Hi, I’m Clint Smith and this is Crash Course
Black American History. If you’re like me, when you first heard
of this thing called “The Underground Railroad” as a kid, you imagined a vast network of steam
engines that crisscrossed the southern United States in dark tunnels surrounded by soil
and rock. These trains, I thought, carried enslaved
people from the violence of their plantations to the freedom of northern cities. I imagined it kind of like the subway system
of New York City…except with a lot less rats. Some writers, like the Pulitzer-Prize winning
novelist Colson Whitehead, have even imagined this real-life train system in their stories,
depicting the Underground railroad as something that traversed across the South, making stops
in each state to collect enslaved people who had escaped and were trying to make their
way to freedom. But the reality is that, despite what 3rd
grade Clint thought, the Underground Railroad…wasn’t an actual railroad, it was in fact something
even more remarkable. It was a group of people, who used their homes,
their heads, and their hearts to secretly help enslaved people make their way out of
the South and towards what they hoped would be a better future. These were people, Black and white alike,
who often risked everything to help people they didn’t even know. But they helped them because they knew that
slavery was wrong, and they wanted to play whatever small role they could in helping
as many people as possible reach freedom. The Underground Railroad is an incredible
part of American history, and it is also something that has been mythologized in ways that aren’t
always accurate. But today we’re going to separate the fact,
from the fiction. Let’s get started. So, we’ve established that the Underground
Railroad wasn’t an actual railroad, but it’s also important to know that even the
metaphorical railroad wasn’t a centrally organized endeavor. There were no headquarters, no comprehensive
maps, no Underground Railroad magazine. Many people who we now view as a part of the
Underground Railroad across the country, didn’t actually know anything about one another. The Underground Railroad was made of individuals
and small networks of people working together amid the larger less-centralized operation. And while the Underground Railroad wasn’t
a literal train, they often did use the language of train infrastructure. The various stops and safehouses could be
known as “stations,” the guides who led the escapees to different stations were “conductors,”
and the folks who hid escaped slaves in their homes might be known as “station masters.” Harriet Tubman, among the most famous conductors,
used this sort of language herself, saying in in 1896, quote “I was the conductor of
the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say
— I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.” It’s unclear where the term Underground
Railroad first originated, but it’s said to have first appeared in print in an 1839
newspaper. Frederick Douglas alludes to it in his 1845
autobiography where he expresses frustration at the abolitionists who have been talking
about the network with such a lack of discretion that he says is turning the operation into
“an upperground railroad.” See, Douglas thought that this might compromise
the entire operation. He wanted it to be something more covert,
more…underground. Sometimes when people tell the story of the
Underground Railroad what they imagine, and what some early scholars depicted in their
own work, was a network made primarily of benevolent white abolitionists who helped
escaped slaves who couldn’t help themselves. And while there were many white abolitionists
who were absolutely involved in the system, sometimes this story can lead to many people
ignoring or erasing the fact that it was mostly Black people who were a part of, and who led,
the Underground Railroad’s efforts. What’s more, there were also differences
in the consequences and implications of their work if they were caught. Many white abolitionists would face fines
or public shame depending on the community in which they were operating, but for most
Black abolitionists and escapees, everything was on the line. They could be returned to slavery, tortured,
or even killed. It’s worth homing in on one person who played
a specifically noteworthy role in the operation. His name is William Still, and he came to
be known by many as the Father of the Underground Railroad. Let’s go to the thought bubble. William Still was born in Burlington County,
New Jersey in 1821 to Charity and Levin Still, both of whom were formerly enslaved. He was the youngest of eighteen children. In 1847, William, who had moved to Philadelphia,
was hired as a clerk for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. And when abolitionists in Philadelphia organized
a Vigilance Committee to provide assistance to escaped slaves, Still became the chairman
of the group and a leader in Philadelphia’s Black community. He and his wife Letitia moved into a rowhouse
that would become a well-known station on the Underground Railroad. During his abolitionist work in Philadelphia,
William Still helped nearly eight hundred enslaved people escape to freedom. But don’t get lost in the numbers. Each of these people had a face, a name, a
story. And each of those stories, was one that Still
believed was worth preserving. So what he did was interview those individuals
who escaped as they passed through Philadelphia and he kept meticulous records about where
they were coming from and where they were going. He knew that such a detailed record could
help reunite families who were separated under slavery. These records eventually became a book published
in 1872, known as The Underground Railroad Records, which chronicles the stories of 649
enslaved people who escaped to freedom. To this day, it remains an invaluable resource
for scholars in helping understand the context and methods of the people who escaped the
claws of slavery. And reportedly, Still himself said, quote:
“The heroism and desperate struggle that many of our people had to endure should be
kept green in the memory of this and coming generations.” Thanks thought bubble. Another thing I believed when I was younger
was that millions of enslaved people escaped through the Underground Railroad to freedom. But that’s…not really true. Scholars still debate the actual number. But the historian Eric Foner estimates that,
between 1830 and 1860, some thirty thousand fugitives were at some stage a part of the
Underground Railroad. But other scholars believe that the number
was closer to fifty thousand—and some think it was, twice that many. So compared to the millions of people who
were enslaved throughout America’s history, tens of thousands doesn’t seem like that
much. And to be clear, it’s not to say that their
lives don’t matter, or that their success in finding some semblance of freedom should
be taken for granted. Even just one person finding freedom is meaningful. But at the same time, we shouldn’t delude
ourselves into thinking that huge percentages of enslaved people escaped because…that
simply isn’t true. This is important because sometimes that myth
can be used to mitigate our collective discomfort around this country’s history of slavery. If we can convince ourselves that so many
people escaped then maybe it will let us feel a little bit less horrible about what happened
here. But we can’t let that be the case. We have to sit with the discomfort, and the
existence of the Underground Railroad can’t be used as a way to run from that. Additionally, what was in some ways just as
important as the actual number of enslaved people who escaped is the symbolism of what
the Underground Railroad represented. It was something that represented hope and
possibility for many enslaved people, and also something that instilled an enormous
amount of fear in enslavers. I mean, these are many of the same people
who believed in Samuel Cartwright’s bizarre contention that Black people who wanted to
run away were actually suffering from a disease, something he called “Drapetomania.” Cartwright mentions two potential treatments
for “the disease”: treating one’s slaves kindly but firmly, or, failing that, quote
“whipping the devil out of them.” The Underground Railroad is actually one of
the reasons that many southern states were so adamant about passing the Fugitive Slave
Law in 1850, so that even if their enslaved human property escaped North, these Northern
states would, by law, be required to assist the slave catchers and slaveholders in recapturing
the escapees. If they didn’t there would be a significant
fine. What’s more, the way the judicial system
was set up at the time made it so that the commissioners were incentivized to side with
slave catchers, because they were paid $10 for a decision that confirmed a Black person
as escaped property, and only $5 for a ruling that stated a given suspect was free. Another very important part of the story of
the Underground Railroad is that while it focuses on people escaping to the North, the
majority of enslaved people who attempted to escape actually did so by escaping to the
Caribbean, Spanish Florida, Native American communities in the Southeast United States,
free Black communities in the upper South, and Mexico. In 1829, Mexican president Vicente Guerrero,
who was himself of mixed European, Native American, and African ancestry abolished slavery
in the country. Subsequently many enslaved people who lived
near the US-Mexico border sought their freedom in America’s neighbor to the South. Altogether, the Pulitzer Prize winning journalist
Kathryn Schulz argues, those groups of people combined likely outnumber the people who escaped
to either Northern free states or Canada. I think there’s another important thing
to say about the Underground Railroad. And it’s that when I was younger, I silently
wondered why every enslaved person couldn’t simply escape slavery if they didn’t want
to be enslaved. I heard the stories of the Underground Railroad,
I heard the stories of people like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Or even Henry “Box” Brown who actually
snuck into a crate, and shipped himself to freedom on a 27-hour long trip from Richmond,
VA to Philadelphia, PA. I heard these stories, and I found myself
angered by the idea of those who didn’t escape. Had they not tried hard enough? Didn’t they care enough to do something? Did they choose to remain enslaved? On the one hand, it’s deeply important to
learn about enslaved people who escaped. At the same time, sometimes we can unintentionally
lift up only the stories of exceptional people or exceptional acts, in ways that implicitly
blame those who cannot, despite the most brutal circumstances, attain such seemingly superhuman
heights. And sometimes, this can take away a focus
from blaming the system, the people who built it, and the people who maintained it. There were other brilliant, exceptional people
who lived under slavery, and many resisted the institution in innumerable ways, but our
country’s teachings about slavery, painfully limited, often focus singularly on heroic
slave narratives and Underground Railroad stories of daring escapes, at the expense
of the millions of men and women whose stories might be less sensational but are no less
worthy of being told. The vast majority of enslaved people did not
escape. But that doesn’t mean they didn’t want
to. It means that they were part of a system that
threatened them with violence if they did, that threatened their family, friends, and
community with violence if they tried, and in which the specter of violence and separation
hung over everything they did. But as we’ve talked about, resistance to
slavery does not only include slave uprisings and escapes. It is the millions of small moments in which
someone reclaims agency for themselves amid an institution that is constantly attempting
to take it away. The Underground Railroad is one example of
how enslaved people tried to find their freedom, but it is not the only way. Far from it. Thanks for watching, I’ll see you next time.
