Nearly 40 enslaved people liberate themselves in a pair of “slave stampedes” from St. Louis in October and November.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Category: Pinsker
Emancipation Proclamation is issued by President Lincoln on January 1, declaring free all enslaved people held in the Confederate states and authorizing the enlistment of Black soldiers. The sweeping directive, however, exempts Union-occupied Tennessee and parts of Union-occupied Virginia and Louisiana, designating them as under control of civil laws and not war measures.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
House of Representatives approves the 13th Amendment 119 to 56 on January 31, sending it to the states for ratification.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Abolitionist William Still publishes vigilance committee records in his book The Underground Railroad.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Professor Wilbur Siebert authors the first scholarly study of the Underground Railroad, but focuses heavily on white activists and folklore, at the expense of Black abolitionists.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Historian Larry Gara publishes The Liberty Line which challenges depictions of an elaborate Underground Railroad network. Instead, Gara argues that freedom seekers escaped largely on their own with little organized assistance.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Congress establishes the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program to preserve and document Underground Railroad sites. Since its founding, the program has identified over 700 sites.
The National Park Service Network To Freedom (NTF) consists of sites, locations with a verifiable connection to the Underground Railroad; programs, with educational and interpretive programming that pertain to the Underground Railroad; and facilities, either research, educational or interpretive centers. There are currently over 700 locations as part of the network in 39 states, plus Washington DC and the US Virgin Islands.
[This post is still under construction, more forthcoming in 2023]
Calvin Fairbank (1816-1898) was a Methodist minister and Underground Railroad operative convicted in Kentucky for aiding the 1844 escape of Harriet and Lewis Hayden along with school teacher Delia Webster and then convicted again for a second offense in 1851. He ended up serving a total of seventeen years in Kentucky state prison before his release in 1864.
ESSAYS: Blackett // Baker // Larson // Miller // Pinsker // Sinha
ROLES: UGRR Operative
Calvin Fairbank served a total of seventeen years in Kentucky prison for “slave stealing” (House Divided Project)