Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad (34 page)

MARSHAL’S POSSE WITH BURNS MOVING DOWN STATE STREET
. This engraving shows some of the 1,600 marshals, soldiers, and militiamen who marched the fugitive slave Anthony Burns to a Boston dock in 1854, for his return to Virginia.
(Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library)

CAZENOVIA CONVENTION
. A photograph from August 1850, with some of the participants in a convention in upstate New York that protested the Fugitive Slave Bill then under consideration by Congress. Some fifty fugitive slaves were present, a fact that enraged supporters of slavery. Among those pictured are Frederick Douglass, at the table, on the left, and Gerrit Smith, standing to Douglass’s left.
(Madison County Historical Society)

A fund-raising broadside issued by the Albany Vigilance Committee in 1856. The Committee’s activities, including its participation in the underground railroad, were quite public.
(American Antiquarian Society)

STEPHEN MYERS
, the leading spirit of the Albany Vigilance Committee.
(
The Autobiography of Dr. William Henry Johnson
)

JERMAIN LOGUEN
, a fugitive slave and the “underground railroad king” of Syracuse. Most of the fugitives dispatched from New York City in the mid-1850s were headed to Canada via Syracuse.
(Onondaga Historical Association)

HARRIET TUBMAN
, who made several forays into the South after her own escape and led some seventy slaves to freedom. She passed through New York with groups of fugitives twice in 1856. The titles beneath her name refer to her service with the Union army during the Civil War.
(Library of Congress)

A page from the Record of Fugitives compiled by Sydney Howard Gay. The entry dated May 14 [1856], begins Gay’s long account of the arrival of Harriet Tubman and three fugitives.
(Sydney Howard Gay Papers, Rare Books and Manuscripts Library, Columbia University)

Two fugitive slave ads for runaways who passed through New York City and are mentioned in Gay’s Record of Fugitives.

Baltimore Sun
, September 3, 1855, describing the escape by boat of four men, adding “supposed they may aim for New York.”
(Maryland State Archives)

Baltimore Sun
, September 6, 1855, offering a reward for Emeline Chapman and her two infant children.
(Maryland State Archives)

THE RAILROAD SUSPENSION BRIDGE NEAR NIAGARA FALLS
, a print by Currier and Ives from 1857. The opening of the bridge in 1855 made it easier for fugitives to travel via upstate New York to Canada.
(Library of Congress)

An 1859 broadside advertising a public meeting in Scotland to raise funds for the Elgin Settlement, one of several communities established by Canadian abolitionists for fugitive slaves and free blacks from the United States.
(Library and Archives Canada)

FUGITIVE SLAVES FORDING THE RAPPANHANNOCK RIVER
. An 1862 photograph depicts a family of slaves seeking refuge with the Union army in Virginia. As the Civil War progressed, more and more slaves were able to enjoy freedom by heading for Union lines within the South, and the number escaping to the North dwindled.
(Library of Congress)