The Underground Railroad remains one of America's most ennobling true stories, and the people of Ohio played their part in this heroic endeavor. Suffering a crisis of conscience, Presbyterian minister James Gilliland left his South Carolina home for Red Oak, where he became one of the state's earliest and strongest abolitionists. Peru Township's Richard Dillingham died helping the enslaved escape bondage. In Alum Creek, three generations of the Benedict family risked life and limb doing the same. Quakers Jane and Valentine Nicholson of Clinton County carted many a fugitive to freedom, as did Wilmington Quaker Abraham Allen with his trusty Liberator wagon. Drawing on decades of research, author Tom Calarco uncovers the real tales of our nation's quest for freedom and equality for all.
This in-depth history examines how a stronghold of slavery in Pennsylvania became a central hub for the abolitionist cause. Much like the rest of the nation, South Central Pennsylvania has a fraught history of struggle over slavery. The institution lingered locally for more than fifty years, even as it went virtually extinct everywhere else within Pennsylvania. Gradually, abolitionist views prevailed as the region became an important destination for enslaved people escaping the south. The Appalachian Mountains and the Susquehanna River provided natural cover for fugitive, causing an influx of travel along the Underground Railroad. Locals like William Wright and James McAllister assisted these runaways while publicly advocating to abolish slavery. In this expert study, historian Cooper Wingert reveals the struggles between slavery and abolition in South Central Pennsylvania.
Between 1783 and 1860, more than 100,000 enslaved African Americans escaped across the border between slave and free territory in search of freedom. Most of these escapes were unaided, but as the American anti-slavery movement became more militant after 1830, assisted escapes became more common. Help came from the Underground Railroad, which still stands as one of the most powerful and sustained multiracial human rights movements in world history. This work examines and interprets the available historical evidence about fugitive slaves and the Underground Railroad in Kentucky, the southernmost sections of the free states bordering Kentucky along the Ohio River, and, to a lesser extent, the slave states to the immediate south. Kentucky was central to the Underground Railroad because its northern boundary, the Ohio River, represented a three hundred mile boundary between slavery and nominal freedom. The book examines the landscape of Kentucky and the surrounding states; fugitive slaves before 1850, in the 1850s and during the Civil War; and their motivations and escape strategies and the risks involved with escape. The reasons why people broke law and social convention to befriend fugitive slaves, common escape routes, crossing points through Kentucky from Tennessee and points south, and specific individuals who provided assistance--all are topics covered.
Prior to the Civil War, thousands escaped slavery via the Underground Railroad. Untold others failed in the attempt. These unfortunate souls were dragged into bondage via the Reverse Underground Railroad, as it came to be called. With more lines on both roads than any other state, the Free State of Ohio became a hunting ground for slavecatchers and kidnappers who roamed the North with impunity, seeking "fugitives" or any person of color who could be sold into slavery. And when they found one, they would kidnap their victim and head south to reap the reward. David Meyers and Elise Meyers Walker, authors of Historic Black Settlements of Ohio, reveal not only the terror and injustice but also the bravery and determination born of this dark time in American history.
Ohio was at the heart of it all. During a dark time in United States history, thousands of freedom seekers traveled the Underground Railroad through Ohio. The Buckeye State hosted about half of all fugitive slave traffic of the antebellum era. A mix of Northern and Southern settlers in the state added drama to a struggle that led to major benefits for the state and the country. Unfortunately, this epic past was obscured by silence and secrecy and then distorted with misinformation and folklore--until now. Author and native Ohioan Kathy Schulz accurately details the development and workings of Ohio's Underground Railroad with true stories of Addison White, John Parker and others.
#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE WINNER • NATIONAL BOOK AWARD WINNER • "An American masterpiece" (NPR) that chronicles a young slave's adventures as she makes a desperate bid for freedom in the antebellum South. • The basis for the acclaimed original Amazon Prime Video series directed by Barry Jenkins. Cora is a slave on a cotton plantation in Georgia. An outcast even among her fellow Africans, she is on the cusp of womanhood—where greater pain awaits. And so when Caesar, a slave who has recently arrived from Virginia, urges her to join him on the Underground Railroad, she seizes the opportunity and escapes with him. In Colson Whitehead's ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor: engineers and conductors operate a secret network of actual tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora embarks on a harrowing flight from one state to the next, encountering, like Gulliver, strange yet familiar iterations of her own world at each stop. As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the terrors of the antebellum era, he weaves in the saga of our nation, from the brutal abduction of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. The Underground Railroad is both the gripping tale of one woman's will to escape the horrors of bondage—and a powerful meditation on the history we all share. Look for Colson Whitehead’s new novel, Crook Manifesto, coming soon!
This volume introduces a new way to study the experiences of runaway slaves by defining different “spaces of freedom” they inhabited. It also provides a groundbreaking continental view of fugitive slave migration, moving beyond the usual regional or national approaches to explore locations in Canada, the U.S. North and South, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Using newspapers, advertisements, and new demographic data, contributors show how events like the Revolutionary War and westward expansion shaped the slave experience. Contributors investigate sites of formal freedom, where slavery was abolished and refugees were legally free, to determine the extent to which fugitive slaves experienced freedom in places like Canada while still being subject to racism. In sites of semiformal freedom, as in the northern United States, fugitives’ claims to freedom were precarious because state abolition laws conflicted with federal fugitive slave laws. Contributors show how local committees strategized to interfere with the work of slave catchers to protect refugees. Sites of informal freedom were created within the slaveholding South, where runaways who felt relocating to distant destinations was too risky formed maroon communities or attempted to blend in with free black populations. These individuals procured false documents or changed their names to avoid detection and pass as free. The essays discuss slaves’ motivations for choosing these destinations, the social networks that supported their plans, what it was like to settle in their new societies, and how slave flight impacted broader debates about slavery. This volume redraws the map of escape and emancipation during this period, emphasizing the importance of place in defining the meaning and extent of freedom. Contributors: Kyle Ainsworth | Mekala Audain | Gordon S. Barker | Sylviane A. Diouf | Roy E. Finkenbine | Graham Russell Gao Hodges | Jeffrey R. Kerr-Ritchie | Viola Franziska Müller | James David Nichols | Damian Alan Pargas | Matthew Pinsker A volume in the series Southern Dissent, edited by Stanley Harrold and Randall M. Miller
New Hampshire was once a hotbed of abolitionist activity. But the state had its struggles with slavery, with Portsmouth serving as a slave-trade hub for New England. Abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison, Nathaniel Peabody Rogers and Stephen Symonds Foster helped create a statewide antislavery movement. Abolitionists and freed slaves assisted in transporting escapees to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Author Michelle Arnosky Sherburne uncovers the truth about slavery, the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement in New Hampshire.
