Newspapers on the situation.
[from the National Intelligencer, July 15, 1846.]
‘The
Cincinnati (Ohio) Chronicle of the 9th instant says that the emancipated slaves of
John Randolph, who recently passed up the
Miami Canal to their settlement in
Mercer county, Ohio, met with a warm reception at
Bremen.
The citizens of
Mercer county turned out
en masse and called a meeting, or rather formed themselves into one immediately, and passed resolutions to the effect that said slaves should leave in twenty-four hours, which they did, in other boats than the ones which conveyed them there.
They came back some twenty three miles, at which place they encamped, not knowing what to do.’
[
276]
[From the
National Intelligencer, July 24, 1846.]
‘The
Sidney (Ohio) Aurora of the 11th says these negroes (the
Randolph negroes) remain on
Colonel Johnson's farm, near
Piqua.
That paper condemns in decided terms the conduct of the citizens in
Mercer in the late outbreak, and insists that they should have made their objections known before the land was purchased, and not waited until they had drawn the last cent they would expect out of the blacks (some $32,000), and then raised an armed force and refuse to let them take possession of their property, as they have done.
We look upon the whole proceeding as outrageous in the extreme, and the participants should be severely punished.
What makes the thing worse is the fact that a number of those who were fiercest in their opposition to the blacks, and loudest in their threats to shoot, &c., were the very persons who sold them land, received wages for constructing the buildings, and actually pocketed a large amount of money for provisions not two weeks before the arrival of the poor creatures whom they have so unjustly treated.’
