May 13th 1859 Atlanta Georgia
Jacob White was a young 20 some thing who had inherited a plantation from his dead father, weather it was a fever, madness or devine revelation Jacob claimed that an angel came to him and showed him his family showed them burning in hell and warned him that unless he freed his slaves this too would be his fate.
But in georgia during the time freeing your slaves like that was techically illegal, so Jacob wrote to an abolitionist group and then marched north into Ohio and officially freed every one of his slaves then he returned home frantically warning every one around him that if slavery was not ended then Atlanta would burn.
This upset some very important people and he was tried and excuted for breaking what was considered by many to be an unjust law, and many who supported the law thought that the punishment was excessive, but in front of a small crowd Jacob White died, his body photographed by an abolitionist newspaper and the story took off like wild fire, soon after John brown would conduct his harpers ferry raid and the country would go into a civil war.
And true to his prediciton Atlanta did burn.
Many people say that Jacobs death was the event that tipped things and made the civil war envitable, other people say that the conflict between free state and slave states was going to cause a civil war no matter what.
But what if Jacob had never had his vision, or if the jury wasn't a kangaroo jury, or if they had simply decided not to hang him. How would history change?
Jacob White was a young 20 some thing who had inherited a plantation from his dead father, weather it was a fever, madness or devine revelation Jacob claimed that an angel came to him and showed him his family showed them burning in hell and warned him that unless he freed his slaves this too would be his fate.
But in georgia during the time freeing your slaves like that was techically illegal, so Jacob wrote to an abolitionist group and then marched north into Ohio and officially freed every one of his slaves then he returned home frantically warning every one around him that if slavery was not ended then Atlanta would burn.
This upset some very important people and he was tried and excuted for breaking what was considered by many to be an unjust law, and many who supported the law thought that the punishment was excessive, but in front of a small crowd Jacob White died, his body photographed by an abolitionist newspaper and the story took off like wild fire, soon after John brown would conduct his harpers ferry raid and the country would go into a civil war.
And true to his prediciton Atlanta did burn.
Many people say that Jacobs death was the event that tipped things and made the civil war envitable, other people say that the conflict between free state and slave states was going to cause a civil war no matter what.
But what if Jacob had never had his vision, or if the jury wasn't a kangaroo jury, or if they had simply decided not to hang him. How would history change?