Follow the Drinking Gourd:

The Role of the Underground Railroad in

the Abolitionist Movement

“When the sun comes back and the first quail calls,

Follow the drinking gourd.

For the old man is awaiting for to carry you to freedom,

If you follow the drinking gourd.”

…song of slavery, 1840s

“Follow the Drinking Gourd" was a song passed from

slave to slave that gave the route for an escape from Alabama and Mississippi.

Of all the routes out of the Deep South,

this is the only one for which the details survive.

The Big Dipper consists of seven bright stars, forming a dipper, a small pot with a long handle.

Fugitive slaves before the Civil War knew it as

"the drinking gourd", because it reminded them of the ladle used for drinking water, made from

gourds.

It was used by runaway slaves

a signpost in the sky pointing the way north

to safety where slavery

was outlawed.

They used the North Star, or Polaris, which could be found

by locating the Big Dipper

(the “drinking gourd” in the sky).

Following Polaris, almost directly north

in the sky, would lead them to free states or to Canada.

Let’s take a journey similar to one braved

by thousands of runaway slaves

prior to the Civil War…

                                                                           

You are a slave.

Your body, your time, your very

breath belong to a

farmer in 1850s

Maryland.

Six long days a week you tend his fields.

You have never tasted freedom.

You never expect to.

And yet . . . your heart lights up when you hear whispers of

attempted escape.

Freedom means a hard, dangerous trek.

Do you dare try it?

It was a journey along the “Underground

Railroad.”

You leave in the middle of the night…Every step

seems louder. Twigs snap,

leaves crackle.

But you walk on, till you see a

group of friendly faces.

You join them shyly and meet

“General Tubman” herself.

Even if Moses can’t fit you into her next group, she’ll tell you how to follow the North Star to freedom in Canada.

She tells you how to sneak

across the bridge

over the Choptank River and where to

find friends in a place called Delaware.

Your head says go, your feet say no.

Harriet Tubman told you that a lantern on a hitching post

means a safe house. But can you really knock on a white family’s door and trust them to help

you?

A warm welcome, hot

food, and hiding places

within the house-that’s

what you find. Guided by

their conscience, the owners

break the law by helping runaways.

Yet terror still haunts you.

As you fall asleep you

hear bloodhounds not far away.

They are looking for

fugitives, looking for you.

Freedom is still a long way off.

But now you know the plantation is far away. Your host, a Quaker

businessman named Thomas Garrett, smiles gently and

promises you’ll reach Canada.

A good friend of Tubman’s,

Garrett has worked on The Underground

Railroad for almost 40 years.

A few years ago he was arrested and fined.

It didn’t stop him for a minute.

You’ve reached a free state, Pennsylvania, but United States law still sees you as your master’s property, and bounty hunters are everywhere.

You must get ready ready for another long stretch of

travel.

Weeks of trudging, including a

grueling passage of almost 250 miles

through mountains, have brought you to

Rochester, New York.

Eliza comes to tell Uncle Tom that she is sold, and that she is running away to save

her child.

Antislavery friends give you warm

clothing for the hard Canadian climate and make sure you’re

taken safely to Lake Erie.

Across Lake Erie lies Canada—and freedom. A few weeks earlier you might have coaxed an easy ride

from theferry captain.

But as winter takes hold, chunks of ice have begun to form…

You might find someone to row you across, or you could try leaping from one ice floe

to another.

Either way, you’ll be freezing cold.

Yet staying exposes you—and your helpers—to slave

hunters. Do you try going across?

You made it! It took courage, luck, help,

and incredible stamina.

Here in Canada, you can finally breathe free.

Not only won’t the government return you to slavery, but you can vote

and even own land.

The route you traveled—based on Harriet Tubman’s

actual journeys—appears on the map

(next drawing).

Using modern roads,the trip

would be 560 miles.

A strong, lucky runaway might have made it to

freedom in two months. For others, especially in bad

weather, the trek might have lasted a year.

And there were many more routes to freedom, known as the “Underground Railroad.”

What was it like to live in a nation that allowed

slavery?

Why did so many people want to flee?

How did the Underground

Railroad work?

Injustices Under Slavery

The Anti-Slavery Record,

published for the American Anti-Slavery Society,

published images dramatizing the evils of

slavery…

How did the Underground Railroad

work?

In order to reduce the numbers of escaping slaves owners kept slaves illiterate

and totally ignorant of geography.

Owners even went so far as to try to keep slaves from

learning how to tell directions.

The Underground Railroad saw an explosion of activity

in the 1840s.

In 1842, the Supreme Court ruled in Prigg v.

Pennsylvania that states did not have to aid in the return

of runaway slaves.

In an attempt to appease the South, Congress passed

the Compromise of 1850, which revised the Fugitive

Slave Bill.

The law gave slaveowners "the right to organize a

posse at any point in the United States to aid in

recapturing runaway slaves.

The Underground Railroad was not underground.

Because escaping slaves and the people who helped them

were technically breaking the law, they had to stay out

of sight. They went “underground” in terms of concealing their actions.

The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people

who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to

Canada, was not run by any single organization or

person. Rather, it consisted of

many individuals -- many whites but predominently

black.

One of the most curious characteristics of the

Underground Railroad was its lack of formal organization. No

one knows exactly when it started, but there were certainly

isolated cases of help given to runaways as early as the 1700s.

Much of the early help was provided by Quaker abolitionists in Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

The name probably originated from the

popularity of the new railroads; they were not

via the railroads.

The system even used terms used in railroading…

…the homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called "stations" and "depots." They were run by "stationmasters," those who contributed money or goods were "stockholders," and the "conductor" was responsiblefor moving fugitives from one station to the next.

Many clever and creative ideas helped slaves during their escape. When abolitionist John Fairfield needed to sneak 28 slaves over the roads near Cincinnati, he hired a hearse and disguised the group as a funeral procession.

Escaping slaves were well hidden for their travels in this wagon when grain bags were piled around the

hiding area.

                                                     

            

Famous “Conductors”

of the Underground Railroad

In 1849, Harriet Tubman escaped from the Eastern Shore of Maryland and became known as "Moses" to her people after making many trips to the South to help deliver at least 300 fellow captives and loved ones to liberation. She later served as a nurse and spy for the Union Army during the Civil War…

Harriet Tubman & Passengers

JOSIAH HENSON (1789-1883)

So trustworthy a slave that his owner made him an overseer. In journeys to the North, he aided fellow slaves in their escape. Harriet Beecher Stowe attributed an episode about him in her novel. Henson eventually escaped to Canada, led others to safety, and traveled as abolitionist and businessman.

JERMAIN LOGUEN (1813-1872)

“No day dawns for the slave,

nor is it looked for. It is all night—night forever,” said this fugitive, Underground

agent and ordained minister.

He helped 1,500 escapees and started black schools in

New York State.

Born free, William Still was a successful merchant, leader in the fight against slavery, and part of the Underground Railroad.

African American abolitionist John Parker of Ripley, Ohio,

frequently ventured to Kentucky

and Virginia and helped transport

by boat hundreds of runaways across the Ohio River.

By the beginning of the Civil War in 1861, about 500

people a year were traveling throughout the South

teaching routes to slaves.

Scholars estimate that 60,000 to 100,000 slaves

successfully fled to freedom.

The Abolitionists…

The Pennsylvania Abolition society, was one of the many

abolitionist groups that assisted fugitive slaves in their attempts

to find freedom in the Free States.

People who contributed to the

cause of emancipation or freeing of slaves were called

"abolitionists."

In addition to published speeches, books, and

sermons, the abolitionists wrote songs

that told about the

evils of slavery…

“Am I not a man and brother?

Ought I not, then, to be free?

Sell me not to one another,

Take not thus my liberty. Christ our Saviour, Christ

our Saviour, Died for me as well as

thee.”

“Come all ye true friends of the nation,

Attend to humanity's call; Come aid the poor slave's

liberation, And roll on the liberty ball-- And roll on the liberty ball--

Come aid the poor slave's liberation,

And roll on the liberty ball.”

Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's

Cabin with the encouragement

of her sister-in-law who

was deeply affected by the passage of the Fugitive Slave

Law.

“On the shores of our free states are emerging the poor, shattered, broken remnants of families,--men

and women, escaped, by miraculous providences, from the

surges of slavery,--feeble in knowledge, and, in many cases,

infirm in moral constitution, from a system which confounds and confuses every principle of Christianity and morality.”

…Uncle Tom’s Cabin

Frederick Douglass wrote his

autobiography, in 1841, telling of his

life as a former slave.

He became an orator for the

Anti-Slavery Society. His book was

probably the best-selling of all the

fugitive slave narratives: 5000

copies were sold.

John Brown was an American abolitionist, born in Connecticut

and raised in Ohio. He felt passionately and violently that he

must personally fight to

end slavery. In 1856, in retaliation for

the sack of Lawrence, he led the murder of

five proslavery men on the banks of the

Pottawatomie River.

Brown did not end there. On Oct. 16, 1859, Brown and 21 followers

captured the U.S. arsenal at Harpers Ferry.

Brown planned this takeover as the first step in his liberation of the

slaves, but his plan was defeated the next morning by Robert E. Lee and his

troops.

Brown was hanged on Dec. 2, 1859.

Abraham Lincoln was the sixteenth president of the

United States. He was our president

during the Civil War.

Preserving the Union became Lincoln's main concern during his

term in office.

But the Union was not Lincoln's only concern.

A year earlier, he had signed the Emancipation Proclamation,

which legally freed the slaves in the rebel states.

“Follow the Drinking Gourd…