The road was dusty and rocky, and sharp stones pricked at Grace’s feet. She stumbled over the freezing stones in the dark. And for all the world, she didn’t ever want to feel the soft soil tilled by generations of hardworking hands, the soil that bound her forever to the cruel master that had made her and all her siblings work endlessly with no pay and barely enough to eat. Her breath was ragged, and she could hear the dogs getting closer by the millisecond. On and on she ran in a panic, looking for a stream, something to mask her smell from the bloodthirsty dogs. The sky was salt spilled out on dark cloth, and the air was misty.
In the distance, water trickled with its chattery sound, bouncing joyously over the rocks. In a minute, Grace had reached it. Waiting for her mother to catch up, she fell to her knees in the stream, which would mask her smell from the dogs. Cold and clear, it rushed over her, and she bent down and drank in it’s sweet, pure taste. Wiping the water from her lips, she splashed sluggishly upriver. A fish tickled her foot. She slipped on a patch of a mossy plant. She had to continue, had to get away from the master, and more importantly, his dogs. Her mother ran behind, struggling under the weight of her little brother Benny, too young to make the dangerous journey along the whispered about underground railroad to follow the path of their father and older brothers. When her mother, named Nina, caught up, she bent down to drink. They continued their difficult journey up and up the river, eventually reaching a small path that was almost hidden by the thick grasses and trees along the bank. The path was sand, which stuck to Grace’s feet and refused to shake off.
They walked for what seemed like hours along the trail, vegetation scratching their tired arms and faces. It was so thick in some places that finding the trail again was guesswork. Grace was just about to ask her mother when they would stop to rest when a light shone in the distance. They tensed. When they were approaching, they hid in the bushes, quivering. The porch had a single lantern hanging outside, casting a strong light. (Here is a link to other secrets and signals used on the underground railroad) A lady, stooping with age, came out on the porch. She beckoned to them, and they followed. The floorboards were smooth and felt strange after walking on sand for so long. Inside, the lady led them through a door in her cupboard to a hidden room at the back of the house.
“There ain’t nobody else heya tonight, Y'all lucky. Sometimes I get three r foah in one night. But it’s all yours tonight.”
“Thank you, we ain’t never gonna be able to pay you back for this,” My mother whispered, her voice hoarse.
“S’ok. Just be sure nobody’s ‘round when y’all get outta here in tha mornin’.” She left us.
Grace lay down on the only straw pallet in the room, trying not to take up any more room than she needed. As soon as her eyes shut she was asleep, shifting slightly on the pallet.
It felt like only seconds had gone by when her mother shook her awake again. It was a positively cranky night, pitch black with only a sliver of moon, but Grace forced herself to get up again. They ate some of the food the woman had smuggled into the secret room and then they left, bringing with them only the clothes on their backs.
On and on this continued, day after day after day. Grace’s feet cracked and blistered, and her heart hurt, wanting her homeland, and her two other brothers and father, always journeying to reach them. She longed for the only life she had ever known to come back to her, but without the pain, the suffering. Sometimes they could not leave a resting place hosted by one of the generous people for days because there were people searching for them in the area. A few times these people came to the house and searched for hours unsuccessfully to find Grace, her mother, and her littlest brother. They stayed frozen, barely able to breathe in the room behind a sliding section of the rock wall, hoping and praying that the search would be unsuccessful. When summer passed, and the days turned into autumn, the biting winds cut through their thin and now ragged summer clothes. The wind made them catch a cold, and it was terrible because Benny would cough all night and they were terrified of being discovered. Finally, after many months of hard travel, they crossed the border of the United States and into Canada. When they arrived at a small town near the border, Grace’s mother dared to ask one of the people where they were, and when he said that they were in Canada, Grace turned to her mother and tears shone in her eyes. Triumphant tears, the tears of someone who has won.
“We made it, Mama. We’re really here.”
Grace and her family were living in a difficult time. They were bound to a master, as so many slaves were in those days. The Underground railroad was a series of people who were protesting slavery by helping others. Along the route, there were houses called Stations. The people who ran them were called Station masters, and they would open their homes to people fleeing slavery, going to other places outside the country. Stations often had unseen places for the escapees, called cargo, to rest and eat, so if searchers came to the house they could not be found. Stations were indicated by a single lantern hanging outside the house. There were guides who would help people along the Underground Railroad, and they were called Conductors.
The entire system remained a secret, for if anyone was found out to be helping the cargo, each could get the same punishment, even if they were never slaves. Not all lines of the Underground Railroad ran north, though many did run up to Canada. Some lines ran down south to the Bahamas or to Mexico.
Not all of the cargo escaped using the same method. Some were disguised as other people and had fake papers to escape by real train. One man, named Henry Brown, shipped himself all the way from Virginia to Pennsylvania in a box.
People who had escaped via the Underground railroad sometimes willingly came back to help other people escape to freedom. These people could act as guides, secretly spreading the word to other slaves about how they could escape. They might even act as guides for a day or two. One man used his boat to help slaves escape to the Bahamas. He was caught and branded S.S, for slave stealer, but he kept going and helped many be free. Harriet Tubman was a woman who was a Conductor, making 13 trips down to the south and freeing over 70 people. The peak years of the Underground Railroad were from around 1850 and 1860. An estimate says that by 1850, over 100,000 slaves had escaped via the Railroad. here is a link to to an overview of the time of the Underground Railroad.
By the end of the time of the Underground Railroad, a civil war was breaking out in the United States. A series of states who were for slavery broke off from the United States and called themselves the Confederate States. These two fought until, after many hard and bloody battles, the Confederate States surrendered. Then, Abraham Lincoln passed the law against slavery.
But the damage was not easily repaired. It took several years for all of the states to break off of the Confederacy. This time was called the Reconstruction era, and this was a time when the United States rebuilt itself as a unified whole again. Here is a link to the official Library of Congress site on the Underground Railroad, the sub topics are fascinating.
