Railroad networks in the deep South, in states
like Mississippi, Alabama or South Carolina.
Arguably, these states had the most crying
need for some mechanism to give hope to
slaves. Also, as many or more incidents of
barbaric treatment of slaves have been
unearthed in these states compared to the
upper South.
Riverboats headed south between Mississippi
and Arkansas to New Orleans, but these were
always checked for hidden runaways. A very
few slaves from the Deep South were able to
escape, when they accompanied their owners
on trips to Philadelphia or border states. But
before the Civil War, there was minimal chance
for escape for Deep South slave residents
except death.
In one city, Indianapolis, we were fortunate to
see the Slippery Noodle Inn, site of an 1850
Indiana bar still going strong packing people in
for jazz and blues. It served as a station along
the Underground Railroad. In its basement,
currently used for food storage, original doors
in the back corner were used to transport
runaway slaves from this station to the
railroad station. The building’s past was
notorious in other ways, although less
praiseworthy. Bank robber John Dillinger drank
in the bar and his bullet holes are in the door in
the basement, and a brothel did business on the
upper floor.
Today, these sites have a type of romantic aura
about them, despite the grim danger faced by
its participants. Even though only tenuous,
there may be some parallels between these
stations and the speakeasies of the Roaring
20s. In both types of establishments, people
acted illegally, although punishments of those
who violated Prohibition legislation were far
less draconian than those administered to
conductors, abolitionist supporters and, of
course, the runaway slaves themselves.
Drinkers in speakeasies often seemed to
celebrate their flouting of laws. However, until
the women’s Repeal organization of Pauline
Sabin was firmly organized at the end of the
1920s, there was no moral high ground
appropriate for those who violated the legal
status of Prohibition.
Until recently, participants in and supporters
of the Underground Railroad remained almost
anonymous. Two exceptions were Harriet
Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Tubman was
a remarkable woman who outlived most of her
contemporaries in the movement until her
death at 91 in 1913. She was an escaped slave
who richly earned a high price on her head. She
returned time and again to slave states, risking
her life to aid others escape. Frederick
Douglass was also a runaway, who became
literate by his own hand. Spending time in
Europe to avoid the risk of recapture, he
returned to the U.S. as an author and soughtafter speaker. During the Civil War, Douglass
actively recruited blacks to fight for the Union.
His intelligence and presence gave the lie to
those who claimed that black mental processes
were inherently inferior to those
of whites.
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William Still, the son of former slaves, compiled
detailed narratives, often quite touching, of
the experiences of escaped slaves. He used his
membership in the Philadelphia General
Vigilance Committee, part of the Underground
Railroad, to obtain these descriptions.
Recently, authors such as Fergus Bordewich,
author of “Bound for Canaan” have written
valuable histories of the Underground Railroad
that have helped keep alive its memory.
Slowly, other participants in the Railroad, both
white and black, are becoming better known.
Some always remained in the U.S., some moved
to Canada while continuing to advance the
movement south of the border. Many of the
whites who worked in the Railroad were deeply
religious, such as Quakers. In a sense, this is
ironic, considering their contrast to the more
secular or deist tendencies of the Founding
Fathers, most of whom did oppose slavery.
Sites along the Underground Railway are slowly
becoming more numerous and better labeled.
As they increase, they provide valuable and
both sobering and enjoyable information for
tourists and travelers across the central and
eastern U.S.
If you know of any such sites that are not
discussed in books, but known locally, please
leave a comment, so others interested in this
subject can discover this well-hidden history.
Photography courtesy of Shutterstock.com
unless otherwise noted.