Aspects of Slavery and Freedom Seeking in North Carolina
Wind-Conclusion
Aside from singing spirituals, slaves may have been silent in public, but their private actions and attitudes illustrated the depth of their discontent. African Americans’ quest for freedom included tactics that ranged from embattling slave codes, manumission, armed resistance, truancy, and escape beyond the boundaries of slavery’s grasp. Although the Bible did not explicitly condemn slavery, the stories of Moses and Job provided them the fortitude to imagine resistance and stage open rebellion and gave the courage to flee. Convinced that God will protect them, they expected injustice to be rectified in the world to come.
Members of the Society of Friends in Randolph and Guilford Counties, who considered slavery as morally wrong, were active members of the North Carolina Manumission Society when it was established in 1814. Quakers such as Levi Coffin and his cousin Vestal Coffin and other Quakers were virulent about antislavery and abolitionism. Although the Quakers were committed to gradual emancipation and legal reforms, their recognition of African Americans’ humanity did not mean that they fully accepted them into American society.
On the contrary, they often held paternalistic attitudes that there was a chance that African Americans might be able to cultivate a space for themselves provided that they were fully trained for the duties of citizenship. Taking into consideration initial opinions that blacks would fare better if they started their lives anew on foreign soil, Quaker members’ early antislavery activities sponsored colonization schemes to Liberia and Haiti.
Upon withdrawing from the Manumission Society, the Coffins engaged in more direct and radical acts of helping runaways escape freedom through extralegal means. The system flourished from 1830 to 1860, but the most active years spanned between 1819 and 1852. Creating a network of way stations in attics, barns, woods, and fields, they aided fugitives by petitioning masters, offering shelter, food, and clothing, and keeping them hidden to avoid their capture by slave patrols or their masters.