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A Small Southern Town

Listen to Part One

Listen to Part Two

WAMU's observation of Black History Month had three components, including Richard Paul's production of A Small Southern Town: The Nation's Capital in Slave Times, a two-part special which examined several important historical events in the Washington area in the mid-1800s.

Paul's first program featured "The Pearl Escape," the story of a little-known episode which is the single largest recorded escape attempt by enslaved Americans. On the evening of April 15, 1848, 77 slaves slipped from their quarters in Washington, Georgetown and Alexandria, hoping to escape on a ship called The Pearl which was docked at the Seventh Street wharf. An abolitionist newspaper editor was suspected of plotting the escape. A crowd of slave owners and their supporters gathered in front of the newspaper office and began throwing rocks, which lead to a full-fledged riot. The story was told through historical first person accounts from the captain of The Pearl, the abolitionist newspaper editor and a slave who participated in the escape.

A Small Southern Town: The Nation's Capital in Slave Times continued with a re-enactment of a Congressional debate over citizens' rights to petition Congress for the abolition of slavery. These debates came about because representatives from slave-holding states objected to the flood of petitions being sent to Congress by citizens who wanted to abolish slavery in the District of Columbia.

Also in the second program, Paul examined the memoirs of Josiah Henson, the slave who was the model for Uncle Tom in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. Henson was a slave for more than 30 years on a 500-acre plantation in what is now Bethesda. Unlike Uncle Tom, Henson escaped and published memoirs in 1849, 1858 and 1877 that provide vivid descriptions of slave life. Henson traveled widely, preaching against slavery and sharing his life story. One person eager to meet him was Stowe, who had read his 1849 autobiography. A number of individuals in Henson's own history became characters in Stowe's book, including a savage overseer named Bryce Litton, whom Stowe named Simon Legree. Paul noted that a small cabin off Old Georgetown Road is the only thing left of the plantation where Henson was enslaved.

Paul made extensive use of first person accounts, which he believes offer a vivid picture of events of that era. "Every mass movement is made up of people who are asking themselves, 'Am I better off like this?,'" he says. "What I tried to do was to illuminate individual lives and individual decisions."

A Small Southern Town: Reading List

Richard Paul offers these suggestions for reading on subjects covered in his two-part program on slavery:

• Arguing About Slavery, by William Lee Miller. Published by Alfred A. Knopf, c. 1996. Available at bookstores.
• Personal Memoir of Daniel Drayton: For Four Years and Four Months A Prisoner (For Chairty's Sake) In Washington Jail including A Narrative Of the Voyage and Capture Of The Schooner Pearl. Published by Negro Universities Press, c. 1855. Available at the DC Historical Society.
• Fugitives of the Pearl, by John Paynter. Published by Associated Publishers, Inc., Washington, DC, c. 1930. Available at the DC Historical Society.
• The Life of Josiah Henson, Formally a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, by Josiah Henson, c. 1849. Available at the Montgomery County Historical Society.

Newspaper Articles

• "Uncle Tom's Montgomery County Cabin" by Michael Richman, The Washington Post, Wednesday December 10, 1997; Horizon section; Pg. H05
• "Escape on the Pearl: Years Before the Civil War, 77 Washington Slaves Made a Risky Bid for Freedom" by Mary Kay Ricks, The Washington Post, Wednesday August 12, 1998; Horizon section; pg. H01