Ohio African American Genealogy  



 

Search this site or the web powered by FreeFind
Site searchWeb search
 
Cirle of Life

 
 
 
 
What's New Ohio?
Subscribe to OH-AfricaAmer-L
 Subscribe to OH-AfricaAmer-D (digest)


People That was instrumental to 
the Underground Railroad
Harriet Tubman was a famous conductor. Her original name was Araminta Ross. Harriet was called the "Moses" of her people because she helped so many slaves escape to freedom. She was born sometime around 1820, and died in 1913. She was a runaway slave herself. When she was a slave, she protected another slave from being hit by their master with a pound weight when he was trying to escape. This left a horrible scar on her head, and every once in a while the wound made her fall unconscious. The slaves would sing a song called "Get Down Moses" about Moses going down to Pharaoh. 

John Fairfield 

John Fairfield was a conductor who was very violent. He was the son of a slave owner. One of the first times he freed a slave was when he helped one of his uncle's slaves when he was young. In his lifetime, some people think that he saved several thousand slaves by himself. One of his friends was Levi Coffin. Fairfield often showed Coffin several bullet holes in skin, clothes, and fugitives’ skin. Fairfield always made fugitives agree, before helping them to freedom, that they would fight to the death if they had to, rather than being captured. 

Levi Coffin 

Levi Coffin was a Quaker, and therefore believed in much more peaceful ways of freeing blacks than did his friend John Fairfield. One of the things that Levi Coffin did was helping freeborn (meaning a black that born to free blacks) Stephen. Stephen was kidnapped from a Negro house and he was enslaved in Baltimore, Maryland. Levi contacted Edward Lloyd (to whom Stephen had previously been apprenticed) as soon as he found out. Lloyd and some friends came and filed a lawsuit that Stephen was being illegally held, and Stephen was freed six months later.


Genealogy News

LEST WE FORGET
By Bennie J. McRae, Jr.
 Click Here
BEVERLY GRAY'S SOUTHERN OHIO
 Click Here
African-Americans in Southeastern Ohio
... researchers, Henry Burke and Michel Perdreau
 Click Here
African American History from Lawrence County, Ohio
... AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY Compiled by: Sharon M. Kouns and Martha ... Enumeration of Blacks
in Lawrence Co. Ohio 1863. The Exodus of the 37 Blacks
 Click Here
The African American Experience in Southern Ohio
 Click Here
Friends of Freedom Society
Ohio Underground Railroad Association
 Click Here
The Freed Slaves of John Randolph
in Miami County Ohio
 Click Here
JOHN MATTOX'S EASTERN OHIO
 Click Here
The African American Great Migration
 

View My Guestbook

 Sign My Guestbook
Click for Fairborn, Ohio Forecast


 
 
 
 
 
Lasted Updated  August 10, 2004