The "Members Of The Underground Railroad: The 'Reverse Underground Railroad' " Story

Preface:  This is the final story in my Underground Railroad series, written primarily since my hometown of Lancaster, Pennsylvania was one of the stops on the Underground Railroad.  One of Lancaster's most prominent residents of that era, Thadeus Stevens, was allegedly a conductor on the Underground Railroad.  But, my story today is a bit different and tells the story of the "reverse" Underground Railroad.  Read on...

Sign warning of kidnapping and slave catchers.

It was an ordinary day.  Reading "The Scribbler" in the November 6th edition of my LNP newspaper.  It was the headline that first caught my eye.  It read "The Gap Gang's exploits on the 'reverse Underground Railroad'" and I was hooked immediately.  So what was this all about.  Seems that the "reverse Underground Railroad" is the name given to the pre-American Civil War practice of kidnapping in free states (states that didn't allow slavery) fugitive slaves that had escaped their slave owners as well as free blacks.  Those that used that term were more than likely pro-slavery and angered that an Underground Railroad was helping slaves to escape.  Lancaster County had a gang of men who were part of the reverse Underground Railroad. They got their name since most lived in the Gap hills, an area to the east of the city of Lancaster.  They frequented the Gap Tavern where they would plot their activities to catch escaped slaves as well as steal free African Americans with the intent of taking them south to sell or auction them to Southern slaveholders.  

Kidnapping of free black citizens to be sold into salvery

They were a bunch of truly bad guys.  The gang's numbers changed from time to time depending on how many might be arrested and jailed or how many new recruits they could get.  This gang was primarily active in the months before the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 which required anyone who caught a fugitive slave to return them to their rightful owner.  The key word here is required since they weren't going to get paid for their labors of snatching a runaway slave.  The bad deeds of the Gap Gang were frequently published in Lancaster's newspaper for all to read.  

Drawing showing a free black woman being kidnapped and
her papers showing she was a free black being kidnapped.

At one time the city of Philadel- phia was a particularly vulnerable area for free blacks to live since the gang known as the "black-birders'" regularly captured men, women and children, sometimes with the support and help of policemen and city officials, and sold into slavery in southern states.  Black newspapers in Philadelphia ran missing children notices due to the gangs stealing them and taking them south for sale.  One child who was stolen was the 14-year-old daughter of the newspaper's editor.  In one two-year period, about 100 black children were abducted.  

A slave market in Virgina.

From 1811 to 1829, Martha "Patty" Cannon lead a gang that kidnapped runaway and free blacks from the nearby Delmarva Peninsula of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia and the Chesapeake Bay area and transported them south where they sold them to plantation owners located further south.  "Patty" was caught and placed in prison where she died by suicide.  Free black sailors who may have been on a ship that sailed south, were at times kidnapped and sold into slavery.  South Carolina passed the Negro Seamen Act in 1822 which required black sailors to be detained on ship at ports of call, since they were afraid the sailors would inspire slave revolts or perhaps be captured by gangs and sold into slavery.  Many kidnapped were marched to the South on foot, chained together to prevent them from escaping.  When the Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and the Fourteenth Amendment gave them full citizenship rights, kidnapping and sale of blacks into slavery began to end.  But, has it totally ended?  I'm not so sure!  It was another extraordinary day in the life of an ordinary guy.