| |
Overview of Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was one of the most romanticized aspects of antebellum reform. Dramatic tales were perpetuated by the abolitionists in the 19th century, and later by historians of the late 19th and 20th centuries. These stories have been incorporated into American mythology, featuring selfless White heroes and heroines who guided grateful but relatively passive fugitives to safety. But few historians have acknowledged the significant role African Americans played in the Underground Railroad. All too frequently, Blacks were seen as the dupes of unscrupulous whites who participated only because they were led by heroic white northerners. Thankfully, Black historians like Carter G. Woodson and Charles Wesley researched and published accounts of African Americans who worked as major actors in the Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad was a vast system designed to conceal runaways and spirit them to freedom, often over the Canadian border. This was an organized effort between free Blacks and Whites, which put a strain on intersectional relations (the Underground Railroad intensified southern resentment toward outside interference). Financing the Underground Railroad took money because the fugitives needed food and clothing. Quakers and others raised funds, philanthropists contributed, and many of the conductors would hire themselves out to help convey slaves. Despite these difficulties, Governor Quitman of Mississippi declared that between 1810 and 1850 the South lost over 100,000 slaves valued at $30 million through the Underground Railroad. The origins of the Underground Railroad go back to the 18th century with individuals willing to help fugitives. After the American Revolution, however, a more organized resistance began to emerge (e.g., in 1786, George Washington complained that a group of Quakers helped a slave escape from Alexandria to Philadelphia).
In 1786, Isaac Hopper (of Philadelphia) developed a program for the systematic assistance of slaves escaping the South. Within a few years, a number of antislavery operations spread in various directions in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. The name, "Underground Railroad" was coined shortly after 1831 when steam railroads were popular. 1804 was the year of "incorporation" for the Railroad. In that year, General Thomas Boude purchased Stephen Smith and brought him home to Columbia, Pennsylvania, followed by Smith's mother who escaped to find her son. The Boude's took her in but within a few weeks, the owner of Smith's mother arrived and demanded her property, but the Boude's refused and the whole town supported them. Afterwards, the entire town resolved to champion the cause of fugitive slaves. In 1815, this same sentiment was expressed in Ohio, and by 1819 Underground Railroad methods were employed to get slaves out of North Carolina.
In 1967, historian Larry Gara collected evidence to show that many runaway slaves were responsible for planning and executing escapes, sometimes with the assistance of local Blacks or friendly Whites. One such runaway slave who was helped to freedom by northern whites was Charles Peyton Lucas who recorded his escape upon arriving at one of the Underground Railroad stations, like the one pictured in Ripley, Ohio. According to Lucas, "I headed north with 2 friends. We reached the Potomac River. That night we swam across to Maryland. For ten days we traveled by night and hid by day. We had almost no food. We grew very weak. One night we stole a little milk. That helped. One time, some men and dogs chased us. We had to run hard, but we got away from them. We didn't know our way. So we asked a man. He said we were runaways. But he told us which way to go. The next morning, we saw a house. The family who lived there gave us food. At last we reached the northern free states. I found a job. One day, a druggist showed me an ad. The ad offered $500 for my capture. I went to Geneva, New York. Later I had to go to Canada. I am out of the lion's paw. There is no curse on earth equal to slavery." Thus, through examining accounts such as Lucus's, Gara's assertion was essentially correct in seeing the Underground Railroad as an informal, loosely knit activity in which organized abolitionist groups played an important but minor role. As Gara suggested, the Underground Railroad was staffed informally by people of good will, often Black but sometimes White, most of whom had a personal connection to those enslaved.
However, organized abolitionist groups seldom came into contact with runaways until after they reached the relative safety of the North. The actions of these strong-minded and self-reliant runaways were documented in the records of William Still and other Black abolitionists. In the 1870's, many former abolitionists published books about their Underground Railroad operations. William Still, an ex-slave who worked as an operator in the Underground Railroad, collected and recorded a number of narratives and letters from Norfolk's slaves who became fugitives in the 1850's. Still kept records of the collected slave stories hoping to bring together the former slaves who were in search of long-lost family members. During the slavery and Civil War period, still guarded his accounts and at one point, hid them in a cemetery building.
One such account discussed by Still involved a narrow escape of twenty-one fugitives aboard Captain Fountain's ship which left Norfolk in 1855. It seemed Captain Fountain frequently secreted slaves to the North from southern ports where he traded wheat, grains, and other items. One day, word got around Norfolk that a boat was harboring fugitive slaves. Norfolk's mayor and a posse boarded the ship, and after an amateurish but destructive search, the men departed leaving the Captain and his stowaway cargo in place. Upon leaving Norfolk, the ship headed for Philadelphia where the Vigilance Committee awaited their arrival.
For Blacks in the North and South self-help was a central concern which bonded Blacks--both free and slave--to a commitment of unity and mutual reliance. While there were frictions within that community which, on occasion led to political and social disunity, the bonds of blood, culture, and common experience provided a strong magnet that drew Blacks toward one another for fellowship and safety. These bonds help explain the central role that Blacks, as opposed to whites, played as participants and leaders in the Underground Railroad. Additionally, long-standing distrust of whites was understandable and well-founded. There were numerous examples of betrayal at the hands of those unwilling or unable to defy federal provisions requiring the return of a runaway and promising severe punishment to those who aided fugitives. Some profited from the capture of runaways, earning money by delivering fugitives and sometimes even free Blacks into slavery.
Free Blacks were especially aware that as long as the institution of slavery existed in America, no Black was safe. Slavery reached out from the South to threaten all Black people, not only fugitives. Even legally free Blacks were in danger from kidnappers selling them into slavery. Solomon Northup was one such example of a northern free Black who was kidnapped into slavery by unscrupulous whites. For 12 years Northup struggled to win his freedom, an arduous process which he recounted in his autobiography, Twelve Years a Slave. Numerous post-Civil War accounts indicated that Northup was not alone in his kidnapping experiences. The majority of blacks captured as fugitives or kidnapped into slavery during the 1850's were apprehended without the aid of legal authority or due process of law. In approximately 2 out of every 5 cases captured Blacks were given no opportunity for a defense. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 made the legal defense against kidnappers more difficult by denying fugitives the right to a jury trial or the right to testify in their own behalf. Thus, as the level of white persecution increased, so did the level of Black resistance. In the years just prior to the Civil War, Black resistance in the form of running away developed into a fine art thanks to the Underground Railroad and the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act which especially made escaped slaves move to Canada to avoid the reaches of federal law.
Blacks contributed more to the Railroad than is usually reported because experience conditioned runaways to distrust whites. David Ruggles, who has been called the "Father of the Underground Railroad," and William Still were two Blacks in charge of the key Underground Railroad stations in New York and in Philadelphia.
For more information see: Gary Collison, " Revisiting the Underground Railroad"
|
|
