Dover Eight
The Dover Eight refers to a group of eight black people who escaped their slaveholders of the Bucktown, Maryland area around March 8, 1857.
[1] They were helped along the way by a number of people from the Underground Railroad, except for Thomas Otwell, who turned them in once they had made it north to Dover, Delaware.
[9] In Delaware, they met up with Thomas Otwell, a free black Underground Railroad conductor who was trusted by Harriet Tubman.
[7] Instead of providing safety and shelter and leading them to the next Underground Railroad station,[3][5] he chose to turn the eight in to collect a $3,000 (equivalent to $98,100 in 2023) reward.
Sheriff Green of Dover was alerted that the eight runaways were coming through the area and there were plans to capture them at the jail.
[7] They were led up a dark flight of stairs and the freedom seekers saw iron bars in the moonlight[7] or when a light was lit.
"[5] When Sheriff Green realized that the runaways had not stayed in the room,[8] he ran downstairs into the private quarters, where his wife and children were sleeping, to get a pistol.
[8] While Green reached for the gun, Predeaux sent "a shovel full of fire" towards the sheriff[10] and Hughes helped resist the law men.
[2][7] Confused about which way to go, six of the party traveled back to Camden (in Dover) and caught up with Otwell who promised to take them on to William Brinkley, as originally planned.
William Brinkley helped the runaways make the 19-mile trek through forest roads on foot from Dover to Smyrna through "the two worst places this side of the Maryland line".
[7] The lawmen tracked some of the runaways back to the Camden area of Dover, but were unable to get a warrant from magistrates to enter and search the house due to insufficient evidence.
Four were found by two men hired by Garrett and they took them by boat across the Christina River to another Underground Railroad station.
Elliott made it safely to Canada and settled in the black refugee community of St. Catharines, Ontario, where Tubman also lived.
[11] He made it safely to Canada and settled in black refugee community of St. Catharines, Ontario, where Tubman also lived.
[2] Henry Predeaux, also spelled Predo, decided to run away after his slaveholder, district court judge Ara Spence, threatened to sell the 27-year-old to the Deep South.
After her brothers ran away and settled in Canada in 1854, she was sold from a bad situation to worse one with William Moore and his wife, who were given to "intemperance and carousing".
[5] Charles F. Goldsborough prosecuted the case against Green in a two-week trial in a court of Dorchester County, Maryland.
[5][6] Unable to find direct evidence of Green's involvement in the Underground Railroad, Goldsborough argued that Uncle Tom's Cabin was "insurrectionary in intent."
[6] He was acquitted of being in possession of "abolition papers of an inflammatory character," but was found guilty of the felony charge of possessing "a certain abolition pamphlet called 'Uncle Tom's Cabin' ... calculated to create discontent amongst the colored population,'"[6] based upon Chapter 272 of the Act of 1841, which stated that if any free black "knowingly receive or have in his possession any abolition handbill, pamphlet, newspaper, pictorial representation or other paper of an inflammatory character," which could "create discontent amongst or to stir up to insurrection the people of color of this State, he or she shall be deemed guilt of felony."
[1] This was seemingly the last straw for local slaveholders, who had been losing their property to the North at an alarming rate throughout the preceding decade.
As far as whites were concerned, there must have been an accomplice or at least someone who had encouraged the bondsmen with radical ideas about freedom.Slaveholders became more vigilant in monitoring enslaved and free blacks.
[5] Harriet Tubman asked the new Black Canadians to join a contingent of troops for John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry, with the intention of abolishing slavery.
