Pro-Slavers

Pro-Slavers are the armed defenders of slavery in Pikesville, identified in the narrative with the town’s red-shirted rebels. Their presence shapes the town through surveillance, armed displays, and organized resistance to the Free Staters; during the public punishment of Sibonia and eight other accused people, their numbers make clear that no rescue is coming.

Identity and Political Aim

A man who gives his name as Chase states the group’s aim plainly: driving the Free Staters out of the country. He introduces his partner Randy, establishing the armed opposition as a network of individual men as well as a public political force. The narrator, trying to protect himself, later pretends to welcome the Old Man’s supposed absence and says the territory is safe for white residents. His performance reflects the danger of speaking openly where Pro-Slavers hold power.

Control of Pikesville

The group’s authority is visible around the hotel and the slave pen. From Pie’s window, the narrator watches enslaved people gathered in the fenced yard or sheltering beneath a canvas cover, and looks repeatedly for Bob without finding him. The arrangement makes the pen part of everyday town life while keeping its occupants under confinement and observation.

When armed men gather at the hotel, the narrator finds the saloon packed with red-shirted rebels, while armed riders fill the road and guards block the back entrance toward the slave alley. Miss Abby and Judge Fuggett are also in a heated dispute inside. The scene shows Pro-Slavers occupying both the public streets and the routes connecting the hotel to the enslaved people held nearby.

Mobilization and Collective Force

At the public assembly surrounding Sibonia and the eight others, roughly three hundred rebels form an armed perimeter around the scaffold alongside about a hundred uniformed militia members. Enslaved people from surrounding areas are brought to watch. The scale and arrangement of the crowd turn the event into a public demonstration of the power aligned against escape and resistance.

After word spreads that the Free Staters may be approaching, Pikesville mobilizes again. The saloon fills with armed rebels and militia; plans are made to block the streets with cannons facing outward, and lookouts are posted at both ends of town and on nearby hills. Pro-Slavers thus function not only as a crowd or local faction but as an organized force preparing to defend the town against an anticipated intervention.

Narrative Significance

The narrative presents Pro-Slavers through the narrator’s close observation of their weapons, positions, and control of public space rather than through a formal account of their organization. Their power contrasts with the uncertainty of the people confined in the slave pen and with the Free Staters’ anticipated but not yet visible arrival. In this setting, armed readiness and collective surveillance sustain the local slaveholding order and make the prospect of rescue precarious.