William Parker was a formerly enslaved man who escaped from Maryland and settled in Pennsylvania, where he built a life among a growing Black community determined to protect its freedom. He became known for helping others who had escaped slavery and for standing against the slave catchers who came looking for them. In 1851, Parker would make a stand that brought him into direct confrontation with the forces determined to return freedom seekers to bondage.
Parker was born around 1822 on the Roedown plantation in Anne Arundel County, Maryland. His mother, Louisa Simms, died when he was still young, and he was raised largely by his grandmother. As he grew older, Parker witnessed relatives and friends being sold away, exposing him to the harsh reality of slavery and strengthening his desire to escape it. In 1839, at about 17 years old, he fled Maryland with his brother Charles. The two eventually made their way to Pennsylvania, where Parker began building a life in freedom.
He eventually settled near Christiana in Lancaster County, married Eliza Howard and became part of a growing Black community that faced a constant threat from slave catchers and kidnappers.
Parker understood that escaping to Pennsylvania did not guarantee lasting freedom. Under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, federal authorities could help enslavers capture and return people who had escaped slavery, leaving Black communities vulnerable even in free states. In response, Parker and others organized networks of protection to defend those who had escaped and resist the slave catchers pursuing them.
Parker became one of the leaders of this effort. He helped organize a mutual protection society and developed networks to warn residents when slave catchers were operating nearby. His reputation grew because he repeatedly confronted kidnappers and helped prevent escaped slaves from being carried back into slavery.
His activism also made his home an important refuge. People escaping slavery could find protection there, and Parker was willing to stand between them and anyone attempting to take them back. By 1851, his house was not simply where Parker lived with his family. It had become part of the local network through which freedom seekers were sheltered and protected.
That was the situation when four men who had escaped from Edward Gorsuch, a Maryland enslaver, reached the Christiana area. They eventually found their way to Parker’s house, placing the men and Parker’s family in precisely the kind of danger his community had spent years preparing for.
The Slave Catchers Arrive
Gorsuch was determined to recover the four men. On September 10, 1851, he arrived in Pennsylvania with relatives and supporters and obtained federal assistance to enforce the warrants. His party included Henry Kline, a Philadelphia constable who had been deputized as a U.S. marshal. Through local information, they learned that the men were staying in the Christiana area and eventually made their way to Parker’s farm.
Two of the escaped men, Nelson Ford and Joshua Hammond, were at Parker’s home when Gorsuch’s party arrived before dawn on September 11.
When Gorsuch demanded that the men be surrendered, Parker refused. His wife, Eliza, then sounded a horn to alert the surrounding Black community, and neighbors began making their way to the house.
The Christiana Resistance
The alarm brought Black residents from the surrounding area to Parker’s defense. Accounts differ over exactly how many people gathered, but the group included men armed with guns, axes, clubs and corn knives. Two local Quakers, Castner Hanway and Elijah Lewis, also arrived and attempted to prevent the confrontation from becoming violent, but Parker and the others refused to surrender the freedom seekers.
The standoff eventually erupted into gunfire. Edward Gorsuch was killed, and his son Dickinson was wounded. The remaining members of the slave-catching party withdrew, leaving the men they had come to capture in Parker’s hands. The confrontation became known as the Christiana Resistance, one of the most dramatic acts of armed resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act before the Civil War.
The federal government responded to the resistance by arresting and prosecuting those accused of participating in the confrontation. Thirty-eight men were indicted for treason, including Castner Hanway, a white Quaker who had been present at the scene. Hanway was acquitted, and the government eventually abandoned the remaining treason cases.
For Parker, however, the fight was far from over. he could not remain in Pennsylvania after the confrontation. He went into hiding and traveled through the Underground Railroad to Rochester, New York, where Frederick Douglass helped him escape to Canada. Parker, Eliza and their children eventually settled in the Black community of Buxton, Ontario.
Years later, Parker recorded his own account of his life and the Christiana Resistance. The Freedman’s Story was published in two parts in The Atlantic Monthly in 1866. The account remains an important primary source because it preserves Parker’s perspective on slavery, his escape, his organizing work and the confrontation at his home. It remains one of the most important firsthand sources about his life.
Parker eventually returned to the United States and was back in Christiana by 1872. During his visit, he attended Lincoln University’s commencement ceremony as a guest of honor. He later settled in Kenton, Ohio, where the Christiana Historical Society says he died in 1891 at about 70 years old.
Sources:
https://home.nps.gov/articles/000/inde-chanway-christiana-resistance-1851.htm
https://www.christianahistoricalsociety.com/william-parker
https://housedivided.dickinson.edu/ugrr/case_1851.htm
https://www.history.com/articles/christiana-resistance-fugitive-slave-act
https://msa.maryland.gov/megafile/msa/speccol/sc5400/sc5496/013400/013477/html/013477bio.html
