Battle Creek

Northwest of Marshall and east of Kalamazoo, 19th century Battle Creek residents created multiple communities who concerned themselves with health of mind, body and spirit. At the same time Battle Creek residents created healthy breakfast foods and innovative health treatments, some also helped foster a safe community for African Americans who escaped slavery. Before, the famous anti-slavery and social reform activist Sojourner Truth, arrived in Battle Creek in 1857, the women and men of the area involved themselves with the effort to end slavery for themselves and others. Ten years prior to Truth's arrival, Perry Sanford and other African Americans settled in Battle Creek, some as an attempt to find freedom after escaping slavery.

In 1884, a reporter from the Sunday Morning Call interviewed Sanford, a long time resident and recorded his story of escape from slavery in northern Kentucky in April of 1847, his four month stay on Stephen Bogue's property on Young's Prairie between Vandalia and Cassopolis. Sanford also shares his account of the raid of Kentuckians who sought to re-enslave him and the others who escaped with him and goes on to tell of his second escape to Battle Creek. William Casey, Joseph Skipworth Thomas Henderson and Samuel Strawther were among other African Americans who also escaped slavery and settled in Battle Creek, for longer or shorter lengths of time.

Another account of a Kentucky raid comes from Erastus Hussey the Battle Creek anti-slavery activist, legislator and one-time publisher of the Michigan Liberty Press, the offspring of the Signal of Liberty. Hussey, his wife Sarah and their daughter Susan, were part of a local, state and national community that assisted many African Americans who escaped recapture. Hussey's account leaves out the specific date for the event he recounts which prevents us from knowing if he and Sanford provide two different perspectives of the same series of events. Hussey reports, however that he and members of the community provided shelter and food for a group of nine guards and forty-five people escaping recapture at the hands of raiders who invaded a Quaker settlement in Cass County. When Hussey learned that men were headed to Battle Creek to attempt to recapture the African Americans, he reports, "Dr. Thayer and I printed 500 handbills, stating that we were prepared to meet them, and that they had better stay away from Battle Creek. Some people condemned this very much….the slave-catchers read the bills and turned back."

As a member of the Michigan Anti-Slavery Society and the Michigan Senate in 1855, Hussey and other senators introduced P.A. 162, the Personal Freedom's Act, which restricted the legal actions of anyone claiming ownership of African Americans living in Michigan, by preventing state and local officials from cooperating with agents of slavery, instituting fines and jail-time for attempting to capture African Americans and providing legal assistance to those accused of escaping from slavery.

Two years after the senate passed PA 162, Sojourner Truth moved to Battle Creek, her final resting place, where she continued to lecture against slavery.

Sources
Hussey, Erastus, Sunday Morning Call May 3 and May 10 1885

Sanford, Perry Sunday Morning Call August 3, 1884