Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North

New York; Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1991. Hardcover. Fine/near fine. xiv, 252 p.: illustrations; 24 cm. Dark grey cloth spine with red spine title; red paper over boards. Illustrated dust jacket. On September 11, 1851, a group of free Blacks and escaped slaves fought a raid led by a federal marshal to recapture four slaves who had escaped from Maryland to Lancaster County, Pa., a free state. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 had increased penalties on those who helped escaped slaves and required law enforcement, even in free states, to assist in their recapture. The exchange of gunfire resulted in the death of the man who claimed the men. The federal government charged 41 people with treason, both Blacks and whites. The first to be tried, Castner Hanway, a white man from Christiana, Pa., was acquitted after only 15 minutes of deliberation by the jury. The author "paints a rich portrait of the ongoing struggles between local blacks and white kidnapping gangs, the climactic riot as neighbors responded to trumpet calls from the besieged runawa slaves, the escape to Canada of the central figures (aided by Fredrick Douglass), and the government's urgent response (including the largest mass iindictment for treason in our history)." -- dust jacket. Book is in Fine Condition: clean and tight. Dust jacket is in Near Fine Condition: slightly soiled along back flap fold; otherwise, clean and bright.