Welcome
Book Reviews
Despite this minor criticism, Baumann does an excellent job with both his analysis and his subject matter. His argument is clear and concise and he touches on many of the areas impacted by the rescue and its subsequent publicity. One example of how the rescuers transcended into both the state and national discussion is Roeliff Brinkerhoff. Brinkerhoff, editor of the Mansfield (Ohio) Herald, and dedicated abolitionist, traveled to the Ohio Republican Party convention in 1859. He and other Oberlin-Wellington rescue allies were successful adding a repeal of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 to the party platform. More than the efforts of any individual, the Oberlin-Wellington rescue and the courageous and far-reaching activities of its participants helped to bring the issue of slavery into the national discussion.
Baumann is also successful at showing the agency exhibited by African-Americans during their participation in the rescue. Of the thirty-seven accused of taking part in the rescue, twelve of the rescuers were African-American. One such rescuer is Charles H. Langston, who Baumann emphasizes throughout the book. Langston is symbolic of all that was frightening to slaveholders about Oberlin in the mid-nineteenth century. He was a former slave who was educated at Oberlin, and a leader in the Ohio State Anti-Slavery Society. It was at the urging of Langston that John Price was taken to freedom and not simply turned over to local authorities. In addition to Langston, Baumann argues throughout the book, that in this small Western Reserve town both free blacks and fugitive slaves were treated with a different level of respect than any other area in the mid-nineteenth century United States. Baumann shows that this was true not only with the College, but even independent of the institution. The people of Oberlin truly believed in equality and conducted all aspects of their daily life in this manner. As Baumann points out, in Oberlin blacks, “worked as shopkeepers and blacksmiths along Main street”(Pp.3). This is in stark contrast to the rest of the North that required blacks to live on the periphery of society.
In all, The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue: A Reappraisal is successful in its aim to show the unique character of Oberlin’s reform movement and how this motivation helped stay a violent clash at the rescue of John Price. In addition, Baumann offers an interesting discussion of the events of the day and the political impact of the rescue and trial. For anyone interested in Oberlin, Nineteenth Century Ohio history, or the Western Reserve’s abolitionist tradition, this is an important book.
Matt Lautzenheiser
Historian
Western Reserve Historical Society
<<Back, Page 2 of 2
