What is the Underground Railroad:
Reflections on a Dialogue with Sonya Stewart By Carrie Aitkins
The Underground Railroad is certainly a difficult phenomenon to define, and many historians have taken issue with attempting to do so. The historian Larry Gara, in his book The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad, notes how the movement’s secrecy, lack of clear structure, and non-specified line of command have made its study even more daunting. As centuries have passed, “the Underground Railroad has taken on mythological qualities and is difficult to pin down with accuracy” (Switala qtd. Gara 11).
Even the naming of the movement is shrouded in mystery. According to Switala, “there are three versions of this event in three different sources” (13). In addition, there is no conceivable way that we can estimate the number of slaves who found freedom through the Underground Railroad network. So, what are we to make of this operation? How do we create a satisfactory definition of the Underground Railroad? Is it to be defined as a network of both fugitive slaves and abolitionists in antebellum America, seeking to assist African Americans in their flight from bondage to Canada? Accounts exist of slaves fleeing to safety prior to the creation of the Underground Railroad. According to archaeologist Leland Ferguson, there had once existed what is referred to as “the first underground railroad,” in which “fugitive slaves from South Carolina made their way by foot and dugout canoe across the swamps and marshes of coastal Georgia to freedom in Florida” (41). In another account of early resistance, Ferguson relates how runaway slaves were able to find another form of freedom on the Carolina coast, where “escaped slaves may have started living with Indians as early as the 1520’s” (20).
These examples point to early resistance efforts among slaves prior to the organized effort that would come to be known as the Underground Railroad. The name for the movement did not begin to be used until around the 1830’s—although other forms of slave rebellion had already take root. Sonya Stewart, an IUP alumnus whose graduate work centered upon African American migration and settlement in Indiana County, had much pertinent knowledge and offered informed opinion relating to the need to define the Underground Railroad:
The struggle for freedom and the Underground Railroad may not be one and the same thing. People have often [performed] acts of rebellion and taken their own freedom. I think of how, during the Holocaust, the Warsaw Ghetto, these were people who were obviously imprisoned within a place and yet they fought and in other ways they were free.
In light of this, not only is it essential to define the Underground Railroad, it is also important to consider how we define freedom. Sonya described a situation related to a free black man living in Indiana County “who was born free and yet who disappeared in the field one day and was taken into slavery.” This was surprisingly new information to me, and I have yet to discover more accounts describing this event. However Sonya elaborated upon this idea briefly by explaining how “after 1850, you could have a slave catcher come and take a free man. Was anybody actually free unless they made it to Canada?”
On a slightly different note, the Underground Railroad could partially be defined as a resistance movement; if one were to define resistance as an organized effort of sabotage against forces of oppression. However, this resistance did not always manifest as a concerted mass movement, and often had to take place in more immediate ways. As Sonya points out, “if it’s truly the struggle for freedom, there were people who gained their freedom in other ways. Even as slaves, they gained their freedom. On the plantations…[for example] they put ground glass in food. But the biggest way is through stealing. That is an act of rebellion. That is an act of resistance. And really, the Underground Railroad—is it really resistance? It’s just simply migration—just like people looking for a new life, like when Europeans came here.”
In consideration of the Underground Railroad as a resistance movement, I think that this is where Sonya and I differ, for I cannot help but think of the difference in circumstances which brought Europeans here, as opposed to the forced enslavement which brought Africans to the Americas. However, it is not even just this difference which solidifies the idea of the Underground Railroad as a resistance movement in my mind. For me, the Underground Railroad is a mix of many different things for many different people. As our conversation came to a close on this subject, Sonya approached the topic of the Underground Railroad as a migration movement. In a very heart felt manner, she summarized the basic humanity of the movement:
"I think it’s just that people wanted a better life like every migrant. Many of the white people really did have a political agenda—and then again, some of the people who helped with the Underground Railroad were simply: Here’s someone in need, I’m doing the right thing."
Sources Cited
Ferguson, Leland. Uncommon Ground: Archaeology and Early African America, 16050-1800. Smithsonian Books. 1992. Web.
Stewart, Sonya. Personal Interview. 30 Oct. 2013.
