{"id":1916,"date":"2022-08-17T21:08:43","date_gmt":"2022-08-18T01:08:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/?page_id=1916"},"modified":"2023-06-25T17:24:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-25T21:24:20","slug":"the-atlantic-coastal-freedom-network-newby-alexander","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/regional-essays\/the-atlantic-coastal-freedom-network-newby-alexander\/","title":{"rendered":"The Atlantic Coastal Freedom Network by Cassandra L. Newby-Alexander"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Banner image: <\/strong>In June 1860, slave catchers battled with freedom seekers who were escaping by boat across the Delaware Bay (illustration by John Osler, colorized by Jordan Schucker, <a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/18723\">House Divided Project<\/a>)<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Download PDF version of this essay (coming soon)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/category\/newby-alexander\/\"><strong>See related Timeline entries<\/strong><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Thirty-one-year-old John Atkinson \u201cwas a prisoner of hope under James Ray, of Portsmouth, Va., whom he declared to be \u2018a worthless sot.\u2019 This character was fully set forth, but the description is too disgusting for record. . . Daily toiling to support his drunken and brutal master, was a hardship that John felt keenly, but was compelled to submit to up to the day of his escape\u2026.A part of John&#8217;s life he had suffered many abuses from his oppressor, and only a short while before freeing himself, the auction-block was held up before his troubled mind. This caused him to take the first daring step towards Canada, to leave his wife, Mary, without bidding her good-bye, or saying a word to her as to his intention of fleeing.\u201d<a href=\"#_edn1\" name=\"_ednref1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 1854, Atkinson was hidden aboard the steamship <em>City of Richmond<\/em> that left the Norfolk harbor with the assistance of a free Black steward, John Minkins.\u00a0 Atkinson recalled his departure as particularly painful because in his haste he left without informing his wife, parents, or friends.\u00a0 Shortly after reaching the Philadelphia vigilance committee headed by William Still, he prepared to leave for St. Catharines in Canada West (later Ontario), the home of Harriet Tubman and other freedom seekers.\u00a0 Like many men who were forced to leave their families behind, it is unknown whether Atkinson was ever able to reunite with his wife.\u00a0 What is known is that he escaped during a period when there were so many fugitive departures that local newspapers were warning of \u201cstampedes.\u201d\u00a0 Other immigrants to St. Catharines included Dan Josiah Lockhart who escaped in 1847 from Frederick County, Virginia, William George who left from Harpers Ferry in 1851, Henry Banks who escaped with Isaac Williams from Ayler\u2019s slave pen in Richmond, Virginia in 1854, Christopher Nicholson from Fredericksburg, and David West who arrived in 1854 from King and Queen County.<a href=\"#_edn2\" name=\"_ednref2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4658\" style=\"width: 639px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4658\" class=\"wp-image-4658 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-1024x811.png\" alt=\"1855 schooner search\" width=\"629\" height=\"498\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-1024x811.png 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-300x238.png 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-768x608.png 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-1536x1216.png 1536w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-2048x1621.png 2048w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-900x713.png 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Capt.-Fountains-Schooner-Draft-2-e1686150791192-1280x1013.png 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 629px) 100vw, 629px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4658\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In 1855, local authorities in Norfolk failed to discover more than twenty freedom seekers aboard the <em>City of Richmond<\/em> schooner (illustration by Edmund B. Bensell, colorized by Forbes, <a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/18728\">House Divided Project<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Historian Eric Foner observed that unlike most Underground Railroad operations in the nation, the assisted escapes along the eastern seaboard had clear networks that connected freedom seekers to northern stations. In contrast, further inland freedom seekers were more independent and typically had no one assisting them until they reached the edges of northern states.\u00a0 Once there, the networks of protection and assistance were finally available.<a href=\"#_edn3\" name=\"_ednref3\"><sup>[3]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Historian Eric Foner observed that unlike most Underground Railroad operations in the nation, the assisted escapes along the eastern seaboard had clear networks that connected freedom seekers to northern stations. In contrast, further inland freedom seekers were more independent and typically had no one assisting them until they reached the edges of northern states.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Historian David Cecelski, who examined the world of Black watermen along the eastern seaboard in the 1800s, noted that the stories of freedom seekers who escaped via the waterways \u201creveals a powerful, complex, and dissident undercurrent to maritime life.\u201d\u00a0 Enslaved and free Black watermen, stewards, dockworkers, ferrymen, oystermen, seamen, hotel and tavern workers, skilled artisans, stevedores, and swampers used their jobs to create pathways to freedom for themselves and others.<\/p>\n<p>The distinctive intertwined waterway landscape along the Atlantic Ocean and Chesapeake Bay produced a thriving national and international trade system.\u00a0 The Atlantic coastline was where the America\u2019s population concentrated, especially in the port cities and towns.\u00a0 This was also where enslaved African Americans were concentrated until the domestic slave trade distributed an equal number within the interior cotton plantations from the Carolinas to Texas.<a href=\"#_edn4\" name=\"_ednref4\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0 As early as the late 1600s, newspaper advertisements illustrated the importance of the waterways as the vehicle for freedom seekers along the eastern seaboard.\u00a0 Some traveled to port cities and towns to disappear within the free Black communities there or found refuge in the Great Dismal Swamp or the Everglades.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4769\" style=\"width: 213px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-8.25.33-PM.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4769\" class=\"wp-image-4769 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-8.25.33-PM-203x300.png\" alt=\"coastal map\" width=\"203\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-8.25.33-PM-203x300.png 203w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-8.25.33-PM-694x1024.png 694w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-8.25.33-PM-768x1132.png 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Screen-Shot-2023-06-18-at-8.25.33-PM.png 864w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 203px) 100vw, 203px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4769\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Atlantic coastal region, c. 1850s (House Divided Project)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>The principal southern ports that spanned from Jacksonville, Florida, Savannah, Georgia, Charleston, South Carolina, Wilmington, North Carolina, Norfolk, Virginia, and Baltimore, Maryland to northern cities such as Philadelphia, New York, and Boston were important departure points for the schooners and steamships.\u00a0 In particular, port cities with large African American populations and a robust port activity with ships running between Philadelphia, New York and Boston, were centers of Underground Railroad activity, despite efforts by slaveholders to create a security system to protect their interests. For example, Wilmington, regarded as the \u201casylum for Runaways\u201d and the Great Dismal Swamp that spanned from North Carolina to Virginia, were hubs of activity, facilitated by the intricate system of rivers and canals that led to the Atlantic Ocean and the Chesapeake Bay. To the north, the Kanawha and Ohio rivers created important waterway routes for freedom seekers as abolitionists assisted often with stations spaced 30 to 40 miles apart. During the 1800s, these vessels transported cotton, tobacco, rice, corn, wheat, pork, naval stores, and other goods and products produced primarily by enslaved labor.\u00a0 These port cities located in low-lying areas connected to extensive river, canal, and marshland systems that went far into the interior where plantations were plentiful.<a href=\"#_edn5\" name=\"_ednref5\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The topography along the Atlantic Coast, combined with the population density of Blacks along the eastern seaboard and the heavy use of bound labor in the maritime and trade industries, provided enslaved people with unprecedented access to the countless domestic and international vessels that plied its shipping lanes. Most coastal freedom seekers followed the smaller rivers, canals, and creeks to the major Atlantic port areas.\u00a0 And these ports often had a reputation for being either magnets or asylums for runaways.\u00a0 For example, freedom seekers in eastern North Carolina traveled from the Albemarle Sound through the Dismal Swamp to the Norfolk harbor.\u00a0 Others sought escape aboard schooners that plied towns and villages along the smaller rivers.<a href=\"#_edn6\" name=\"_ednref6\"><sup>[6]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The topography along the Atlantic Coast, combined with the population density of Blacks along the eastern seaboard and the heavy use of bound labor in the maritime and trade industries, provided enslaved people with unprecedented access to the countless domestic and international vessels that plied its shipping lanes.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The coastal escape routes were well known among local inhabitants, especially in the greater Tidewater region of Virginia that included the areas from Great Dismal Swamp and Norfolk to the Richmond area. While African Americans and some whites created tight circles of cooperation that facilitated escapes, white merchants and slaveholders went to great lengths to tighten security and control, albeit with limited success.\u00a0 Some runaways were able to secure their freedom by hiding aboard vessels and from their captains and crew.\u00a0 Most, however, received assistance from captains and stewards, whose motivations were either financial or ideological.<a href=\"#_edn7\" name=\"_ednref7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_4665\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-4665\" class=\"wp-image-4665 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House-300x169.jpeg\" alt=\"Johnson house\" width=\"300\" height=\"169\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House-300x169.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House-1024x576.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House-768x432.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House-1536x865.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House-900x507.jpeg 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House-1280x720.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/06\/Johnson-House.jpeg 1599w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-4665\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Nathan and Polly Johnson sheltered Frederick Douglass at their home in New Bedford, Massachusetts after his 1838 escape (<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nps.gov\/places\/nathan-and-polly-johnson-house.htm\">NPS<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Historian Kathryn Grover notes in <em>The Fugitive\u2019<\/em><em>s Gibraltar<\/em> (2001) that merchants from New Bedford, Massachusetts frequently traded in Virginia.\u00a0 Some of those merchants were Quakers with strong antislavery leanings, such as Weston Howland and John Parker, owners of the sloop <em>Regulator<\/em>.\u00a0 Principally transporting flour between Alexandria and New Bedford, the <em>Regulator<\/em> was associated with assisting runaways from Richmond through Washington, DC.\u00a0 Similarly, the sloop <em>Mercury<\/em>, owned by Samuel Chadwick, reportedly transported fugitives along with goods between various urban ports in Virginia to Massachusetts throughout the first half of the 1800s.\u00a0 New Bedford was one of the few northern cities that allowed fugitives to receive food and provisions as part of their poor relief program. This was obviously important to freedom seekers as they established themselves in a new community.\u00a0 Despite this support, many of those who escaped to New Bedford and other northern cities, such as Newburyport, Massachusetts, Newport, Rhode Island, and Philadelphia tended to remain under the guise of an alias, primarily because slave catchers were always on the lookout for fugitive slaves.<a href=\"#_edn8\" name=\"_ednref8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The work of William Still, who headed the Philadelphia vigilance committee during the 1850s, was invaluable for the coastal operations of the Underground Railroad from the Carolinas to Canada. \u00a0His documentation of individuals who passed through his Underground Railroad station on their way to freedom from 1852 to 1861, provides a glimpse about activities, organization, and connections along the eastern seaboard where the majority of the nation\u2019s population, both free and enslaved, lived.\u00a0 Still also was central in identifying steamships used by fugitives in their escape.\u00a0 Still recorded the efforts of numerous schooners, captains, and steamships, such as the <em>City of Richmond<\/em>, the <em>Jamestown<\/em>, the<em> Pennsylvania<\/em>, the <em>Augusta, <\/em>the <em>Kesiah<\/em>, and the <em>Francis French<\/em> as being among the primary vessels that plied the intricate system of waterways transporting freedom seekers to points north.<a href=\"#_edn9\" name=\"_ednref9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3252\" style=\"width: 768px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/12\/Jane-Johnson-colorized.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3252\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3252\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/12\/Jane-Johnson-colorized.jpg\" alt=\"Johnson\" width=\"758\" height=\"484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/12\/Jane-Johnson-colorized.jpg 758w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/12\/Jane-Johnson-colorized-300x192.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 758px) 100vw, 758px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3252\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">William Still helped coordinate the rescue of Jane Johnson and her children as they passed through Philadelphia in 1855 (illustration from 1872, colorized by Gabe Pinsker, <a href=\"https:\/\/hd.housedivided.dickinson.edu\/node\/18725\">House Divided Project<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>While William Still\u2019s invaluable documentation of freedom seekers who passed through his station in Philadelphia continues to yield new clues about this clandestine system, most of the freedom seekers who departed from Georgia and Florida never reached the North. Instead, their destinations were much closer to home:\u00a0 the Bahamas, the Everglades, and Pensacola, Florida.\u00a0 Known as the saltwater railroad, those who escaped from slaveholders in Florida and Georgia sought freedom with the Seminole Indians, in the British-controlled Bahamas, and along the isolated areas around Pensacola whose inhabitants were indifferent to slavery and to enforcing the rights of slaveholders.<a href=\"#_edn10\" name=\"_ednref10\"><sup>[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>After Great Britain\u2019s Colonial Office proclaimed in 1825 that any enslaved Americans who reached the shores of the Bahamas would be considered free, the incentives to escape were clear for freedom seekers who were familiar with the waterways in southern Florida and the Caribbean.\u00a0 Following Britain\u2019s abolition of slavery across the empire in 1834, records indicated that over 6,000 freedom seekers had indeed received freedom in the Bahamas during that period, including many from the United States, angering American slaveholders and their supporters.<a href=\"#_edn11\" name=\"_ednref11\"><sup>[11]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Despite the romanticized and overly dramatized versions of the Underground Railroad featuring enslaved fugitives racing along darkened roadways or through forests to freedom, the role of waterways was more dominant and often more successful. Traveling over land was replete with too many obstacles that included a dangerous, crowded roadway system. \u00a0Traveling aboard ship, however, allowed for a quicker, more direct, and secretive mode of escape.<a href=\"#_edn12\" name=\"_ednref12\"><sup>[12]<\/sup><\/a> As was the case with John Atkinson, these secretive departures were sudden and often without notification to loved ones.\u00a0 Yet, once the freedom seekers arrived safely in the North, their journey was not over, nor their freedom guaranteed because slavery was legal in the United States, and the law required that the federal government ensure the return of all fugitives.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_3543\" style=\"width: 1763px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-3543\" class=\"size-full wp-image-3543\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892.jpg\" alt=\"colorized Norfolk escape\" width=\"1753\" height=\"1337\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892.jpg 1753w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892-300x229.jpg 300w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892-1024x781.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892-768x586.jpg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892-1536x1171.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892-900x686.jpg 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2023\/01\/Escape-from-Norfolk-18457-colorized-scaled-e1673023031892-1280x976.jpg 1280w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1753px) 100vw, 1753px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-3543\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Escaping from Norfolk in Captain Lee&#8217;s skiff in 1857, illustration by Charles H. Reed, colorized by Gabe Pinsker (<a href=\"https:\/\/npg.si.edu\/object\/npg_S_NPG.2018.89.10\">Smithsonian<\/a>)<\/p><\/div>\n<hr \/>\n<h2><strong>Further Reading<\/strong><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li>Bordewich, Fergus M. <em>Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America\u2019s First Civil Rights Movement.<\/em> New York: Amistad \/ HarperCollins, 2005.<\/li>\n<li>Clavin, Matthew J. <em>Aiming for Pensacola:\u00a0 Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0 Cambridge, MA:\u00a0 Harvard University Press, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Drew, Benjamin. <em>A North Side View of Slavery: The Refugee. <\/em>Boston: John P. Jewett, 1856.<\/li>\n<li>Foner, Eric. <em>Gateway to Freedom:\u00a0 The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad<\/em>.\u00a0 New York:\u00a0 W. Norton, 2015.<\/li>\n<li>Gara, Larry. <em>The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad.\u00a0 <\/em>Lexington: University Press of Kentucky; Reprint edition, 1996; orig. 1961.<\/li>\n<li>Grover, Kathryn. <em>Fugitives Gibraltar:\u00a0 Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, <\/em> Amherst:\u00a0 University of Massachusetts Press, 2001.<\/li>\n<li>Miller, Steve and J. Timothy Allen. <em>Slave Escapes and the Underground Railroad in North<\/em><em> Carolina<\/em>. Charleston, SC:\u00a0 The History Press, 2016.<\/li>\n<li>Still, William. <em>The Underground Railroad.<\/em> Philadelphia: Porter &amp; Coates, 1872.<\/li>\n<li>Walker, Timothy, ed. <em>Sailing to Freedom: Maritime Dimensions of the Underground <\/em><em>\u00a0 <\/em>Amherst:\u00a0 University of Massachusetts Press, 2021.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<hr \/>\n<h2>Citations<\/h2>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref1\" name=\"_edn1\"><sup>[1]<\/sup><\/a> William Still, <em>The Underground Railroad<\/em> (orig. pub. 1872; Oxford, UK: Benediction Classics, 2008), 297; Journal C of Station No. 2 of the Underground Railroad, Agent William Still, 1852\u20131857, Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society, Pennsylvania Abolition Society Papers, HSP, edited by Peter P. Hinks, 105.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref2\" name=\"_edn2\"><sup>[2]<\/sup><\/a> Benjamin Drew, <em>A North Side View of Slavery: The Refugee<\/em> (Boston: John P. Jewett, 1856), 19-30, 43-91; Fergus M. Bordewich, <em>Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America\u2019s First Civil Rights Movement<\/em> (New York: Amistad \/ HarperCollins, 2005), 255; William Still <em>Underground Railroad<\/em>, 260, 297-300.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref3\" name=\"_edn3\"><sup>[3]<\/sup><\/a> Eric Foner, Gateway to Freedom: <em>The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad<\/em> (New York:\u00a0 W.W. Norton &amp; Company, 2015), 44-47.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref4\" name=\"_edn4\"><sup>[4]<\/sup><\/a> 1820 Population Map, US Census Bureau; \u201cMapping Slavery in the Nineteenth Century,&#8221; courtesy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration&#8217;s Office of Coast Survey, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.census.gov\/history\/www\/reference%2520\/maps\/distribution_of_slaves_in_1860.html\">https:\/\/www.census.gov\/history\/www\/reference \/maps\/distribution_of_slaves_in_1860.html<\/a>, Accessed August 22, 2021.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref5\" name=\"_edn5\"><sup>[5]<\/sup><\/a> Timothy Walker, editor, <em>Sailing to Freedom:\u00a0 Maritime Dimensions of the Underground Railroad<\/em> (Amherst:\u00a0 University of Massachusetts Press, 2021), 3-4; Steve Miller and J. Timothy Allen, <em>Slave Escapes and the Underground Railroad in North Carolina<\/em> (Charleston, SC:\u00a0 The History Press, 2016), 37, 39, 42.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref6\" name=\"_edn6\"><sup>[6]<\/sup><\/a> Timothy Walker, <em>Sailing to Freedom<\/em>, 57.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref7\" name=\"_edn7\"><sup>[7]<\/sup><\/a> Timothy Walker, <em>Sailing to Freedom<\/em>, 56.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref8\" name=\"_edn8\"><sup>[8]<\/sup><\/a> Kathryn Grover, <em>The Fugitive\u2019s Gibraltar:\u00a0 Escaping Slaves and Abolitionism in New Bedford, Massachusetts<\/em> (Amherst:\u00a0 University of Massachusetts Press, 2001), 2-3, 8, 10-12.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref9\" name=\"_edn9\"><sup>[9]<\/sup><\/a> Fergus Bordewich, <em>Bound for Canaan,<\/em> 256-257.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref10\" name=\"_edn10\"><sup>[10]<\/sup><\/a> Matthew J. Clavin, <em>Aiming for Pensacola:\u00a0 Fugitive Slaves on the Atlantic and Southern Frontiers <\/em>(Cambridge:\u00a0 Harvard University Press, 2015), 2, 8; Irvin Winsboro and Joe Knetsch, \u201cFlorida Slaves, the \u2018Saltwater Railroad,\u2019 the Bahamas, and Anglo-American Diplomacy,\u201d <em>Journal of Southern History<\/em> 79 (February 2013), 51.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref11\" name=\"_edn11\"><sup>[11]<\/sup><\/a> Irvin Winsboro and Joe Knetsch, \u201cFlorida Slaves,\u201d 56.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"#_ednref12\" name=\"_edn12\"><sup>[12]<\/sup><\/a> Timothy Walker, <em>Sailing to Freedom<\/em>, 4.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-scaled.jpeg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2356\" src=\"http:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-200x300.jpeg\" alt=\"Newby\" width=\"200\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-200x300.jpeg 200w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-683x1024.jpeg 683w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-768x1152.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-1024x1536.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-1365x2048.jpeg 1365w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-900x1350.jpeg 900w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-1280x1920.jpeg 1280w, https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/files\/2022\/10\/Newby-Alexander-scaled.jpeg 1707w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 200px) 100vw, 200px\" \/><\/a>CASSANDRA L. NEWBY-ALEXANDER<\/strong>\u00a0is an associate professor of History at Norfolk State University and a dean at its College of Liberal Arts. Newby-Alexander also currently serves on the executive board of Jamestown-Yorktown Foundation Board. Newby-Alexander was the co-chair of the Virginia Commission on African American History Education in the Commonwealth and Historical Commission of the Supreme Court of Virginia. Newby-Alexander received a B.A. in American Government and African American Studies at the University of Virginia and her Ph.D. in American History from the College of William and Mary, where she was a graduate teaching assistant and earned a teaching fellowship. Newby-Alexander is the author of\u00a0<em>Virginia Waterways and the Underground Railroad<\/em>\u00a0(The History Press, 2017)\u00a0<em>An African American History of the Civil War in Hampton Roads<\/em>\u00a0(Arcadia, 2010).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Banner image: In June 1860, slave catchers battled with freedom seekers who were escaping by boat across the Delaware Bay (illustration by John Osler, colorized by Jordan Schucker, House Divided Project) Download PDF version of this essay (coming soon) See related Timeline entries &nbsp; Thirty-one-year-old John Atkinson \u201cwas a prisoner of hope under James Ray, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":3030,"parent":1609,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-1916","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1916","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1916"}],"version-history":[{"count":23,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1917,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1916\/revisions\/1917"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1609"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/housedivided.dickinson.edu\/sites\/ugrr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}