Fugitive Civility: Performing Civic Agency on the Witness Stand

Heidi MorseUniversity of Michigan"Fugitive Civility: Performing Civic Agency on the Witness Stand"In 1855, Jane Johnson and her children escaped from her owner John Wheeler at the Philadelphia docks, assisted by abolitionists... [ view full abstract ]

Heidi Morse

University of Michigan

"Fugitive Civility: Performing Civic Agency on the Witness Stand"

In 1855, Jane Johnson and her children escaped from her owner John Wheeler at the Philadelphia docks, assisted by abolitionists Passmore Williamson and William Still and five shipyard workers. While Williamson was imprisoned for contempt of court for failing to produce Johnson in response to a writ of habeas corpus, his six black colleagues faced inflated criminal charges of highway robbery, inciting to riot, riot, and assault and battery.  (Mis)use of habeas corpus in this case functioned as a protection of a slaveholder’s property rights in the guise of protection of personal liberty stemming back to ancient Rome, and it depended on Wheeler’s characterization of Johnson’s docility—her unwillingness to leave him—in contrast to the abolitionists’ violent aggressions.  Wheeler, and indeed the entire courtroom, was astounded when Johnson risked recapture to appear as a surprise witness testifying on behalf of her benefactors.  In contrast to Wheeler’s portrayal of her, and in defiance of her inability to testify on her own behalf, Johnson performed civic agency on the witness stand, claiming a place for her voice in an American courtroom.  In doing so she protested the grounding of proslavery legal maneuvers like the Fugitive Slave Act in Roman civil law—a weaponization of Roman precedent and Roman civitas—and reimagined civic engagement in the classical mode.  This paper is part of my book-in-progress on nineteenth-century black women’s adaptations of classical rhetoric in pursuit of racial justice.  The archival document I intend to present is a transcript of Johnson’s court testimony.