Passages of Hope

Writing about the Underground Railroad brings both joy and pain. Reading the stories of people taking risks to run to freedom is inspiring—until I remember why they took those risks. There is the pain. The cruelty and inhumanity fugitives fled from. And as a Black woman, knowing that if I were alive at that time, my family and I would have experienced the same cruelty. That’s sobering.

Slavery lasted way too long, and too many people suffered. According to the 1860 US Census, over three million people were enslaved by the start of the Civil War.¹ That’s roughly the 2020 population of Uruguay or Jamaica. Slavery wasn’t abolished until 1865, but many didn’t wait. They took flight for the North and freedom.

In his book The Underground Railroad, William Still recounted some of the most daring and harrowing acts of bravery. To escape slavery, both men and women would sometimes ship themselves to Philadelphia. Others traveled north in large escape parties for protection. Some parents, like William Still’s mother, ran with small children. All to be free.

One of the reasons the Underground Railroad was so effective was because of the secrecy. The Fugitive Slave Act (1793 and 1850) made it illegal to assist enslaved men and women who had escaped their enslavers. Because of this, conductors, stationmasters, and shareholders (people who financially supported the Underground Railroad’s efforts), worked in secrecy. Only William Still kept detailed records, and they survived because he had the forethought to hide them where only the dead would see—in a cemetery.

In 2018 Philadelphia historians discovered the location of William Still’s house. I remember reading the news story and thinking about how amazing that find must have been. Other station houses on the lines that helped people to freedom had been discovered, but none so famous as the Still house. To look at the house before the discovery, one wouldn’t think it was anything special. But after, to think that William Still possibly interviewed and moved more than six hundred fugitives through that house boggles the mind.

My story is set in a community named Bella Vista. This community was made up of mostly free Blacks, and in his book Black Abolitionists, Benjamin Quarles proved the important role that free Blacks played in the Underground Railroad through not only vigilance committees but by providing shelter and resources to those who ran from the South and arrived in Philadelphia, Ohio, and even Canada. Many of those free Blacks, like William Still’s parents, were once enslaved themselves and considered it God’s work to help others.

One last note: The villain of this story, Mrs. Johnson. Chilling, but she comes right out of the pages of history. I based Mrs. Johnson’s character on a real-life person named Patty Cannon. Patty Cannon is believed to have murdered thirty enslaved and free Blacks. She and her family operated a successful gang of slave catchers and bounty hunters. Historians say she poisoned herself once she was captured. Even more interesting, what is believed to be her skull was on display until 1961 at the Dover Public Library. Her house is a historical location in Delaware.²

My hope with this story is to show both the struggle and the survival, the horror and the triumph. I hope that it will be an educational experience as well. That something in this book, from the high mortality rate of Black mothers to the heroism of stationmasters, from family history to knitting, would pique your interest.

^1. Library of Congress, “Africans in America,” accessed March 31, 2022, https://www.loc.gov/classroom-materials/immigration/african/africans-in-america/.

^2. “Patty Cannon,” Dorchester County Historical Society, Maryland, accessed March 30, 2022, https://www.dorchesterhistory.com/patty-cannon.