Read complete books and articles on: Runaway Slaves

Underground Railroad - in U.S. history, loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists, both white and free blacks. The metaphor first appeared in print in the early 1840s, and other railroad terminology was soon added. The escaping slaves were called passengers; the homes where they were sheltered, stations; and those who guided them, conductors. This nomenclature, along with the numerous, somewhat glorified, personal reminiscences written by conductors in the postwar period, created the impression that the Underground Railroad was a highly systematized, national, secret organization that accomplished prodigious feats in stealing slaves away from the South. In fact, most of the help given to fugitive slaves on their varied routes north was spontaneously offered and came not only from abolitionists or self-styled members of the Underground Railroad, but from anyone moved to sympathy by the plight of the runaway slave before his eyes. The major part played by free blacks, of both North and South, and by slaves on plantations along the way in helping fugitives escape to freedom was underestimated in nearly all early accounts of the railroad. Moreover, the resourcefulness and daring of the fleeing slaves themselves, who were usually helped only after the most dangerous part of their journey (i.e., the Southern part) was over, were probably more important factors in the success of their escape than many conductors readily admitted. In some localities, like Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Wilmington, Del., and Newport, Ind. (site of the activities of Levi Coffin), energetic organizers did manage to loosely systematize the work; Quakers were particularly prominent as conductors, and among the free blacks the exploits of Harriet Tubman stand out. In all cases, however, it is extremely difficult to separate fact from legend, especially since relatively few enslaved blacks, probably no more than a few thousand a year between 1840 and 1860, escaped successfully. Far from being kept secret, details of escapes on the Underground Railroad were highly publicized and exaggerated in both the North and the South, although for different reasons. The abolitionists used the Underground Railroad as a propaganda device to dramatize the evils of slavery; Southern slaveholders publicized it to illustrate Northern infidelity to the fugitive slave laws. The effect of this publicity, with its repeated tellings and exaggerations of slave escapes, was to create an Underground Railroad legend that correctly represented a humanitarian ideal of the pre–Civil War period, but that strayed far from reality. The pioneer study is W. H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898, repr. 1968); for an extensively revised account, see Larry Gara, The Liberty Line (1961).

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12 of the Best Books and Articles on: Runaway Slaves

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation » Read Now
by John Hope Franklin, Loren Schweninger. 460 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their...
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From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their plantations whenever they could. For generations, important aspects about slave life on the plantations of the American South have remained shrouded. Historians thought, for instance, that slaves were generally pliant and resigned to their roles as human chattel, and that racial violence on the plantation was an aberration. In this precedent setting book, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, significant numbers of slaves did in fact frequently rebel against their masters and struggled to attain their freedom. By surveying a wealth of documents, such as planters' records, petitions to county courts and state legislatures, and local newspapers, this book shows how slaves resisted, when, where, and how they escaped, where they fled to, how long they remained in hiding, and how they survived away from the plantation. Of equal importance, it examines the reactions of the white slaveholding class, revealing how they marshaled considerable effort to prevent runaways, meted out severe punishments, and established patrols to hunt down escaped slaves. Reflecting a lifetime of thought by our leading authority in African American history, this book provides the key to truly understanding the relationship between slaveholders and the runaways who challenged the system--illuminating as never before the true nature of the South's "most peculiar institution."
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2.

Voices of the Fugitives: Runaway Slave Stories and Their Fictions of Self-Creation » Read Now
by Sterling Lecater Bland Jr. 184 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

African American fugitive slave narratives are receiving growing amounts of attention for their literary and historical value. This book examines the techniques the slave narrative writers used to authorize and rhetorically create themselves in their writings. By examining such issues as voice and...
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African American fugitive slave narratives are receiving growing amounts of attention for their literary and historical value. This book examines the techniques the slave narrative writers used to authorize and rhetorically create themselves in their writings. By examining such issues as voice and identity formation, the volume demonstrates how identity may be seen as a cultural fabrication. Former slave narrators used a series of masking and doubling techniques to address their experiences as African Americans. This book crosses the boundaries between literary criticism and historical study by examining the tensions between generic conventions and the impulses that created and reinforced them.
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3.

Footprints of the Fugitive: Slave Narrative Discourse and the Trace of Autobiography, in Biography » Read Now
by Lynn A. Casmier-Paz. 11 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...narratives title. The "Narrative of the Life of William Grimes, a Runaway Slave" (1825) is an even earlier example. Considered the first...American slave narrative, this...
4.

The Slave Catchers: Enforcement of the Fugitive Slave Law, 1850-1860 » Read Now
by Stanley W. Campbell. 236 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
5.

The Slaveholding Republic: An Account of the United States Government's Relations to Slavery (Chap. 7 "The Fugitive Slave Problem to 1850" and Chap. 8 "The Fugitive Slave Problem, 1850 to 1864") » Read Now
by Don E. Fehrenbacher, Ward M. McAfee. 466 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Many leading historians have argued that the Constitution of the United States was a proslavery document. But in The Slaveholding Republic, one of America's most eminent historians refutes this claim in a landmark history that stretches from the Continental Congress to the Presidency of Abraham...
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Many leading historians have argued that the Constitution of the United States was a proslavery document. But in The Slaveholding Republic, one of America's most eminent historians refutes this claim in a landmark history that stretches from the Continental Congress to the Presidency of Abraham Lincoln. Fehrenbacher shows that the Constitution itself was more or less neutral on the issue of slavery and that, in the antebellum period, the idea that the Constitution protected slavery was hotly debated (many Northerners would concede only that slavery was protected by state law, not by federal law). Nevertheless, he also reveals that U.S. policy abroad and in the territories was consistently proslavery. Fehrenbacher makes clear why Lincoln's election was such a shock to the South and shows how Lincoln's approach to emancipation, which seems exceedingly cautious by modern standards, quickly evolved into a "Republican revolution" that ended the anomaly of the United States as a "slaveholding republic." "Advances our knowledge of the critical relationships of slavery to the American government, placing it in perspective and explaining its meaning.... One could hardly ask for more."--Ira Berlin, The Washington Post
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6.

Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (Chap. 37 "Fugitive Slaves and the People" and Chap. 38 "Fugitive Slaves and the Law") » Read Now
by Dwight Lowell Dumond. 422 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...to one year for concealing runaway slaves, $100 and six months for employing...self-defense. It also declared that runaway slaves refusing to surrender might...They forbade...
7.

The Black Laws in the Old Northwest: A Documentary History ("Runaway Slaves" begins on p. 111) » Read Now
by Stephen Middleton. 436 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This book brings together the Black Laws of the Old Northwest (now the states of Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, and Wisconsin) for the first time, thereby providing a documentary history of racial discrimination in this free territory.
8.

Contraband, Runaways, Freemen: New Definitions of Reconstruction Created by the Civil War, in International Social Science Review » Read Now
by Michelle Wartman. 8 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...largely unexplored is the use of runaway slaves and contraband in the Union Army...the use of the contraband and runaway slaves. Against orders, many Army camps...In making...
9.

Following the North Star: Canada as a Haven for Nineteenth-Century American Blacks, in Michigan Historical Review » Read Now
by Sharon A. Roger Hepburn. 35 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library
10.

The Atlantic Slave Trade: Effects on Economies, Societies, and Peoples in Africa, the Americas, and Europe (Chap. 11 "Slave Importation, Runaways, and Compensation in Antigua, 1720-1729") » Read Now
by Joseph E. Inikori, Stanley L. Engerman. 414 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...THEIR ENDURING LEGACIES 10 The Dispersal of African Slaves in the West by Dutch Slave Traders, 1630-1803 JOHANNES POSTMA 283 11 Slave Importation, Runaways, and...
11.

Slavery in Alabama (Chap. IX "Runaways") » Read Now
by James Benson Sellers. 428 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...CRIMES AND PUNISHMENTS OF SLAVES 242 IX RUNAWAYS 266 X THE...slave trade, hired and urban slaves, runaways, churches and slavery, proslavery...punishment was provided for...
12.

Runaway Slave Advertisements: A Documentary History from the 1730s to 1790, Vol. 2 » Read Now
by Lathan A. Windley. 442 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...This work is a portrait of black runaway slaves who absconded from their masters...as Seen in Advertisements for Runaway Slaves," 1 there is a bonanza of...as Seen in...