Touching Free Soil
“Seven days they had rowed in that frail skiff, exposed each moment to the danger of discovery and seizure by some one of Slavery’s numerous spies. Seven nights had chilled their limbs, and well nigh exhausted their energies, both of mind and body”
—Pickard, The Kidnapped and the Ransomed
Although Peter Still had escaped to freedom in Philadelphia in, he could not embrace his newfound liberty while his family remained in bondage in Alabama. When Peter was approached by one white abolitionist Seth Concklin, “in whom the hatred of slavery [had] become a ruling passion,” he began to lay a rescue plan that would spirit his wife, daughter, and two sons north from Alabama (283). While the journey south was too perilous for Peter, Concklin made contact with the Still family and managed to guide them to a skiff that would bear them north on the Tennessee River.
The journey north was marked by many of the perils of river travel in small watercraft, even the six-oared barge that Concklin had acquired (399). Some nights were too dark for navigation, exhaustion often delayed travel, and at one point, “a squall of wind came near dashing [the] craft to pieces against the large trees” (292). However, local white citizens, who surveilled the river rigorously, offered the most daunting threat to the Stills. A modest skiff evoked suspicion in nosy locals as well as in organized slave patrols; the vessels were widely available, and hence their passengers must be authenticated. On such grounds, two men rowed alongside and inquired if the passengers were “all black men a’board?” (291). Only when Concklin woke from sleep and assured the men that he commanded the Black passengers, did they give way.
Although Concklin’s careful planning and the “stiff” northward current of the Tennessee River worked in favor of the Still family, the skiff was a technology subject to scrutiny precisely because it was one accessible to the self-emancipated. In fact, Concklin made a point of standing at the helm, where he appeared to dominate the two rowing Still boys. Vina and Catherine, who could not even pretend to be rivermen, lay beneath a blanket. By dramatizing the severely racialized and gendered hierarchy of slavery, Concklin signaled to all observers that the skiff was serving its due role in the social order. This performance allowed Concklin and the Stills to pass northward and, after a week of travel, touch free soil in New Harmony, Indiana on the morning of March 23rd, 1850.