page_title: Samuel Green (freedman)
hierarchical_section_title: Samuel Green (freedman)
caption_attribution_description: English: Wood Etching of Samuel Green from William Still's 1872 book "The Underground Railroad"
context_page_description: Samuel Green was an African-American slave, freedman, and minister of religion, who was jailed in 1857 for possessing a copy of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
  He was born in East New Market, Maryland, to an enslaved mother. His father may have been enslaved. The identity of both parents remains unknown. The ancestry of Samuel's family was that of Harriet "Ritt" Green. The mother Araminta "Minty" Ross-Tubman-Davis. Also known as Harriet Tubman. He labored for his enslaver, Henry Nichols, until Nichols's death in 1832. A provision in Nichols's will enabled Green to buy his freedom. Samuel then worked as a farmer and as a minister or exhorter in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dorchester County, Maryland. He was able to buy the freedom of his wife Catherine in 1842 from her enslaver, Ezekiel Richardson. Sam and Kitty's two children, Sam Jr. and Susan, were subsequently sold by Richardson to Dr. James Muse in 1847, taking them out of Sam and Kitty's household.
  Reverend Samuel Green's reputation grew in stature in both the African-American and white communities of Dorchester County.
context_section_description: Samuel Green (c. 1802 – February 28, 1877) was an African-American slave, freedman, and minister of religion, who was jailed in 1857 for possessing a copy of the anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom's Cabin by Harriet Beecher Stowe.
  He was born in East New Market, Maryland, to an enslaved mother. His father may have been enslaved. The identity of both parents remains unknown. The ancestry of  Samuel's family was that of Harriet "Ritt" Green. The mother Araminta "Minty" Ross-Tubman-Davis. Also known as Harriet Tubman. He labored for his enslaver, Henry Nichols, until Nichols's death in 1832. A provision in Nichols's will enabled Green to buy his freedom. Samuel then worked as a farmer and as a minister or exhorter in the African Methodist Episcopal Church in Dorchester County, Maryland. He was able to buy the freedom of his wife Catherine (Kitty) in 1842 from her enslaver, Ezekiel Richardson. Sam and Kitty's two children, Sam Jr. (born 1829) and Susan (born 1832), were subsequently sold by Richardson to Dr. James Muse in 1847, taking them out of Sam and Kitty's household.
  Reverend Samuel Green's reputation grew in stature in both the African-American and white communities of Dorchester County. In 1852, he served as a delegate to the Convention of the Free Colored People of Maryland in Baltimore, where he resisted efforts to encourage emigration to Africa. In October 1855 he attended the National Convention of the Colored People of the United States, held at Franklin Hall in Philadelphia, as a delegate from Maryland. He mingled with many prominent Northern black abolitionists during the convention, including Frederick Douglass, Jacob Gibbs, Stephen Myers, William Cooper Nell, Charles Lennox Remond, John Rock, and Mary Ann Shadd Cary.
  In August 1854, Sam Green's son, Sam Jr., a skilled blacksmith, ran away from Dr. Muse after learning that he might be sold. Using instructions probably given to him by Harriet Tubman, he found his way to the office of William Still, Philadelphia's most notorious Underground Railroad stationmaster, who forwarded him to the home of Charles Bustill, another prominent African American Underground Railroad agent in Philadelphia. From there, he was sent along swiftly to Chipaway, Ontario, Canada, just across the U.S. border near Niagara Falls, where he joined other Eastern Shore runaways living relatively free lives. Sam Green Sr. is known to have helped Harriet Tubman and other runaway slaves from the region, and no doubt these connections helped Sam Jr. successfully reach freedom.
  Once settled in Chipaway, Sam, Jr. wrote to his parents, telling them news of his successful journey to freedom, which included "plenty of friends, plenty to eat, and to drink." He told his father to tell Peter Jackson and Joe Bailey, both locally enslaved men, to come to Canada as soon as they could. Jackson soon fled North with Tubman and her brothers in December 1854; Bailey would wait another two years before the right time presented itself. Tragically, Sam Jr.'s sister Susan was unable to flee; as the mother of two young children, Susan may have been unwilling or unable to run away with her brother. Muse, angry over the escape of Sam Jr. and suspicious that Susan might run off as well, sold her to a Missouri family, cruelly separating her from her family forever.
  By mid-March 1857, rumors were circulating that the Rev. Green had played a role in the escape of the Dover Eight, a group of eight runways who had successfully eluded capture in a dramatic flight from Dorchester County.
  When the Dorchester County sheriff searched Green's house, he found the letters from Samuel Jr. naming Jackson and Bailey, two slaves who had escaped to Canada with Harriet Tubman. Raising further suspicions, Green had recently returned from a trip to Canada to visit with his fugitive son. Authorities also discovered a Canadian map, various railroad schedules, and a copy of one volume of the two volumes set of Harriet Beecher Stowe's 1852 best seller, Uncle Tom's Cabin in Green's home.
  Green was arrested on April 4, 1857 and charged with "knowingl
caption: Samuel Green c. 1860
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