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News Updates

'Underground Railroad' Discussed By Historian

Source: The Greeneville Sun
by Nelson Morais
Date: 2008-02-25

Barbara Tagger, a National Park Service (NPS) historian, on Friday described her decade-long research efforts to fill in the real-life details of African-American slaves in the 1800s who escaped to freedom through what came to be called "the underground railroad."
 
The term "underground railroad" was used for a pre-Civil War network that helped African-American slaves flee to the North and other "free" places, even to Canada, Mexico and the Bahamas, and gain their freedom.
 
Tagger, who is based in Atlanta, spoke to about 50 people at Friendship Baptist Church.
 
She is the NPS's Southeast Region's program manager for the "Underground Railroad Network to Freedom" program.
 
The Nathanael Greene Museum and the Andrew Johnson National Historic Site hosted the Friday evening event in conjunction with the bicentennial year of former President Andrew Johnson.
 
'A Pre-Civil War Network'
 
Tagger said the 1793 Fugitive Slave Act "and other laws defined (slaves who escaped bondage) as fugitives" for life, "but in their (the slaves') minds, they were seeking freedom."
 
Runaways found refuge not only in the woods, swamps and caves, but also in homes, churches, barns and schools of those who sympathized with their plight.
 
"The 'underground railroad' was not concentrated in one area or one place in America," Tagger said. She added, "It involved the movement of people by people of different races and religions."
 
At that time, the NPS historian said, for those slaves considering leaving their owners' homes or plantations, "it was a crucial decision whether to stay or leave."
 
The cases varied almost as much as the individuals did, she said. Often it involved leaving their children and other close family members behind, Tagger said.
 
There was a real fear among "freedom-seekers," as the historian preferred to call them, that family members left behind would be punished, even killed, for what the escaped slaves were doing -- seeking liberty.
 
Tagger said she knows of cases where a parent killed their child before attempting to flee to freedom "so she (the child) wouldn't have to live in bondage."
 
In another example Tagger gave, one grandfather who gained freedom through the "underground railroad" was determined to return to the South to rescue his grandchildren, was caught trying to do so, and jailed for the rest of his life.
 
"You almost have to be enslaved to know the mentality it took to be a slave," Tagger said.
 
Taking Freedom For Granted
 
"Sometimes we take for granted our freedom," she said.
 
"Some slaves wanted no more than one hour of freedom, or just to hide" in a nearby cave or mountain for one night. "That was freedom," she said.
 
She said freedom-seekers had huge questions to consider before escaping slavery, such as, "Where would I go, or hide and who can I trust," as well as, "How do I begin a new life as a free person?"
 
Very young children were often left behind because of fear that their inopportune cries or conversations might tip the family off to authorities, for example, when they were hiding in the woods.
 
A lot of women were left behind by their husbands or fathers because of physical limitations. "They couldn't walk 12 to 15 miles a day, like men," Tagger said.
 
Evidence Disappearing
 
She said part of what makes her research difficult to do is that so much of the concrete evidence of sites associated with the movement of freedom-seekers has been bulldozed or paved with parking lots and shopping malls, or otherwise lost.
 
Tagger said, "If you read the early history books, the 'underground railroad' was a story of people rescuing slaves ... but not the stories of those who escaped."
 
She said her research was "focused on those who never got their names in history books."
 
She said piecing together the stories of the "underground railroad" includes analysis of oral histories, genealogies, family histories and cemeteries.
 
Congress passed the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act in 1998. President Bill Clinton signed the bill that created the National Underground Network to Freedom Program.
 
The National Underground Network to Freedom program is designed to link a nationwide collection of sites, facilities and programs associated with the historic movement.