A slave in St. Louis -- The "peculiar institution" -- Rumblings in Wisconsin -- Flight to freedom -- Life in Racine -- A violent capture and thrilling escape -- Glover goes by rail -- Trials and tribulations -- The promised land -- Sweet and bitter : life on the farm -- "A stabbing affray" -- The end of the line -- The aftermath -- The search for Joshua Glover
Summary:
"On March 11, 1854, thousands of Wisconsin abolitionists gathered outside the Milwaukee Courthouse, outraged by the beating, capture, and jailing of runaway slave Joshua Glover. In his forties at the time, Glover had been living and working in nearby Racine since his escape from bondage two years earlier. With each hour, the crowd swelled. Eventually, a flashpoint: the abolitionists broke down the jail's door, recaptured Glover, and delivered him to freedom on the Underground Railroad. The catalytic "Glover incident" would capture national attention, pitting the proud state of Wisconsin against the Supreme Court, adding fuel to the pre-Civil War fire, and altering the lives of those abolitionists involved."
"And yet the life of this story's central figure, Joshua Glover himself, has never before been fully chronicled - until now. Finding Freedom is the first narrative record of Joshua's life before and after that famous jail break. Employing original research and scholarship, authors Ruby West Jackson and Walter T. McDonald take readers to Glover's days as a slave in St. Louis, through the dramatic capture and rescue in Milwaukee, and on to his thirty-three years of freedom in rural Canada."
"While Finding Freedom paints a picture of a defiant Wisconsin disobeying the Fugitive Slave Act, as well as a United States at a crossroads of policies and political parties, the book is primarily focused on the ordinary citizens, both black and white, with whom Joshua Glover interacted."--Jacket.
