What is interesting is that, in the stories passed via my family’s oral history surrounding the incident, the stories references are to “The Christiana Resistance” or “The Christiana Uprising.” As people living in a culture of honor, my forebears most likely felt that “riot” did not portray their staunch commitment to the abolition of slavery: they risked life, limb, and livelihood to free the slaves, harboring escaped slaves in local “safe houses” along the Underground Railroad.

To say that Henry Green was involved in an action as chaotic and disorderly as a “riot” is like characterizing the Battle of Gettysburg as a street fight . My Welsh Mountain forebears saw what they were doing, rescuing slaves from bondage, as not only strategic and tactical operations but also morally right action, part of their Christian duty. In 1864, moved by his commitment to abolishing slavery, Henry Green marched out of Lancaster with the 41st U.S. Colored Troops to fight in Virginia. He was present at the Appomattox Courthouse on April 5, 1865 to witness Lee’s surrender to Grant, thus his lifelong fight to abolish slavery, his resistance to coercive and immoral police actions, had come full circle.

Anthony G. Baxter, PhD