Here's Where It Gets Interesting - Secrets of the Civil War: North Toward Freedom

Episode Date: March 31, 2023

Today in our series, Secrets of the Civil War, we’ll meet some of the key players in the Abolition Movement–a persuader, an agitator, and a conductor. Their ideals and actions helped foster the success of the Underground Railroad and the path to emancipation. How did so many enslaved persons seeking freedom make it through the perilous journey North? Through a meticulously organized network of safe houses and stations run by agents and conductors. Hosted by: Sharon McMahon Executive Producer: Heather Jackson Audio Producer: Jenny Snyder Written and researched by: Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, Amy Watkin, and Mandy Reid Hush, Hush, Somebody is Calling My Name recording by Sweet Honey in the Rock Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hello, friends, and welcome to the ninth episode in our series, Secrets of the Civil War. On a bitterly cold February afternoon, several men entered Boston's federal courthouse. Their coats were buttoned up high and their hair was brushed strategically to conceal as much of their faces as possible. This group of anonymous men was frustrated. They were tired of playing by the rules, tired of waiting for loopholes through which they could take legal action. So they decided to take matters into their own hands. They were there to perform a jailbreak. I'm Sharon McMahon, and here's where it gets interesting.

Six months before the Boston Federal Courthouse was stormed by liberators on a mission, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The act was updated from its predecessor, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, which gave enslavers the right to search for the escaped enslaved in free states. The update took things a step further and was part of Henry Clay's Compromise of 1850, a group of bills that attempted to appease both the North and the South and defuse conflict. So the Compromise, among other things, meant that California would enter the Union as a free state, but the persecution of the escaped enslaved grew far more robust. enslaved grew far more robust. The act denied enslaved people the right to a jury trial, and it increased the penalty for interfering with any part of the apprehension process

with a $1,000 fine and six months in jail. In other words, anyone caught aiding a fugitive would be prosecuted. It also placed the responsibility on the federal government to enforce the act. Federal judges and commissioners issued warrants for individuals to slave hunters and tried those who were caught in federal courts. The act was wildly unpopular in the North, and it was why, in February of 1851, several activists forcefully removed a man named Shadrach Minkins from the courthouse and whisked him away into hiding in the attic of a home in Boston's Beacon Hill. Shadrach Minkins had been born enslaved in the slave-holding state of Virginia. He didn't work on a plantation, but in a tavern in Norfolk's popular Market Square.

He was sold around the age of 33, and with his future uncertain, Minkins took his chance and escaped, likely by hiding as a stowaway on his ship headed for the north. It was not unheard of for enslaved people to pay a ship's captain a fee to sort of look the other way. Shadrach Minkins stepped foot into Boston as a free black man in May of 1850 and took on a position as a waiter in a coffee house. Nine months later, a constable from Norfolk contacted the federal marshals in Boston. He knew the new statutes of the fugitive slave law and was determined to have the marshals help him arrest Shadrach and return him to his enslaver in Virginia. The authorities made their move and arrested Shadrach Minkins right after he poured

them their morning coffee at his place of employment. He was the first fugitive to be seized in a free state under the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. After Shadrach Minkins was arrested, he was taken to the courthouse to await a hearing. Tensions were high. The arrest had been very public, and crowds followed the spread of the news down to the courthouse. In Boston, the public opinion was not on the side of the law. At first, a few lawyers, including Robert Morris, one of the very first practicing Black lawyers in the United States, tried to work within the legal system. They filed a petition for writ of habeas corpus, meaning they wanted to bring Minkins before the court to determine if his arrest had been lawful. After the judge refused to accept their petition,

a group of Black abolitionists, with their identities concealed as much as was possible, overwhelmed the guards and ushered out Shadrach Minkins. It was a bold and dangerous move, but thankfully no one had been hurt or even pursued. had been hurt or even pursued. Reverend Theodore Parker considered the rescue to be the most noble deed done in Boston since the destruction of the Tee in 1773. When Minkins and his rescuers made it to Beacon Hill, protected by the crowds that had followed them, they settled him into a safe house attic bedroom. From there, Shadrach was taken through safety points in Boston and the wider Massachusetts area. He had officially begun his journey on the Underground Railroad. Within the week, he had made it to Montreal, where he was safe from being persecuted under the Fugitive Slave Act.

being persecuted under the Fugitive Slave Act. So let's talk a little bit more about the Underground Railroad and how, like a freight train barreling towards its destination, abolition picked up a powerful speed in the years approaching the Civil War. Born into a Quaker family in late 18th century New Jersey, Benjamin Lundy was raised to respect the value of all human life. In 1808, he moved to Wheeling, Virginia, where he was apprenticed as a saddle maker. Wheeling was a strategic spot in the interstate slave trade because it was located on the banks of the Ohio River, where the enslaved were sent onward to Kentucky and other slave-holding states. While there, Benjamin witnessed the atrocities of the slave auctions. Enslaved people were chained and shackled and driven barefoot through the streets of Wheeling with whips. Distraught, Benjamin Lundy vowed that abolition would become his life's purpose.

He wrote in his diary, I heard the wail of the captive. I felt his pang of distress, and the iron entered my soul. Lundy married and strategically moved to eastern Ohio, very close to the border of then Virginia, which would split during the Civil War to become West Virginia. Virginia enforced enslavement, and Ohio was a free state. Lundy thought that if he could form a coalition there of abolitionists along the border of the two states, he might be able to begin bringing enslaved people across to freedom. We tend to think that aiding people in leaving enslavement was a hush-hush operation,

and often it was. It was dangerous and shrouded in secrecy to protect people who were fleeing, but Benjamin Lundy was anything but quiet about his intentions. He quickly connected with a few other like-minded people in Ohio and established an anti-slavery association called the Union Humane Society. Within a year, it had grown to include over 500 members. How did it grow so fast? Word of mouth could only go so far in 1816, so Lundy published an ad in the newspaper to indicate his intent to found a national anti-slavery organization. Lundy's society members were doers. They were not just talkers. Benjamin Lundy's Ohio home became exactly what he had hoped, a headquarters for the burgeoning Underground Railroad. As he worked

to carry out the purpose of the Union Humane Society, which was to end racial prejudice and assist freed enslaved people to become productive members of society, he began to look toward the future and how he could help create a more utopian society for those who had gained their freedom. As he traveled around the country giving lectures and connecting with other abolitionist groups in 19 different states of the Union, he became increasingly attached to this idea of his. He wrote in his diary, I had lamented the sad condition of the slave ever since I became acquainted with his wrongs and sufferings. But the question, what can I do, was the continual response and the impulse of my heart.

In trying to answer the question, Benjamin made his way down to Texas in 1833, thinking the territory would be the best area to establish this haven in his mind, where free blacks would work the land for themselves and find community together. His vague idea began to take shape, and as he settled on the coastal area that is today Corpus Christi, he spent the better part of a year promoting the idea and raising money. But then came the Texas Revolution, and the pro-enslavement leadership in the new Republic of Texas swiftly put an end to his dream plan for a colony along the Gulf of Mexico. Benjamin traveled to Canada and Haiti, scouting areas for a suitable place to establish a free Black community.

But his vision never came to fruition. He changed tactics and chose to lean into another of his passions, writing. Through the years, he'd written for various publications and helped produce two anti-enslavement papers, The Philanthropist and The Genius of Universal Emancipation. Benjamin Lundy died after contracting a fever in August of 1839 when he was only 50 years old. His life had been fruitful, but it hadn't been easy. It's one thing to learn about Lundy's motivations and accomplishments, but it's quite another to understand that he was loud, outspoken, and stalwart in his beliefs, even in the face of violence. In 1828, Lundy was beaten nearly to death by an outraged enslaver. He moved around so much, not just because he was

reaching new places with his ideas of abolition, but also because the threats on his life followed him everywhere he went. His printing press was destroyed by an angry mob. His views, even as we see them to be flawed today, were considered outrageous and radical by many of his white peers, northern and southern alike. While he didn't live to see emancipation happen, Benjamin Lundy had been a huge inspiration to one of his newspaper partners, William Lloyd Garrison. And although William Lloyd Garrison, like Lundy, was a fierce opponent of slavery and advocate for universal emancipation, he didn't share Benjamin's colonial solution. In fact, he hated it. William Lloyd Garrison grew up in extreme poverty, often scrounging for food from the trash of more prosperous families.

His father had abandoned the family, and William, an entrepreneur from the start, sold lemonade and candy as a child to earn money. By 14, he found his calling when he apprenticed at the Newburyport Herald in Massachusetts. He began to write articles for it under a pseudonym, and when his apprenticeship ended, he bought his first newspaper business, the Newburyport Free Press. By the time he was 25, William had joined the American Colonization Society, an organization that called for the federal government to sponsor the emigration of freed blacks to a territory on the west coast of Africa called Liberia. At first glance, the society seemed altruistic, but the true goal of many of its white members was more or less to move free blacks out of America. They felt the black population was inferior to the white population

and that they could not integrate into American society. William realized his views were not aligned, and he pretty quickly ditched the society and formed his own activist movement. On New Year's Day in 1831, William published the first edition of his abolitionist newspaper, The Liberator. Through The Liberator, William advocated for the immediate emancipation of all enslaved people. He didn't advocate for a gradual emancipation or for a removal of freed blacks or even for Lundy's idea of a separate American colony of free black people. William held complete belief that the black population could assimilate and in time, all Blacks would be equal to the country's white citizens. They too were Americans and entitled to

life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. In The Liberator, he wrote, I am aware that many object to the severity of my language, but is there not cause for severity? I will be as harsh as truth and as uncompromising as justice. On this subject, I do not wish to think or speak or write with moderation. Needless to say, in a nation where the white population was still mostly against the idea of emancipation, he quickly gained a reputation for being the most radical of abolitionists. In the early 1830s, he helped to organize the American Anti-Slavery Society, one of the first organizations dedicated to promoting immediate emancipation. What was unique about the American Anti-Slavery

Society was that it was not aligned with any political party. William Lloyd Garrison wanted his organization to serve the mission, not politics. As these things often go, the mission was not enough to keep the society together. William ruffled feathers by advocating for the equal participation of women in the society and by stating that he believed that the U.S. Constitution was a pro-enslavement document. William's organization split, and with his stance on the Constitution as a pro-enslavement document, he found that he had alienated his once devoted friend, Frederick Douglass. We've talked about this rift between Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison in a previous podcast episode. Douglass believed that the Constitution could be used as a

weapon against enslavement, which Garrison found ludicrous. Garrison felt the Constitution was a hindrance to the movement and went so far as to publicly burn a copy of it as an act of defiance. Garrison and Douglass may have been fighting the same fight, but they diverged in their approaches. Douglass was more pragmatic, and Garrison was more prone to radical action. They would never reconcile their differences. I'm Jenna Fisher. And I'm Angela Kinsey. We are best friends, and together we have the podcast Office Ladies, where we rewatched every single episode of The Office with insane behind the scenes stories, hilarious guests, and lots of laughs.

Guess who's sitting next to me? Steve! It is my girl in the studio. Every Wednesday, we'll be sharing even more exclusive stories from The Office and our friendship with brand new guests. And we'll be digging into our mailbag to answer your questions and comments. So join us for brand new Office Ladies 6.0 episodes every Wednesday. Plus, on Mondays, we are taking a second drink. You can revisit all the Office Ladies rewatch episodes every Monday with new bonus tidbits before every episode. Well, we can't wait to see you there. Follow and listen to Office Ladies on the free Odyssey app and wherever you get your podcasts.

If Benjamin Lundy was the persuader and William Lloyd Garrison was the agitator, and William Lloyd Garrison was the agitator, then William Still was the conductor of the abolition movement. Still was born a free black man in 1821. His parents, who had themselves been enslaved before gaining freedom, taught him strong work and family values, but also made sure that he was aware of the horrors of enslavement. They may have escaped bondage, but they had to leave behind two of their sons who had been sold before they could leave. In 1844, Still moved to Philadelphia, married, and was hired as the clerk for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery. It set him on a path to success. William was enigmatic and involved. He loved Philadelphia and his contributions to the city are still a huge part of his legacy.

He organized one of the first YMCAs for Black youth, led a campaign to desegregate the public transit system in the 1850s, a hundred years before the civil rights movement, and helped manage a string of orphanages for Black children. He was a skilled businessman and found success in coal, which gave him the financial freedom to continue his philanthropic work. Through his position as chairman for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery's Vigilance Committee, he raised funds to assist freedom seekers, helped issue them official documents, and arranged their passage to the North. Harriet Tubman regularly moved through Still's office with her groups of travelers. By far, one of his greatest achievements were the meticulous records he kept.

As a boy, he taught himself to read and write, and when he got involved in the Underground Railroad, he recorded and preserved the histories of over 800 men, women, and children who made their way through the railroad toward freedom. He asked them their names, the names of their parents. He asked them where they had come from, who they were traveling with, and he wrote it all down. The people who came in and out of his office weren't just fugitives. They were gutsy. They were determined. They had histories and futures. They had families and still recorded it all. families, and still recorded it all. A freedom seeker's road to Philadelphia was a harrowing one, full of danger, luck, and extremely cautious planning. Slave hunters paid to return the escaped acted swiftly and without mercy. And this may go without saying, but to clear it up,

the Underground Railroad was not one long, continuous railroad that traversed through the country underground. It was a network, a series of stops called stations where guides and escaped groups met with contacts and got supplies to begin the next leg of their journey north. to begin the next leg of their journey north. Safe houses were called depots, and the people who hid the travelers in homes, churches, schools, and other places were called agents and station masters. Escaping to freedom was riddled with risk. Many fled without food, clothes, or money. They left behind family members, traveled hundreds of miles over inhospitable terrain and rivers by foot, boat, or wagon. They took the long way around and cut new paths to avoid detection. To be captured would mean being sent back to enslavement where they would be whipped, beaten, or killed. The Underground Railroad was completely secret. Nothing was written down about where to go or who

would help. Written instructions were too dangerous, so once a person decided to make the journey to freedom, they had to listen for tips from other enslaved people who might have heard tips from other enslaved people. Words spread verbally through the Black community. As we explored a few episodes back, music was one of the biggest communication tools. The enslaved people learned that as long as they kept their music as spirituals, songs that spoke of the glory of God. Their enslavers permitted the singing. So the lyrics were used to convey what was coming or what you needed to get ready to do. All our children waiting in the water. God's gonna trouble these waters. This was a signal that their escape needed to be conducted by traveling through creeks, streams, and rivers

because hounds could be tracking their scents. If they were lucky, they traveled with a conductor, a person who safely guided enslaved people from station to station. Hush, hush, somebody's calling my name. Hush, yeah, hush, oh, somebody's calling my name. This song was a signal that children were making the journey. Traveling with children was especially treacherous, especially if they were too young to understand the danger. Sometimes parents would have to sedate their children with paragoric, an extract of opium, to keep them calm and quiet long enough to reach the

next safety point. Anna Maria Jackson, a woman who successfully escaped with seven of her children, the youngest just three years old, recalled, it was not easy to feed, clothe, care for, and protect my children while on the run. The physical burden of carrying babies was extreme, and the eight-year-old had trouble keeping up and often tired quickly. To give themselves a better chance of escape, enslaved people stacked the odds in their favor as best they could. Some freedom seekers fled on weekends because reward posters were not printed until Monday. Others would leave during the Christmas holiday when the white plantation families were less likely to notice their absence. They often traveled by night under the cover of darkness following the north star. They learned how to read the stars

and the constellations were their guides. There were no maps, no guidebooks, and no roads to follow, but there would often be signals about where to head next. A certain pattern of nails driven into the side of a tree would show which path to take. A quilt hanging at the very end of a washing line signaled a safe house. Welcoming homes would leave a candle burning in a window at all hours of the day. At safe houses, travelers would be given food, shelter, clothing, medical care, and passage to the next safe house. Sometimes they'd be there for a few hours, other times a few days. It all depended on when the next ride or conductor was available to help ferry them onward. Hiding places were a must at safe houses. They were often searched,

so at the sign of danger, people were shepherded into a person's attic or basement, a secret part of the barn, the crawlspace under the floors in a church, or a hidden compartment in the back of a wagon. Most safe house agents wouldn't know where the freedom seekers were going beyond their town, but they did what they could to prepare them. Abolitionist merchants provided funding or food. Women sewed clothes from extra scrap fabric. Even anti-enslavement undertakers got involved by donating coffins to hide people in. Volunteers did what was needed in order to facilitate the escape of enslaved people, gradually helping them move further north. Many who took the Underground Railroad journey ended up connecting with William Still. His job was to ensure that

the freedom seekers moved through Philadelphia as safely and efficiently as possible. He coordinated with allies outside the city, sometimes in towns just miles outside of Philadelphia, other times in southern port cities as far away as Norfolk, Virginia. He made sure that when freedom seekers arrived in Philly, they were met at the docks or the train station and guided to a safe place to stay, sometimes to his own family home where they were able to eat meals, take baths, and receive haircuts. William was at his office the night that Peter Friedman walked in. freedmen walked in. Peter had traveled by the Underground Railroad from Alabama in search of parents he hadn't seen in decades, not since he was separated from them as a child and sold to a different enslaver. He wasn't even sure how to find them. It had been over 40 years since they were separated. All he had

was a tip that they may be in Philadelphia. Peter and his guide spent two days looking for leads about Peter's family before they were told that William Still might be able to help him. Still welcomed the men into his office and asked Friedman a series of questions about his family. William Still had faithfully kept records on everyone who passed through his doors, and he knew if anyone would be able to help, it would be him. As the information spilled out of Peter, William Still realized that he did indeed know Peter's family. Though they had never met he knew he was looking into the face of one of his long lost brothers. After their fateful reunion William took Peter into New Jersey where most of the Still family lived, Peter was reunited with his 80-year-old

mother, who cried tears of joy at seeing him again. Forty years she had spent separated from her son, with no way of knowing if he was alive or dead. William Still continued to interview the freedom seekers who came through the Philadelphia station and kept detailed records. For everyone's safety, he kept his journals hidden until after the Civil War ended. In 1872, he published his notes in a book called The Underground Railroad, which is still one of the best resources we have on it today. Although not everyone went through Philadelphia, there was another path to Canada through Indiana, where a Quaker couple, Levi and Catherine Coffin, made their home the Grand Central Station

of the Underground Railroad. Abolition was the family business for Levi Coffin. By 15, he had already been assisting freedom seekers for years by helping his parents give them food and shelter on their farm. When he married his childhood sweetheart, Catherine, in 1826, they began to run their own home as a safehouse stop on the Underground Railroad. Over the course of 30 years, they had aided over 3,000 enslaved people, maintaining their modest red brick house as a refuge. It was a community effort. The Coffins lived in the center of a Quaker settlement, and Catherine and the other women held regular sewing circles to outfit people with clean, dry clothes. The community also acted as lookouts for danger. When outsiders came sniffing around, the signal went up and the coffins knew to be ready.

A small room was built into the wall of a second floor bedroom and hidden behind a sturdy bed frame. They also smuggled people out in their wagon fitted with a false bottom. The coffins were so successful that every single freedom seeker who passed through their Indiana home reached their destination. It's said that they were the inspiration for the holidays in Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. But the Coffins weren't successful on their own. They worked with contacts all over the state. One of them was a free Black man named William Bush. William's great-great-granddaughter Eileen now volunteers at the Coffin Home Museum, where her ancestor helped outfit freedom seekers with supplies and hope as they passed

through. Eileen says, I'm not sure I could have done what they did. I can't imagine. But if that hadn't happened at that time, where would I be? Where would this country be? I don't think we today understand what that freedom from bondage, what opportunity it gave us. Eileen herself made history when she became the first female black high school principal in Indiana in 1978. Make sure you join me next time. We're going to be talking about a part of the Civil War that I find incredibly fascinating. Medicine and surgical techniques that had to evolve to keep up with all of the death and disease during the war. Their gains are still the foundation of many of our practices today. So get ready to hear all about amputations and embalming. I'll see you then. Thank you for listening to Here's Where

It Gets Interesting. This episode is written and researched by Sharon McMahon, Heather Jackson, Valerie Hoback, Amy Watkin, and Mandy Reed. Our executive producer is Heather Jackson. Our audio producer is Jenny Snyder, and it's hosted by me, Sharon McMahon. If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button on the podcast platform of your choice. We also benefit so much from ratings, reviews, and sharing on social media. Thanks for being here, and we'll see you again soon.