The Underground Railroad

Very interesting, though some of the text was slow to read due to the somewhat formal, unpolished language. But the lack of modern editing also made the stories more real, as they were taken from real life accounts. The book was a good reminder that, although the worst place for a slave to be was the Deep South, the northern states also had many anti-abolitionists who were more than willing to return an escaped slave back south.

After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed, the migration of escaped slaves into Canada increased. I always thought Canada was a paradise for escaped slaves -- a Promised Land. Not so. The last chapter on Canada was very disheartening: "In the 1850s... blacks were expelled from camp meetings, and those show more churchmen who... wished to help educate the fugitive, now argued that separate schools were needed because of white opposition." One town with many blacks was called "Nigger Hole." The chapter goes on to say: "...racial jokes increased in the press; Negroes who, a decade or two earlier, had been able to employ whites to work for them no longer could do so."

A worthwhile, recommended history book. show less