FlingWingFlyer]

Exactly. I just look at the way they treat each other right now and try to pin their problems on Caucasians.

[heartwood]

Negro driver might be constructed like sheep herder. Doesn’t mean the man was a neuro or a sheep.

[heartwood]

Thank you auto correct.

[higgmeister]

A negro driver,

I took that to mean a driver of negros, not a negro who was a driver.

[Midwesterner53]

We need a new national holiday.

[Vermont Lt]

Who is being a crybaby? The “crybaby” in the article was a peer of the slaves—a free black man. I would think that guy might have a bit of a perspective on the story.