Gateway to freedom : the hidden history of America's fugitive slaves

**The dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom.** More than any other scholar, Eric Foner has influenced our understanding of America's history. Now, making brilliant use of extraordinary evidence, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian once again reconfigures the national saga of American slavery and freedom. A deeply entrenched institution, slavery lived on legally and commercially even in the northern states that had abolished it after the American Revolution. Slaves could be found in the streets of New York well after abolition, traveling with owners doing business with the city's major banks, merchants, and manufacturers. New York was also home to the North’s largest free black community, making it a magnet for fugitive slaves seeking refuge. Slave catchers and gangs of kidnappers roamed the city, seizing free blacks, often children, and sending them south to slavery. To protect fugitives and fight kidnappings, the city's free blacks worked with white abolitionists to organize the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835. In the 1840s vigilance committees proliferated throughout the North and began collaborating to dispatch fugitive slaves from the upper South, Washington, and Baltimore, through Philadelphia and New York, to Albany, Syracuse, and Canada. These networks of antislavery resistance, centered on New York City, became known as the underground railroad. Forced to operate in secrecy by hostile laws, courts, and politicians, the city’s underground-railroad agents helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown, their significance little understood. Building on fresh evidence―including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York―Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. The story is inspiring―full of memorable characters making their first appearance on the historical stage―and significant―the controversy over fugitive slaves inflamed the sectional crisis of the 1850s. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by "practical abolition," person by person, family by family. 16 pages of illustrations This book tells the dramatic story of fugitive slaves and the antislavery activists who defied the law to help them reach freedom. More than any other scholar, Eric Foner has influenced our understanding of America's history. Now, making brilliant use of extraordinary evidence, the Pulitzer Prize–winning historian once again reconfigures the national saga of American slavery and freedom. A deeply entrenched institution, slavery lived on legally and commercially even in the northern states that had abolished it after the American Revolution. Slaves could be found in the streets of New York well after abolition, traveling with owners doing business with the city's major banks, merchants, and manufacturers. New York was also home to the North’s largest free black community, making it a magnet for fugitive slaves seeking refuge. Slave catchers and gangs of kidnappers roamed the city, seizing free blacks, often children, and sending them south to slavery. To protect fugitives and fight kidnappings, the city's free blacks worked with white abolitionists to organize the New York Vigilance Committee in 1835. In the 1840s vigilance committees proliferated throughout the North and began collaborating to dispatch fugitive slaves from the upper South, Washington, and Baltimore, through Philadelphia and New York, to Albany, Syracuse, and Canada. These networks of antislavery resistance, centered on New York City, became known as the underground railroad. Forced to operate in secrecy by hostile laws, courts, and politicians, the city’s underground-railroad agents helped more than 3,000 fugitive slaves reach freedom between 1830 and 1860. Until now, their stories have remained largely unknown, their significance little understood. Building on fresh evidence -- including a detailed record of slave escapes secretly kept by Sydney Howard Gay, one of the key organizers in New York -- Foner elevates the underground railroad from folklore to sweeping history. The story is inspiring -- full of memorable characters making their first appearance on the historical stage -- and significant -- the controversy over fugitive slaves inflamed the sectional crisis of the 1850s. It eventually took a civil war to destroy American slavery, but here at last is the story of the courageous effort to fight slavery by "practical abolition," person by person, family by family. - Publisher. Cover 1 Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of America's Fugitive Slaves 6 Copyright 7 Dedication 8 Contents 10 List of Maps and Illustr Ations 12 1: Introduction: Rethinking the Underground railroad 20 I 23 II 30 III 41 2: Slavery and Freedom in New York 47 I 49 II 65 3: Origins of the Underground Railroad: The New York Vigilance committee 82 I 82 II 99 4: A Patchwork system: The underground railroad in the 1840s 110 I 110 II 127 5: The fugitive slave law and the crisis of the Black Community 138 I 138 II 145 III 156 IV 163 6: The Metropolitan Corridor: The underground railroad in the 1850s 170 I 170 II 184 III 191 IV 196 7: The Record of Fugitives: An account of runaway slaves in the 1850s 209 I 212 II 229 8: The End of the Underground Railroad 235 I 235 II 244 Acknowledgments 250 Notes 254 Abbreviations Used in Notes 254 1. Introduction 255 2. Slavery and Freedom in New York 260 3. The New York Vigilance Committee 266 4. A Patchwork System 271 5. The Fugitive Slave Law and the Crisis of the Black Community 276 6. The Metropolitan Corridor 282 7. The Record of Fugitives 289 8. The End of the Underground Railroad 292 Index 296 When slavery was a routine part of life in America's South, a secret network of activists and escape routes enabled slaves to make their way to freedom in what is now Canada. The'underground railroad'has become part of folklore, but one part of the story is only now coming to light. In New York, a city whose banks, business and politics were deeply enmeshed in the slave economy, three men played a remarkable part, at huge personal risk. In Gateway to Freedom, Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Eric Foner tells the story of Sydney Howard Gay, an abolitionist newspaper editor; Louis Napoleon, furniture polisher; and Charles B. Ray, a black minister. Between 1830 and 1860, with the secret help of black dockworkers, the network led by these three men helped no fewer than 3,000 fugitives to liberty. The previously unexamined records compiled by Gay offer a portrait of fugitive slaves who passed through New York City — where they originated, how they escaped, who helped them in both North and South, and how they were forwarded to freedom in Canada. Content: 1. Introduction 2. Slavery, Freedom, and Fugitive Slaves in New York City to 1840 3. New York's Two Stations on the Underground Railroad 4. The Fugitive Slave Act in New York 5. The Record of Fugitives 6. And the War Came Notes Further Reading Index The story of how three remarkable New Yorkers helped over 3000 African American slaves escape to a life of liberty in Canada, in the decades before the American Civil War