It Happened On The Underground Railroad
Between the 1820s and 1860s, an undocumented number of enslaved Afro-Americans made their way from the South to northern states and Canada. This Underground Railroad was made up of families, organizations and brazen individuals who sheltered and protected runaway slaves and made sure they moved along to the next stop toward safety on their journeys to freedom. This book goes beyond Harriett Tubman and Sojourner Truth’s contributions. The author describes 23 personalized scenarios of slave escapes. Each readable episode makes you feel you are following the runaways on their journeys to freedom. One example will suffice to show the kinds of people Wagner discusses. We meet African-American John Parker, who was separated from his mother at a young age. After being sold a few times he had to march with other slaves from Richmond to his new plantation in Alabama over 800 miles away. He worked hard and became skilled at iron molding. Because of his skills, he was hired out to others and saved his money. At 18 he bought his freedom. By 1848 he married and settled in an Ohio River city where he could easily look across at the slave state of Kentucky. Eventually he came to own an iron foundry and his own home. Parker had workers of all colors and was a well-respected member of the community. But he led a secret life. While his family slept he was an agent and conductor on the Underground Railroad. He would sneak into Kentucky and take slaves into the free state of Ohio. During one trip he saw wanted posters offering $1,000 for him dead or alive. In the mid-1860s a white employee challenged Parker to steal slaves from a relative’s farm in Kentucky. Parker refused the bait but secretly made plans to carry out the challenge. What happens when he goes after the slaves reads like an adventure-filled movie script. Parker and his wife had eight children, all of whom went to college. Parker also owned a blacksmith shop and a machine shop. He was one of few free Blacks who held patents before 1900. Parker apparently brought at least 1,000 people to freedom. You will meet many others with similar histories in this book. It is well documented and will hold your interest as it educates you about some of the real people risking everything in helping others pursue freedom. Reviewer: George Khoury George Khoury is an adjunct professor at University of Central Florida. He speaks about the war from a Southern perspective and is the winner of six National Endowment for the Humanities History grants.
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Index, selected bibliography, 109 pp; 2007. The Globe Pequot Press, P.O. Box 480, Guilford, CT 06437, $9.95 plus shipping.