The Parker Sisters: A Border Kidnapping by Lucy Maddox (review)

The Parker Sisters: A Border Kidnapping by Lucy Maddox recounts the events surrounding the 1851 kidnappings of Sisters Elizabeth and Rachel Parker, who were both free-born black natives of Chester County, Pennsylvania. Lying only seven miles from the state's border with Maryland, this rural part of southeastern Pennsylvania was the midcentury epicenter of conflict between the competing interests of North and South regarding the institution of slavery. The context and catalyst for this story is the passage of the Federal Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which had profound consequences for the residents of Chester County and for the nation as well.

Elizabeth and Rachel Parker lived in the predominantly white farming community of Chester County. Quakers originally settled the area, and, though morally opposed to slavery, they were not abolitionists. An African American population consisting of both free blacks and fugitive slaves also resided in the area. Both girls lived with white families, exchanging domestic work for room and board. Emboldened by the Fugitive Slave Law, slavecatchers from Maryland preyed upon the black population. Making no distinction between fugitives and the free born, they profited by kidnapping blacks and selling them to slave brokers in Baltimore. Tom McCreary of nearby Elkton, Maryland, was the boldest of all slavecatchers in the neighborhood. He spotted potential victims in Pennsylvania while delivering mail during the day, and, according to Maddox, he also had connections to a local criminal organization that aided in the capture of his victims. Elizabeth Parker was his first victim. In December 1851, she was abducted at night in the farmyard of Matthew Donnelly, the man for whom she worked. Two months later, she arrived at a slave pen in New Orleans, where she was sold to a local woman. Two weeks later, McCreary boldly snatched Rachel Parker in broad daylight from the house of Joseph Miller. She was spirited away to a Baltimore slave pen, where she would remain for more than a year.

Although the residents of Chester and surrounding counties loathed abolitionists, they were utterly contemptuous of slavecatchers, and they quickly swung into action. With the aid of several prominent Quakers in Baltimore and supporters in Pennsylvania, locals raised funds to locate and rescue the girls. In New Orleans, Elizabeth, who had come to rather like her new life and identity, was arrested for breaking curfew. While in the custody of New Orleans police, she revealed that she had been kidnapped in Pennsylvania and that she was a free-born resident of Chester County. She was soon returned to Baltimore, where her rescuers were busy filing suit for both girls' release. Elizabeth returned to Pennsylvania in a matter of months, but Rachel's case dragged on for more than a year. Meanwhile, the sisters' case became a national story, threatening to kill the fragile compromise of 1850.

The chief fault with Maddox's book is the overly complicated and meandering nature of the narrative. The reader is given too much information and often loses sight of exactly what the story is trying to convey. That said, Maddox has pulled together a remarkable and fascinating story that addresses the monumental issue of slavery in the midcentury United States at the local, regional, and national levels. She adds layer upon layer of complexity to our understanding of the national attitude toward slavery, abolition, and the economic motives underpinning support for both. She also offers insightful commentary on the everyday lives of free black women and how for some, like Elizabeth Parker, slavery held out the promise of stability and certainty. The book is sure to spark fruitful conversation in undergraduate and graduate classes seeking to tackle the myriad problems that threatened to shatter the fragile Compromise of 1850. Masterfully researched and powerfully written, Lucy Maddox's The Parker Sisters: A Border Kidnapping makes a valuable and scholarly contribution to the literature on the twilight of slavery and should be on the reading list of every scholar...