The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad: First-Person Narratives of Escapes to Freedom in the North
edited by Charles L. Blockson

Numerous books have been written about the Underground Railroad. That secret avenue to freedom was taken by an increasingly large number of daring runaways from the beginning of the nineteenth century through the frenzied rush in the decades between the Fugitive Slave Act and the outbreak of the Civil War. Rarely, though, has the story been told from the viewpoint of the central characters, the fugitive slaves. Why did they risk death for freedom, and how did they make their way out of bondage? The answers are indispensable to an understanding of the real Underground.

 In the pages of this book the reader will meet and come to know the major personalities in this dramatic and too-little known chapter in American history. Harriet Tubman as the Moses of her people struggles steadfastly to achieve her heaven-directed goals. Frederick Douglass escapes from slavery in Maryland to become the most eloquent spokesman for freedom in print and on platform here and abroad. Sojourner Truth, near penniless, still manages to get the funds to continue her unremitting rescue work. Thomas Garrett, a white Delaware Quaker, refuses to budge an inch from his abolition principles while living and working in a slave state.... William and Ellen Craft, a married couple, escape slavery by traveling openly through the public highways of the antebellum South in that most convincing of disguises--master and slave. The wealthy and well-born Charlotte Forten is here, recording riots in Boston, along with that most piteous and desperate black mother, Margaret Garner, ready to sacrifice her child rather than see her returned to slavery.