Slave Life in Georgia - African American History

Slave Life in Georgia 117
convenient chimney, and to the slaves themselves for their disguise. The
magistrate, however, who was not at all in the secret, looked gravely at the
young men, and then at the slave-hunters, asking whether they claimed these
white people as their slaves. Now although a coloured man may be arrested,
carried before a judge, and claimed as a slave, with perfect impunity, (his
discharge of course depending upon his disproving the fact of his being the
claimant's property,) it is an extremely grave offence so to treat a white.
Probably if the slave-hunters who had been thus tricked, could have safely
revenged themselves upon the young
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men, by subjecting them to even a temporary imprisonment, until they had
procured the requisite proof of their own identity, they would not have scrupled
to assert a claim to them. But this would have been too serious an affair. They
had, therefore, no other alternative but to reply that they had been duped, and
that the young men were free. This they accordingly did, and hastily withdrew,
amidst the derisive shouts of the assembled crowd.
Meanwhile the party of real fugitives were sent on to Canada by the
Underground Railroad.
May it prosper until emancipation leaves it no more work to do, or until it has
run off every slave now in bondage.
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DECLARATION.
24.03.2006
[The following Declaration of John Brown, made before a Notary Public of the
City of London, and setting forth the facts relating to the seizure, enslavement,
and torturing of John Glasgow, a free-born British subject, is inserted here, in
order that any person disposed, to make inquiries respecting John Glasgow's
English wife and family, may have legal evidence on which to proceed.]
To all to whom these Presents shall come. I, ALEXANDER RIDGWAY, of
London, Notary Public by Royal Authority duly admitted and sworn (and by the
Statute 5th and 6th William the 4th, chapter 62, especially empowered in his