All Bones Considered: Laurel Hill Stories

ABC:LHS 089-5   In 1851, Lancaster County ...

... had become home to many self-emancipated formerly enslaved people. When slave hunters showed up to reclaim their "property," the people of Christiana gathered to protect their own. What resulted was the largest treason trial in United States history. 

ABC:LHS 089-4 Robert Stewart Ralston...

...was attacked and severely wounded by his servant who had been his enslaved valet. The result was destruction of Black neighborhoods.

ABC:LHS 089-3 Stephen Duncan...

...was a Pennsylvanian who became a Natchez planter. Over a 50-year career, he accumulated tens of thousands of acres of land and more than 2200 enslaved human beings. But he firmly believed that slavery worked best under the US legal system and would only be destroyed by secession. 

ABC:LHS 089-2   John Bohlen...

...and his brother Bohl made a world for themselves in the colonies as merchants whose offerings including liquor and people. German-speaking immigrants were common in the colonies, but especially in Pennsylvania.  

ABC:LHS 089-1   More than 1500 enslaved people...

...lived in Philadelphia at the time the colonies declared their independence from England. Enslaved people shared the streets with indentured servants, freed Blacks, immigrants, visitors, and more than 50 signers of the Declaration of Independence. Slavery was essential to the economy. 

This segment was released early as a separate podcast but included in the full recording. 

ABC:LHS #089   

...slavery was an essential part of the colonial economy. The enslaved people of President George Washington have been in the news recently.

John and Bohl  Despite Philadelphia's northern location...Bohlen were German immigrants who made their fortunes in the New World dealing with "gin and slaves," according to their relatives.

Stephen Duncan was simultaneously a Pennsylvania businessman and a Natchez nabob, the owner of more than 2000 enslaved human beings.  

Robert Stewart Ralston was severely beaten by his former enslaved manservant whom he had freed, but retained in employment.

The largest trial for treason ever conducted in the United States was conducted in Philadelphia following the Christiana Resistance of 1851, an armed pushback against slave catchers sent to retrieve some self-emancipated African Americans.

OPTIONAL: I asked CoPilot, a Large Language Model assembler of information, to develop a counterfactual for me - What would the USA be like if slavery were abolished with the Constitution, and Immigration were limited after 1800. Although purely speculative, it is a fascinating read. 

BBB:LHWS #058 Seo Jae-pil, aka Philip Jaisohn...

...was the first Korean to become a US citizen, but he never gave up on his lifelong dream to return Korea to its own independence. In 1919, he chaired a Philadelphia meeting that ended with a march through the rain to the room where it happened at Independence Hall and the reading of a new Declaration of Independence.  

ABC:LHS #088-2   GEN John Clifford Pemberton ...

... was a Philadelphian who threw his lot with the Confederacy, despite his graduation from the US Military Academy, where he had briefly roomed with George Gordon Meade. Jefferson Davis put him in charge at Vicksburg, where he was forced to surrender to Ulysses S. Grant after a 47-day siege. 

ABC:LHS #088-1   Major General George Gordon Meade...

...took command of the Army of the Potomac with almost no warning and promptly led it to victory at Gettysburg. But instead of being remembered simply as the general who stopped Robert E. Lee, he spent much of his life defending what he did next. This is the story of Meade’s command, his caution, and his contested legacy.

ABC:LHS #088   July 4, 1863...

...is the day that the Confederacy knew their days were numbered. At Gettysburg, Philadelphian General George Gordon Meade stopped Pickett's charge and sent Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia back south licking their wounds. On the same day, Philadelphian and Confederate General John Clifford Pemberton surrendered Vicksburg to Ulysses S. Grant after a 47-day siege. The two men, who had briefly roomed together at West Point, will always be remembered for that famed day.