Henry Bibb: Trail would trace slave's path to liberty

Trail would trace slave's path to liberty

History has obscured the important achievements of Henry Bibb,
but an effort to honor his work is under way

By Andrea Uhde

Within the brick confines of a Louisville workhouse, men wept, prayed and cursed as they sawed stones under the watch of armed guards.

Henry Bibb was one of them. At night, mosquitoes nibbled on the 25-year-old slave as he slept on a stone floor in his cell. He was fed beef shanks and cows' heads, the meat often spoiled and infested with worms and flies.

The workhouse was like hell, Bibb later wrote, "with all its terrors of torment; such as 'weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.' "

Bibb, who was born between September 1813 and August 1814 just south of New Castle, Ky., eventually would escape north and become a popular antislavery speaker and Canada's first black newspaper editor.

He also helped escaped slaves buy land, and he wrote an autobiography in 1849, hoping to help "in lighting up the path of freedom."

In Windsor, Ontario, officials unveiled a plaque in October honoring his accomplishments, but few in Kentucky recognize his name.

A Middletown historian, Diane Perrine Coon, is trying to change that. She is leading a team that is uncovering Bibb's past, along with the rest of Kentucky's slave history. The group includes scholars in Oldham, Henry, Trimble and Jefferson counties, as well as other states.

What they find could lead to the first national trail following the course of an escaped slave, starting in New Castle and twisting up into Canada.

"He's one of the most compelling characters" of the Underground Railroad, Coon said. "I would like to see Henry Bibb become for Kentucky and the area as much of a story as Harriet Tubman is."

Tubman, an escaped slave, is famous for guiding slaves to freedom through the Underground Railroad.

The life of a slave

Bibb was about 11 when he made the first of many escapes, fleeing his master's wicked wife for several days before he was caught. His writings don't say where he went or how he was found.

"Among other trades, I learned the art of running away to perfection," Bibb later wrote. "I made a regular business of it, and never gave it up."

When he was in his 20s, Bibb was moved to a 320-acre farm outside Bedford, where he could be with his wife, Malinda, a slave from Virginia with smooth skin, red cheeks and penetrating eyes.

There, his thirst for freedom grew. He saw his daughter Mary Frances abused by "an unmerciful old mistress" who slapped the girl "until her little face was left black and blue," Bibb wrote.

Wanting more for his family, Bibb ran away to Cincinnati on Christmas Day in 1837 with no more than $2.50 in his pocket. He hid in the shadows on a steamboat, where passengers took his light-brown skin for that of a white man. (His slave mother was part white, and his father was white.)

This time, his escape plan worked. He traveled to Perrysburg, Ohio, where he spent the winter chopping wood and raising money for his return home.

He returned to Bedford the next spring to get his wife and daughter. His first two attempts to free them failed, and in a third try, in 1839, the family was caught and tossed into the workhouse in Louisville.

Bibb's next chance for freedom came in 1841, two years after leaving the workhouse. He had been sent to Louisiana, where a church deacon bought him, and he was transferred to a group of traveling gamblers.

He ended up in the hands of an American Indian. When that man died, Bibb escaped to Detroit.

Bibb spent three weeks with a teacher learning to read. Bibb then began sharing his story at conventions and in newspaper columns.

Unlike many ex-slaves, Bibb was frank about his past -- he didn't have to worry about a master hunting him down, Canada-based historian Afua Cooper wrote in her thesis.

After learning that Malinda was a mistress of a slave owner, Bibb married a Cincinnati schoolteacher named Mary Miles in 1848. He and Malinda didn't need a divorce because the law did not recognize marriages between slaves.

They settled in Canada, near Detroit. There, they established a school for blacks. Bibb gathered money from U.S. abolitionists and used it to buy land that escaped slaves could purchase over time. He believed education and agricultural jobs would help them thrive.

The plaque erected in Canada honors the accomplishments of Bibb and his wife. It designates the Bibbs as "one of the country's most influential couples of African descent."

In 1851, Bibb found another vehicle for his cause. He started a newspaper named Voice of the Fugitive, making him Canada's first black newspaper editor.

The newspaper became a force for black freedom. But in 1853, the printing plant was destroyed in a fire, which Bibb thought was arson.

He died almost a year later, at 3 a.m. on Aug. 1, after suffering a high fever, according to Cooper's thesis. He was about 40.

Window on Kentucky's past

It has taken about two centuries for Bibb's story to captivate Kentuckians.

"A lot of his work, it was sort of forgotten," said Nancy Theiss, director of the Oldham County History Center.

His autobiography is hard to find in libraries and bookstores. The Louisville public library has had one copy since at least the 1980s, but it can't be checked out without special permission.

In his autobiography, Bibb "opens a window into life in this country, certainly this part of the country, in the 1830s and 1840s," said J. Blaine Hudson, chairman of the Kentucky African-American Heritage Commission and dean of the University of Louisville's College of Arts and Sciences.

Bibb's story reveals how owners handled slaves in Kentucky: Kentuckians weren't as brutal as owners in the Deep South, Coon said, and they sometimes allowed slaves time off to visit other slaves after work on Saturdays and Sundays.

Many slaves were not taught the Bible. Instead, they often spent Sundays together in the woods drinking whiskey, gambling and wrestling, often at the prodding of their owners.

The Bedford-area farmhouse where Bibb's owners lived is now a crumbling box on a farm near a gas station off U.S. 421.

The facade is drab gray wood, and several floorboards are jutting up or missing, but the building is being refurbished.

Farmer Glenn Fisher bought the house and 275 surrounding acres in 1969. He didn't know what the building was until members of the Oldham County Historical Society contacted him several years ago.

"To think we're sitting on a piece of history, it's just really exciting," Fisher said as he watched members of the historical society comb the land for artifacts.

The trail tracing Bibb's journey could start in New Castle and lead to the Bedford property. Organizers of the project intend to restore the house, and they may build an information center devoted to Bibb.

The trail would follow Bibb's life in Kentucky, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan and Canada. It would also touch on sites in Rhode Island, where Mary Miles was from; New York and Massachusetts, where Bibb spent some of his career as an abolitionist; and Missouri, where four of his brothers worked as slaves.

"In a short life, he just packed a lot in," Coon said. "He's one of the most magical characters in American history."

Reporter Andrea Uhde can be reached at (502) 582-4663.

Posted: 2/7/06

Source: auhde@courier-journal.com

The Courier-Journal

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