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Committee of Vigilance may refer to:
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and from there to Canada. The network, primarily the work of free African Americans, was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the "Underground Railroad". Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790. However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad began in the late 18th century. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network.
William Still was an African-American abolitionist based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He was a conductor of the Underground Railroad and was responsible for aiding and assisting at least 649 slaves to freedom towards North. Still was also a businessman, writer, historian and civil rights activist. Before the American Civil War, Still was chairman of the Vigilance Committee of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, named the Vigilant Association of Philadelphia. He directly aided fugitive slaves and also kept records of the people served in order to help families reunite.
A vigilance committee is a group of private citizens who take it upon themselves to administer law and order or exercise power in places where they considered the governmental structures or actions inadequate. Some vigilance committees engaged in forms of vigilantism such as aiding fugitive slaves in violation of the laws on the books at the time. Beginning in the 1830s committees of abolitionists worked to free enslaved people and transport them to freedom.
Florence is a village in the northwestern portion of the city of Northampton, Hampshire County, Massachusetts. During the 19th century, Florence was a thriving manufacturing village shaped by progressive ideas on religion, abolitionism, and education.
The Oberlin–Wellington Rescue of 1858 in was a key event in the history of abolitionism in the United States. A cause celèbre and widely publicized, thanks in part to the new telegraph, it is one of the series of events leading up to Civil War.
Vigilance may refer to:
Lewis Hayden escaped slavery in Kentucky with his family and escaped to Canada. He established a school for African Americans before moving to Boston, Massachusetts to aid in the abolition movement. There he became an abolitionist, lecturer, businessman, and politician. Before the American Civil War, he and his wife Harriet Hayden aided numerous fugitive slaves on the Underground Railroad, often sheltering them at their house.
Shadrach Minkins was an African-American fugitive slave from Virginia who escaped in 1850 and reached Boston. He also used the pseudonyms Frederick Wilkins and Frederick Jenkins. He is known for being freed from a courtroom in Boston after being captured by United States marshals under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Members of the Boston Vigilance Committee freed and hid him, helping him get to Canada via the Underground Railroad. Minkins settled in Montreal, where he raised a family. Two men were prosecuted in Boston for helping free him, but they were acquitted by the jury.
David Ruggles was an African-American abolitionist in New York who resisted slavery by his participation in a Committee of Vigilance and the Underground Railroad to help fugitive slaves reach free states. He was a printer in New York City during the 1830s, who also wrote numerous articles, and "was the prototype for black activist journalists of his time." He claimed to have led more than 600 fugitive slaves to freedom in the North, including Frederick Douglass, who became a friend and fellow activist. Ruggles opened the first African-American bookstore in 1834.
The Boston Vigilance Committee (1841–1861) was an abolitionist organization formed in Boston, Massachusetts, to protect escaped slaves from being kidnapped and returned to slavery in the South. The Committee aided hundreds of escapees, most of whom arrived as stowaways on coastal trading vessels and stayed a short time before moving on to Canada or England. Notably, members of the Committee provided legal and other aid to George Latimer, Ellen and William Craft, Shadrach Minkins, Thomas Sims, and Anthony Burns.
Valentín Campa Salazar was a Mexican railway union leader and presidential candidate. Along with Demetrio Vallejo, he was considered one of the leaders of the 1958 railway strikes. Campa was also the founder of the National Railroad Council, and the defunct underground newspaper The Railwayman.
The Underground Railroad in Indiana was part of a larger, unofficial, and loosely-connected network of groups and individuals who aided and facilitated the escape of runaway slaves from the southern United States. The network in Indiana gradually evolved in the 1830s and 1840s, reached its peak during the 1850s, and continued until slavery was abolished throughout the United States at the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It is not known how many fugitive slaves escaped through Indiana on their journey to Michigan and Canada. An unknown number of Indiana's abolitionists, anti-slavery advocates, and people of color, as well as Quakers and other religious groups illegally operated stations along the network. Some of the network's operatives have been identified, including Levi Coffin, the best-known of Indiana's Underground Railroad leaders. In addition to shelter, network agents provided food, guidance, and, in some cases, transportation to aid the runaways.
The William Ingersoll Bowditch House is a historic house at 9 Toxteth Street in Brookline, Massachusetts. It is a good example of vernacular Gothic and Greek Revival architecture, built c. 1844-45 as part of one of Brookline's earliest formal residential subdivisions. William Bowditch, the first owner, was an active abolitionist who sheltered fugitive slaves as part of the Underground Railroad, and was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee. The house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on October 17, 1985.
The Stephen and Harriet Myers Residence is located on Livingston Avenue in Albany, New York, United States. It is a Greek Revival townhouse built in the mid-19th century. In 2004, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. It is also listed on the New York State Underground Railroad Heritage Trail and is a site on the National Park Service's National Network to Freedom.
Lewis and Harriet Hayden House was the home of African-American abolitionists who had escaped from slavery in Kentucky; it is located in Beacon Hill, Boston. They maintained the home as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the Haydens were visited by Harriet Beecher Stowe as research for her book, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Lewis Hayden was an important leader in the African-American community of Boston; in addition, he lectured as an abolitionist and was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which resisted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Amy Hester "Hetty" Reckless was a runaway slave who became part of the American abolitionist movement. She campaigned against slavery and was part of the Underground Railroad, operating a Philadelphia safe house. She fought against prostitution and vice, working toward improving education and skills for the black community. Through efforts including operating a women's shelter, supporting Sunday Schools and attending conferences, she became a leader in the abolitionist community. After her former master's death, she returned to New Jersey and continued working to assist escaping slaves throughout the Civil War.
The Vigilant Association of Philadelphia was an abolitionist organization founded in August 1837 in Philadelphia to "create a fund to aid colored persons in distress". The initial impetus came from Robert Purvis, who had served on a previous Committee of Twelve in 1834, and his father-in-law, businessman James Forten.
Stephen Myers was an abolitionist and agent of the Underground Railroad through the 1830s–1850s. He was also the editor of multiple abolitionist newspapers such as The Elevator, The Northern Star, and Freeman's Advocate, and The Telegraph and Temperance Journal.
Isaac D. Shadd was a newspaper publisher, printer, politician, and bookkeeper. Before the American Civil War, he and his sister Mary Ann Shadd moved to Chatham, Ontario, and published the anti-slavery newspaper, The Provincial Freeman. He and his wife taught at the Chatham Mission School. He was involved in the planning of the John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry and led the Chatham Vigilance Committee to rescue Sylvanus Demarest in 1858. He returned to the United States and served as a member of the Mississippi House of Representatives during the Reconstruction era from 1871 until 1876. From 1874 to 1875, he was the Speaker of the House.
Elijah Funk Pennypacker was a politician, abolitionist and station master in the Underground Railroad in the United States, in the years leading up to the American Civil War. He operated in Chester County, Pennsylvania. Pennypacker's home, White Horse Farm, was a safe house during the time that he participated in the Underground Railroad. As a station master in the Underground Railroad, Pennypacker reportedly aided hundreds of fugitive slaves in their escape to freedom, without any having been apprehended by authorities or by bounty hunters. He also served as a member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, representing Chester County from 1832 to 1833 and from 1835 to 1836.