US I Class Assignment

Mr. Glover

The Fugitive Slaves and the Underground Railroad

 

Introduction: The Underground Railroad was an informal system or network by which African – American slaves, with the aid of Northern and Southern abolitionists and ex - slaves, escaped from slavery by secretly moving to and from safe houses (called stations) until they reached secure areas of free states, Canada or Mexico.

 

Task:  Review the information below about the Underground Revolution, and then write a report exploring the motivation of the individuals (bondsmen, abolitionist, ex –slaves, and operators/ “conductors) who participated in the Underground Revolution.

 

 

The Slave Narratives

Born in Slavery: Slave Narratives from the Federal Writers' Project, 1936-1938 contains more than 2,300 first-person accounts of slavery and 500 black-and-white photographs of former slaves. These narratives were collected in the 1930s as part of the Federal Writers' Project of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) and assembled and microfilmed in 1941 as the seventeen-volume Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves.  The three excerpts below were taken from this collection.

  1. "In most of us colored folks was the great desire to [be] able to read and write. We took advantage of every opportunity to educate ourselves. The greater part of the plantation owners were very harsh if we were caught trying to learn or write. It was the law that if a white man was caught trying to educate a Negro slave, he was liable to prosecution entailing a fine of fifty dollars and a jail sentence. We were never allowed to go to town and it was not until after I ran away that I knew that they sold anything but slaves, tobacco, and whiskey. Our ignorance was the greatest hold the South had on us. We knew we could run away, but what then? An offender guilty of this crime was subjected to very harsh punishment.   John W. Fields

 

  1. "My pappy wasn't 'fraid of nothin'. He am light cullud from de white blood, and he runs away sev'ral times. Dere am big woods all round and we sees lots of run-awayers. One old fellow name John been a run-awayer for four years and de patterrollers* tries all dey tricks, but dey can't cotch him. Dey wants him bad, 'cause it 'spire other slaves to run away if he stays a-loose. Dey sots de trap for him. Dey knows he like good eats, so dey 'ranges for a quiltin' and gives chitlin's and lye hominey. John comes and am inside when de patterrollers rides up to de door. Everybody gits quiet and John stands near de door, and when dey starts to come in he grabs de shovel full of hot ashes and throws dem into de patterrollers faces. He gits through and runs off, hollerin', 'Bird in de air! One woman name Rhodie runs off for long spell. De hounds won't hunt her. She steals hot light bread** when dey puts it in de window to cool, and lives on dat. She told my mammy how to keep de hounds from followin' you is to take black pepper and put it in you socks and run without you shoes. It make de hounds sneeze. One day I's in de woods and meets de nigger runawayer. He comes to de cabin and mammy makes him a bacon and egg sandwich and we never seed him again. Maybe he done got clear to Mexico, where a lot of de slaves runs to.  Walter Rimm

 

  1. I was born March 23, 1850 in Kentucky, somewhere near Louisville. I am goin' on 88 years right now. (1937). I was brought to Missouri when I was six months old, along with my mama, who was a slave owned by a man named Shaw, who had allotted her to a man named Jimmie Graves, who came to Missouri to live with his daughter Emily Graves Crowdes. I always lived with Emily Crowdes. I was never sold. My mama was sold only once, but she was hired out many times. Yes'm when a slave was allotted, somebody made a down payment and gave a mortgage for the rest. A chattel mortgage. . . Allotments made a lot of grief for the slaves," Aunt Sally asserted. "We left my papa in Kentucky, 'cause he was allotted to another man. My papa never knew where my mama went, an' my mama never knew where papa went. Aunt Sally paused a moment, then went on bitterly. "They never wanted mama to know, 'cause they knowed she would never marry so long she knew where he was. Our master wanted her to marry again and raise more children to be slaves. They never wanted mama to know where papa was, an' she never did," sighed Aunt Sally.  Sarah Frances Shaw Graves

 

The following narratives were taken from assorted sources, and are not part of the Library of Congress’ Slaves Narratives from the Federal Writer’s Project, 1936 – 1939.

In 1849, James C.W. Pennington, the minister of a Presbyterian Church in New York City and the recipient of a degree from the University of Heidelberg in Germany, published a narrative of his life that revealed the astonishing news that he was a fugitive slave and a former blacksmith from Maryland. In his account of his life, Pennington offers the following reflections on the impact of slavery upon slave children.

  1. My feelings are always outraged when I hear [ministers] speak of "kind masters,"- - "Christian masters,"- - "the mildest form of slavery,"- - well fed and clothed slaves," as extenuations of slavery; I am satisfied they either mean to pervert the truth, or they do not know what they say. The being of slavery, its soul and body, lives and moves in the chattel principle, the property principle, the bill of sale principle; the cart- whip, starvation, and nakedness, are its inevitable consequences to a greater or less extent, warring with the dispositions of men.... Another evil of slavery [is]...the want of parental care and attention. My parents were not able to give any attention to their children during the day. I often suffered much from hunger and other similar causes. To estimate the sad state of a slave child, you must look at it as a helpless human being thrown upon the world without the benefit of its natural guardians…We had an overseer, named Blackstone; he was an extremely cruel man to the working hands. He always carried a long hickory whip, a kind of pole. He kept three or four of these in order that he might not at any time be without one. I once found one of these hickories lying in the yard, and supposing that he had thrown it away, I picked it up, and boy- like, was using it for a horse; he came from the field, and seeing me with it, fell upon me with the one he then had in his hand, and flogged me most cruelly.

Source: The Fugitive Blacksmith or, Events in the History of James W.C. Pennington (2nd ed.; London, 1849)

Lunsford Lane, who grew up on a plantation near Raleigh, North Carolina, manufactured pipes and tobacco and succeeded in saving enough money to buy his own freedom and purchase his wife and seven children. Here, he describes his experiences as a slave child. My father was a slave to a near neighbor.

  1. The apartment where I was born and where I spent my childhood and youth was called "the kitchen," situated some fifteen or twenty rods from the "great house." Here the house servants lodged and lived, and here the meals were prepared for the people in the mansion.... My infancy was spent upon the floor, in a rough cradle, or sometimes in my mother's arms..... When I began to work, I discovered the difference between myself and my master's white children. They began to order me about, and were told to do so by my master and mistress. I found, too, that they had learned to read, while I was not permitted to have a book in my hand. To be in possession of anything written or printed, was regarded as an offence. And then there was the fear that I might be sold away from those who were dear to me, and conveyed to the far South.

Source: The Narrative of Lunsford Lane (Boston, 1842).

Solomon Northrup was a free black who was kidnapped in New York and sold into slavery for twelve years. He was finally returned to freedom through the efforts of New York's governor. In the following selection he describes how cotton was raised on his Louisiana plantation.

  1. The hands are required to be in the cotton field as soon as it is light in the morning, and, with the exception of ten or fifteen minutes, which is given them at noon to swallow their allowance of cold bacon, they are not permitted to be a moment idle until it is too dark to see, and when the moon is full, they often times labor till the middle of the night. They do not dare to stop even at dinner time, nor return to the quarters, however late it be, until the order to halt is given by the driver. The day's work over in the field, the baskets are "toted," or in other words, carried to the gin- house, where the cotton is weighed. No matter how fatigued and weary he may be- - no matter how much he longs for sleep and rest- - a slave never approaches the gin- house with his basket of cotton but with fear. If it falls short in weight- - if he has not performed the full task appointed him, he knows that he must suffer. And if he has exceeded it by ten or twenty pounds, in all probability his master will measure the next day's task accordingly. So, whether he has two little or too much, his approach to the gin- house is always with fear and trembling...Plowing, planting, picking cotton, gathering the corn, and pulling and burning stalks, occupies the whole of the four seasons of the year. Drawing and cutting wood, pressing cotton fattening and killing hogs are but incidental labors.

Source: Twelve Years a Slave: Narrative of Solomon Northrup (Auburn, N.Y., 1853).

Frederick Douglass was born into slavery on Maryland's eastern shore in 1818, the son of a slave woman and an unknown white man. While toiling as a ship's caulker, he taught himself to read. After he escaped from slavery at the age of 1820, he became the abolitionist movement's most effective orator and published an influential anti- slavery newspaper, The North Star. In this excerpt from one of his three autobiographies, he describes the circumstances that prompted slave owners to whip slaves.

  1. A mere look, word, or motion, - - a mistake, accident, or want of power, - - are all matters for which a slave may be whipped at any time. Source: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (3rd. English ed., Leeds, 1846)

Nothing aroused greater fury within the slave community than the sexual abuse of slave women. Josiah Henson describes his father's reaction to an overseer's attempt to molest his mother.

  1. My mother was a slave of Dr. Josiah McPherson, but hired to the Mr. Newman to whom my father belonged. The only incident I can remembered which occurred while my mother continued on Mr. Newman's farm, was the appearance one day of my father with his head bloody and his back lacerated. He was beside himself with mingled rage and suffering. The explanation I picked up from the conversation of others only partially explained the matter to my mind; but as I grew older I understood it all. It seemed the overseer had sent my mother away from the other field hands to a retired place, and after trying persuasion in vain, had resorted to force to accomplish a brutal purpose. Her screams aroused my father at his distant work, and running up, he found his wife struggling with the man. Furious at the sight, he sprung upon him like a tiger. In a moment the overseer was down, and, mastered by rage, my father would have killed him but for the entreaties of my mother, and the overseer's own promise that nothing should ever be said of the matter. The promise was kept- - like most promises of the cowardly and debased- - as long as the danger lasted. The laws of states provide means and opportunities for revenge so ample, that miscreants like him never fail to improve them. "A nigger has struck a white man;" that is enough to set a whole county on fire; no question is asked about the provocation. The authorities were soon in pursuit of my father. The fact of the sacrilegious act of lifting a hand against the sacred temple of a white man's body...this was all it was necessary to establish. And the penalty followed: one hundred lashes on the bare back, and to have the right ear nailed to the whipping- post, and then severed from the body.

Source: Josiah Henson, Uncle Tom's Story of His Life: An Autobiography of the Rev. Josiah Henson (London, 1877).

 

 

 

 

The Abolitionists

 

The Conductors

 

Gerrit Smith

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASsmith.htm

William Wells Brown

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASbrownW.htm

Harriet Tubman

http://www.nyhistory.com/harriettubman/life.htm#ugrr

William Sill

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USASstill.htm

 

Jane Swisshelm

http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAswisshelm.htm

Robert Purvis

http://www.nynews.com/blackhistory/purvis.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Escapes

Slaves who decided to escape from bondage took great risks should they be captured. Besides being returned to involuntary servitude, they risked possible death, severe beatings or imprisonment. Usually without maps or a compass, they relied on locating the North Star to guide them to freedom.

Escape at Sunset by Janice Northcut Huse

 

 

Reward Poster for Runaway Slaves, 1847

 

The Fugitive Slave Bill

The revised Fugitive Slave Bill was put into effect as a proviso to the Compromise of 1850. Slave owners had "the right to organize a posse at any point in the United States to aid in recapturing runaway slaves. Courts and police everywhere in the United States were obligated to assist them" (Blockson, 11).

Reward Posters for Runaway Slaves in Kentucky, Massachusetts, and Maryland circa 1850

  

 

 

 

 

Fugitive Slave Destinations via the Underground Railroad

Canada http://www.duke.edu/~mahealey/black_canada.htm

Mexico http://www.newberry.org/nl/scholl/nhp/pozniak.html

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Holden House, 79 Clifton Place, Jersey City, NJ

www.state.nj.us/state/ history/material.html

 

 

 

Four Routes of the Underground Railroad Through New Jersey

http://www.state.nj.us/state/history/railrd.html