

In 1849, he traveled to California due to the gold rush, leaving wife and children behind. He petitioned the New York State Legislature to secede from the Union in a protest against slavery, after which The Rochester Daily Advertiser accused him of encouraging anarchy. He served as vice president of the American Anti-Slavery Society and supported the Underground Railroad. He and his brother Henry, a manufacturer of stoves, were known abolitionists. In Rochester, Bush became a schoolmaster and was on a committee that nominated candidates for justice of the peace.

They had seven children, among them James Smith Bush. In 1821, he married Harriet Smith in Rochester, New York. Born in New York to blacksmith Timothy Bush the Younger and Lydia Newcomb. Obadiah Newcomb was an ancestor of the Bush political family. When he did return, he had written Clotel : The President’s Daughter A Narrative of Slave Life, the first novel published by an Afro-American. Concern for Brown’s safety prompted British abolitionists to “purchase” his freedom in 1854. In 1849, he began a lecture tour of Britain and remained there until 1854, as at that time it was dangerous for an escaped slave to return to America. He then began his career in the abolitionist movement by regularly attending anti-slavery meetings and speaking at local abolitionist gatherings. After twenty years in slavery, he escaped to freedom and spent the next two years working on a Lake Erie steamboat running fugitive slaves into Canada. William Wells Brown was the son of a slave woman and a white relative of his owner. Debate ensued over how Brown should be viewed, deepening the divide between North and South and having profound implications for the direction of the country. In a speech to the court before his sentencing, he stated his actions to be just and God-sanctioned.
#Slave underground railroad story trial
Brown’s trial resulted in his conviction and a sentence of death by hanging. John Brown was a white American abolitionist who believed armed insurrection was the only way to overthrow the institution of slavery and, with the intent of inspiring a slave insurrection, eventually led a party of 21 men on an unsuccessful raid on the Harpers Ferry federal armory that ended with his capture.
#Slave underground railroad story free
As a free man, he lectured on the evils of slavery, participated in the publication of the Narrative of Henry Box Brown, toured in the US and England presenting his panorama, Henry Box Brown’s Mirror of Slavery, and performed as a hypnotist. Henry “Box” Brown was a 19th century Virginia slave who escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed to Philadelphia abolitionists in a wooden crate. He helped purchase freedom for fugitive slaves. Prominent in local affairs, he was elected to Toronto City Council, instigated taxpayer petitions on public issues of concern to both black and white residents and served on the organizing committee for the Canadian Anti-Slavery Society. Having to flee the United States in 1834, he became a wealthy man in Toronto and one of the largest landowners in the ward. Wilson Ruffin Abbott was an American-born Black Canadian and successful businessman and landowner in Toronto, Ontario. Click the name listed (in Bold) for further details. This section comprises key people associated with the Underground Railroad movement.
