Though the use of spirituals as coded ‘road maps’ for the Underground Railroad is contentious, it can be fruitful to use these ‘documents’ in the classroom as a key to understanding how songs were important in the lives of slaves.

One site that examines the different purposes and meanings of these historical records is Sweet Chariot: The Story of the Spirituals.

The site explores the history of spirituals, reincarnations of these songs in the 20th century Civil Rights movement and includes sound files of the many spirituals.

The ‘Freedom & Equality’ section highlights the use of spirituals as: expressions of protest, sources of inspiration and motivation… both of which are useful in thinking about the psychological aspects of slaves deciding to take the risk of pursuing their own freedom.

Ella Forbes, former professor of African American studies at Temple University and author of “But We Have No Country: The 1851 Christiana, Pennsylvania Resistance,” has written an article on the use of violence at the Christiana Resistance. Forbes argues that the use of violence at Christiana is “…an indication of the alienation blacks felt in a nation which showed its hostility so openly towards them, a nation unwilling to protect them from white violence, a nation whose very laws promoted their disenfranchisement.” Forbes’ article in the Journal of Negro History makes its point clearly, and illustrates in great detail social and political alienation experienced by both enslaved and freed African Americans living in the antebellum United States. The article is worth reading for its insight alone, though the article presents an important teaching moment: Use and analysis source documents and materials. Forbes cites heavily William Parker’s narrative in support of her argument. But there is question as to the authorship of the narrative, as this website from Millersville University explains. Parker, the only individual involved in the Christiana Resistance to have published an account, received help in compiling his memoir from an editor identified by only the initials “E. K.” Since it is not known who this individual was, it is difficult to gauge the editor’s mark on the work. Is Parker’s narrative a reliable, factual work or did it suffer alteration by “E.K.” for his own propagandistic purposes? Provides a great springboard for discussion about primary source materials, bias, and analysis of Forbes’ article. The full bibliographic citation for Forbes’ article is below.

Bibliographic Citation: Forbes, Ella. “‘By My Own Right Arm’: Redemptive Violence and the 1851 Christiana, Pennsylvania Resistance.” Journal of Negro History 83, no. 3 (1998): 159-167.

History Now, an online journal of the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, provides essays studying a variety of issues and events throughout history. Abolition of slavery is one among them. In the September 2005 issue of History Now, abolition is the topic. Robert Abzug, a professor of History at the University of Texas at Austin writes about the religious inspirations for abolition both in America and Britain. Abzug discusses how the republican goals and ideals of the American Revolution melded with the values of American Protestantism. He writes of the effort to address slavery as a spiritual issue, and cites abolitionists such as William Lloyd Garrison and the very interesting case of Presbyterian minister George Bourne. This issue of History Now contains a number of other interesting articles on the topic of abolition. Worth reading.

The National Park Service presents a website explaining the history of the Underground Railroad and listing sites throughout the United States, in twenty-one states. The site gives brief overviews of topics in the history of American slavery. For each site listed, a brief overview is given. Visiting information is given for sites open to the public.

Aboard the Underground Railroad

This article published by the New York Times gives a glimpse of the tension of the raid from the perspective of those seeking to end it. The document is part of a wider collection of Harper’s Ferry material on A House Divided.

The Pennsylvania Historical Society, much more than just compiling the history of the state and collecting artifacts, provides freely lesson plans on the Pennsylvania Abolition Society, abolition in a more general context, and the experience of the free black community in Philadelphia. The seven lessons are for Middle to High School age students. Glossary, primary source material, and even relevant legal cases are included with the lesson plans. Discussion questions are also included. A worthwhile resource.

Abolition and the Underground Railroad from the Pennsylvania Historical Society

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn by Mark Twain is a classic story about the adventures of a young boy growing up along the Mississippi River, who helps the slave Jim escape. Published in 1884, the book portrays how life was in antebellum South. The novel is known as one of the first novels to take dialect into account. A free audio version of the book can be found online. As a supplement to a lesson about fugitive slaves, excerpts from the book can be played to give the students a fantastic story with accurate dialect.

A House Divided has a great clip on the Video Channel of Kate Clifford Larson and her book Bound for the Promised Land.  In this clip, Larson explains one of the many myths that surrounds the story of Harriet Tubman.

I want to highlight an advertisement for William Still’s Underground Railroad that is available on the Ohio Historical Society website. Published in Cleveland Gazette on November 11, 1883, the ad claims that Still’s book “[was] one which must prove interesting and profitable to every reader.” If students read excerpts from Still’s book, some might want to see how the publisher tried to sell it in the 1880s. You can also get the full text of the Underground Railroad from Their Own Words.

PBS did a four part series on slavery in America with supplemental narratives and teacher’s guides online.  One of the parts is Judgement Day focusing on 1831-1865.  The segment of the narrative about the Underground Railroad mentions several people that can be found on House Divided.