ideas or symbols for the slave power, the slave owners. there are also something else. all -- other dangers. we have the while going into other different territory and it onl be difficult to see what the tree log, just about here. let's just say we will call this -- sir arthur conan doyle called it a speckled band. it is a symbol of the other dangers, the bounty hunters, the spies and informers that sought to make money off of the desire of black people to live in freedom entity -- and dignity. this snake represents some of the other things. north toainting, freedom, we have a sense of the fact that you are never too old or too young to feel the urge to do better. to move from oppression to liberty. perhaps i can explain it better. come with me to a hillside at night on the eighth of august, 1850. you are in a carriage, it's a hired rig pulled by two horses. there is only one lamp swinging off the carriage just to light the way. you started in the center of the city. you are heading north. you are going to come to what we avenuell, today, eastern , just as you come into georgia and eastern avenue, silver spring. what's going to happen here will be a singular incident in the history of the underground railroad in the district of fact, willd in involved this man, william chaplin. he is the man who is driving the coach. as he reaches what we will call the district line, as he moves into silver spring, he will feel a powerful blow on his right hand and lose control of the reins of his horses and before he knows it, he will be pulled off the carriage were a group of hard-faced men with pistols. around the carriage. they will staff the carriage itself, they will fire into it. the two mennt is inside, two freedom seeking black men. one of them, garland white who any chaplain for government troops in the civil war and another man seeking freedom whose name is alan. these are who we would call today high-value targets. these are not just two anonymous unknown black folks. they are enslaved people belonging to two of the most powerful senators in the entire south. one of them is enslaved by alexander stevens, who would later become the vice president of the confederacy. another is of -- belongs legally to robert toombs, another powerful influential southern senator. these men did not want these men, these black man to get away. you must understand, these other senators had made their bones on how happy black folks had been, how content they work and here was a reputation that would ring across the oceans and around the world. they could not have this. in fact, it gives us a sense of the kinds of obstacles that had to be faced when we understand that almost made time that chaplin hired the rig, at the blacksmith's shop, he was being watched. people knew he was going somewhere that he shouldn't be. that he had, if you will, sentiments of an abolitionist nature. he was watched and the bounty hunter's new. they were waiting for him when he got the -- got to the district line. from a local newspaper, from the very month and year, circumstances have occurred to fan the excitement in the city. an evolutionist by the name of -- an abolitionist by the name of william chaplin has seduced two slaves brought here by mrs. from congressvens and was in the act of carrying them off sometime during the last week but mr. garter of the police, suspecting his attentions, overhaul the carriage and after several shots had been fired. let me just see -- say parenthetically, he had no gun. they had to build it up. they had to build it up. which was returned by the police, riddling the carriage. chaplin and one of his slaves were arrested and brought back to washington where they were thrown into prison. here from a daily union, and local washington, d.c. paper, august 15, 1850. another case, some six weeks ago, three slaves brought to the city by a member of congress from the state of health go on the auspices of the infamous esther kaplan -- mr. chaplin. they were found by the same bounty catcher, policeman mr. garter. of an of the resident esquire under the floor of the kitchen. we see time and time, the desire of our ancestors to be free. as i have said earlier, to live in dignity. there was little dignity for men and women of african descent to hold onto in the early days of the nation's capital. we get no better visage, no better way to look at this then to look at a man who deserves to be much better known today. let me introduce senator henry was some -- senator henry wilson. a senator from massachusetts and the author of a significant work called the history of the rise and fall of the slave power in america. that draftede man the legislation for the emancipation in d.c. he also drafted the legislation for the collapse of the black code in the district of columbia. he deserves to be better known but he is not taught about in our schools. even though folks who live while he was alive and he died in the united states capitol building on stage and still fighting. he was a man who was born under blinding poverty. this was not his given name, his father offered to rename him to honor a rich patron. he had a natural affinity to the poor and suffering and the dispossessed. that it is critical for us to understand how d.c. could be so important to the slave trade. among the early victories of the slave power on the banks of the potomac, the government was located in a unity -- the burninging of influences of the slaveholding society, more significant and disastrous still, the fact of the district of columbia compromise the government and committed ignition -- the nation to the existence of slavery, giving it proceeds if not respect ability, it could never gain as a state institution. unlike some folk who would sing the song that it was not a big deal in the nation's capital, we would find ourselves horribly wrong. washington in embryo, the geometric patterns and shapes remind us that the original land owners of what would come to be the heart of the district of columbia were slave owners. two of the names on here were men who were dependent on the uncompensated labor of people of african descent. it will only talk about three people -- we will only talk about three people. two names are on here and the first is notley young. if you have ever been down by or wharf to grab a few crabs some fish, then you have been down to the land that in the 1700 -- 1790's, he was the district's largest original slave owner. in the 1790's, he had more than 200 enslaved people and his landlady right on the wharf. if you find yourself at captain white -- jesse white's boat and you turned around and you got a basket full of wriggling crabs, just turn around will more time before they all you away and look up behind you. the lot haswould be a -- the plaza. the apposite way, you would be at when a careful -- letter found. hill was also the plantation house of the largest slave owner in early washington, d.c. if we move over to what is now capitol hill. was was land that originally known as jenkins hill. this was owned by a man named daniel carroll. you will see his house in just a moment. i have talking about -- i have been talking about people -- talking to people about a man named davy byrnes is he struck such a hard deal to become part of the capital. if you have ever been to the monument, that's the land of davy byrnes. the land of the white house is the land of davy byrnes. he had a dozen enslaved workers from -- for growing everything from potatoes to tobacco. ofyou know the intersection 17th and constitution avenue, that's right about where his house was. day and look out every see the river and smile at how much money he was going to make because he had sold his land -- a portion of it -- to become part of the nation's capital. this is the two-story house, a reconstruction, owned by notley young. this is from an old map, this is where the work is going to go, the potomac. this was a substantial structure. let me take you to daniel carroll's place, this is an actual picture of it. get off atthe metro, capitol south and i will ask you to make a right coming out of the capitol south metro station. walk down the hill, straightahead and on the right you will see a brick building. to the left look diagonally across the street because you place --that in some tamhing to place -- nutting place which was the slave house of his plantation. we think about 1862, one of them is shown on the front porch of the house of daniel carroll. there.till -- the name is still there. place, you are back on the subway but we are not going too far. we going to come out of the eastern market metro. you come around to the back and at this point we have the southeast neighborhood library, we have the corner cvs. you'll walk down the center. about halfway down the block you ,ill come to the maples william, maine, doug -- william mayne duncanson's house. thing about this particular building -- and i was lucky to blueprints in the collection of the american historic building survey. this is the oldest private house on capitol hill. it goes back to about 1795. the slave quarters are still there and this particular building will also -- it's also being rehabbed now. it's going to be turned into $400,000 toabout 1.6 million. to you, but to the rest of us that cost a little bit of money. these are a list of rules enforced upon black people from an old headline. allr this authority, disabilities which law and custom have fixed upon the colored people in maryland and virginia will continue in the district of columbia. a negro not a slave was required upon coming in to washington was to provide evidence of his freedom at city hall and give bond that he would conduct himself according to law and would pay his taxes. he could not stay out after 2:00 p.m. we could not -- after 10:00 p.m. we could not work in any occupation that we wanted to. so many things that children took for granted today we could not do by law before the civil law -- before the civil war. in the book, slave trading in the old south, we get a sense of why people were using the underground railroad. in slave trading in the old south, what was shocking to antislavery residents in the north and abroad was the use that interstate traders used of the district -- made of a district as their headquarters because that was the first -- the best point from which they could start -- by 1830 coming washington -- hold up, because there -- i'm almost there. it's acting up. area -- here we go. in aargest firm of traders district continued in alexandria but they did much business in washington through agencies. the demand for slaves but the southwest was so -- was unprecedented that the district of columbia was called the seat and center of the slave trade in the u.s. hyperboleand that and you may say, but we have an antislavery society that call the district the slave market of america when it issued this particular poster. position as's nation capital make it an important target for the slave those whowell as fought against slavery. here we have an early masthead of william lloyd garrison's the liberator and for a time he detected the sale of enslaved men, women and children on his masthead.

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