“I would rather try the lottery of escape yonder, than die with certainty as a slave hither.” Anon
IN AS MUCH AS there were slaveholders, kidnappers, and licensed slave catchers, there were also many tens of thousands of white abolitionists and sympathisers of slaves all over America. Together with freedmen, escaped slaves, free-born Negroes, and native Americans, these Americans established the Underground Railroad. In the northern states, many protestant clergies and their members were also involved. The Underground Railroad was a network of secret meeting places, secret routes, safe houses, and transportation that aided slaves to escape from the American slave states to the north, sometimes all the way to Canada. It operated from the late 1700s until the end of the Civil War in 1865.
The figurative use of the words “underground railroad” was a useful metaphor. The “company” used railroad terminologies as a way of communicating with escaped slaves as well as their aiders. People who helped slaves find the Railroad were “agents” (or shepherds); guides were known as “conductors” or “engineers”; hiding places were “stations” or “way-stations”; “station masters” hid slaves in their homes or at safe houses; escaped slaves were referred to as “passengers” or “cargo” or “goods”; slaves would obtain a “ticket”, that is instructions and means of how to get to the next station; financial benefactors of the Railroad were known as “stockholders”. Some stockholders were as far away as in Britain. By and large, those involved in the UGRR did not charge anything. However, some did, especially those who risked losing property like their ships if caught. In a few instances, the reward money for escaped slaves was so tempting that some conductors betrayed their passengers.
Most of the network of “workers” on the Railroad and routes were in the northern states as it was extremely dangerous to operate in the southern states. However, intrepid workers of the Railroad did go to the slave states. They even entered plantations to direct slaves who wanted to escape. Many tens of thousands of slaves escaped to the northern states and to Canada through this system. In earlier times, slaves escaped to Florida, a Spanish colony, until it joined the Union in 1821. Slaves also escaped to Mexico, where slavery was abolished in 1829. For those who managed to escape, the result was often bitter-sweet. They gained their freedom but often had to leave behind friends, siblings, spouses, and sometimes children. This was yet another emotional rupture.
Whatever their race, those caught by the vigilante groups aiding and abetting slaves to escape often paid with their lives. And indeed, many white and black Americans did pay with their lives.
One of the most well-known operators of the Underground Railroad was a Negro woman called Harriet Tubman. Another well-known member was a white man named John Brown, who declared war on the slave establishment and died for his beliefs. Tubman made 19 trips to the south, helping over 300 people escape to the northern free states and Canada.
The number of runaways from the slave states was in the tens of thousands. Though these numbers were never enough to threaten the peculiar institution, they were enough to severely vex the slaveholders.
In 2016, A twenty-dollar bill with the image of Harriet Tubman on the front, to replace the image of the slave-holding president, Andrew Jackson, was mooted. Preparations to perform this change-over began in earnest. However, some powerful forces of the underground deep state have delayed the release of this bill indefinitely. The replacement of the image of a white slave-holder with that of a former slave on a USA currency is just a bridge too far, for some. To boot, this former slave illegally deprived southerners of their chattels personal.
Just for the record, Andrew Jackson, the 7th American president on the $20 dollar bill, was a former slave trader and a slaveholder even as president of the USA. He was also a very brutal man. I know who I would want on my $20 bill between a former slave trader who took part in massacres and a woman who escaped slavery and then risked her life and went back to the south 19 times to conduct slaves through the Underground Rail Road to freedom. A no-brainer, right? Apparently not to the many Anglo-Saxon Americans who are still bogged down in the undrained swamp of American slavery.
This woman’s moniker was Moses, while Andrew Jackson’s was Soul Trader, AKA Old Hickory, because he was tough on his slaves, tough on Native Americans, and generally obstreperous and curmudgeonly to everyone else.
And yes, Jackson is the president who signed the Indian Removal Act of 1830, which forcefully relocated one hundred thousand Choctaw Indians, and at least fifteen thousand died.
Below is an image of the dollar bill that has been delayed indefinitely for spurious reasons. This is a dollar bill that would signify recognition of African-Americans’ contribution to an economy that was partly built on their blood, sweat, and tears. The one million revealed Americans who are open members of far-right, fascist and Racist Extremist Organisations and their submerged one hundred million sympathisers will never allow this in the foreseeable future. Gawd forbid! A nigger on the dollar; that’s sacrilege! What next, a nigger in the White House?
Ohhhhohh, too late!
So, shit happens, and it may happen again with Harriet Tubman.
