So engrossing. This read like an adventure novel but is actual history and the author cites his sources, even including an appendix of the pseudonymous articles published in abolitionist papers. Highly recommend.
So engrossing. This read like an adventure novel but is actual history and the author cites his sources, even including an appendix of the pseudonymous articles published in abolitionist papers. Highly recommend.
It was your cruelty to him that made him disappear by that same“under ground rail-road“ or “steam balloon,“ about which one of your city constables was swearing so bitterly . . .
Thomas Smallwood in his laughingstock letters August 10, 1842
First mention in print of an underground railroad helping slaves escape north, per the tagged book. Within a few months it has been adopted across the nation for the ways slaves escape to freedom.
Thomas Smallwood is a name you might not know from the abolition movement. This is a man who not only bought his own freedom, but was the one who named The Underground Railroad. Born a slave, Smallwood educated himself and found work as a shoemaker in DC. From there, he worked with Charles Torrey to get other enslaved people to freedom in the North from the DC and Baltimore areas.