09/12/2026
On September 11, 1851, a deputy U.S. marshal led a raid in Christiana to recover four enslaved people in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. Free Blacks and freedom seekers in the surrounding area met this raid with a successful but deadly armed resistance.
Some historians have called the Christiana Resistance (also known as the Christiana Riot) the first battle of the Civil War. General Robert E. Lee, when making his attack into southeast Pennsylvania in the next decade, is alleged to have asked where the town was so he could burn it. Click the link to read more. https://unchartedlancaster.com/on-this-day-in-history-the-christiana-resistance-first-battle-of-the-civil-war/
