Table of Contents

OAH Magazine of History
Volume 15, No 4
Summer 2001

Copyright ©
Organization of American Historians

Flight to Freedom: One Family and the Story of the Underground Railroad

James Oliver Horton

During the first half of the twentieth century, a number of influential sociologists, including E. Franklin Frazier of Howard University, argued that slavery devastated the African American family. This view gained public attention with the release of the Moynihan Report, a 1965 Department of Labor study that claimed that a host of supposed attributes of impoverished families—disorganization, promiscuity, emasculation, and matriarchy—were products of slavery.

The classic works of the 1960s and 1970s, such as Herbert Gutman’s The Black Family in Slavery and Freedom, challenged this view. The revisionists argued that most slave children grew up in nuclear families with their fathers present and insisted that the slave family emerged from slavery battered but essentially intact, underscoring the resilience of African American culture under slavery. The revisionists also showed that during Reconstruction, former slaves eagerly took advantage of the new possibilities for stable family life provided by freedom.

In recent years, scholars have complicated our understanding of family life under slavery. Brenda Stevenson, author of Life in Black and White: Family and Community in the Slave South, demonstrated that many large slaveholders had numerous plantations and frequently shifted slaves, splitting families as they were transferred. She also underscored the disruptive effects on family life of the tremendous migration from the Chesapeake region to the old Southwest. In her study of slave households in rural Louisiana, Ann Patton Malone revealed the variety of family structures under slavery, the changes in household structure over the life course, and the slave community’s acceptance of all kinds of households. Studies of slave childhood by Wilma King and Marie Jenkins Schwartz revealed both how masters sought to undercut the authority of slave parents and how parents were able to transmit a distinct cultural heritage.

In the following essay, James Oliver Horton, the Benjamin Banneker Professor of History at George Washington University, author of Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community, and coauthor (with Lois E. Horton) of Black Bostonians and In Hope of Liberty, looks at the depth of family and kinship ties under slavery. He tells the remarkable story of two brothers who had been separated under bondage but were reunited by the underground railroad.

Although there are many specific definitions, the term “underground railroad” is generally used to describe the movement, most widespread during the three decades before the Civil War, that sought to assist slaves as they attempted to escape from bondage. In reality, of course, the movement was not a railroad and generally did not run underground, but it did attempt to move fugitives from one safe place to another, and it was largely secret in its activities.

Since any effort to assist a slave to escape might technically be included under the general description, one could argue that the underground railroad actually started before the nineteenth century. When Quakers in the mid eighteenth century condemned slavery and offered aid to fugitives, their efforts fell under the definition. When,during the American Revolution,guerrilla bands of whites, Native Americans, and free blacks fighting for the British Army raided southern plantations and freed slaves from American masters, their actions might also qualify. And certainly when free people—black, white or red—took in the fugitives who fled by the thousands during the disruption of the Revolution, they were acting in the spirit of the underground railroad, although the name had not yet been coined.

Although there are many sometimes contradictory tales about how the term first came into general usage, it almost certainly was partly in response to the coming of the railroad train during the 1830s and 1840s. As the new technology of the day, the railroad brought new words to the language and gave new meaning to older terms. These became the code words used by antislavery groups dedicated to assisting runaway slaves. They called routes of escape “rails;” safe houses were called “stations;” fugitives themselves were the “passengers;” and those who assisted fugitives were referred to as “conductors.” From the mid nineteenth century onward into the twentieth century, a folklore grew up surrounding the underground railroad, which has become one of the most romanticized aspects of American history. The story emphasizes the role of organized groups of reformers, generally pictured as white and often Quaker, helping fugitives, most often pictured as passive victims of slavery guided to freedom in the northern states on their way to Canada.

In reality, fugitives were not often passive in their escape. There were true heroes like Harriet Tubman, the fugitive from slavery in Maryland who, once free, went back into the South twenty times and guided more than three hundred slaves to freedom during the 1850s. Yet, for every Tubman who actually brought slaves out of the South, there were thousands of slaves who planned and executed their own escapes, alone or with the aid of friends and family who were most often also in slavery. Most of their names have been lost to history, yet their determination to be free in spite of almost overwhelming odds remains a symbol of the most fundamental human impulse for freedom.

The number of slaves who were able to escape is in dispute. Some estimates range to one hundred thousand or more in the decades before the Civil War. The vast distances involved, the hardships of unpredictable weather, the general ignorance of distant regions, and the ever-watchful, ever-present slaveholding authority made escape difficult. The unspeakable consequences of failure made attempted escape frightening. Substantial numbers of runaways were recaptured or returned voluntarily when their chances of successful escape appeared slim. Sometimes slaves used temporary escape as a bargaining point for better treatment or extended privileges to visit family on neighboring plantations.

When fugitives did strike out for freedom, their destinations varied, depending on their starting point. In the lower South, Mexico (which abolished slavery in 1829) offered a tempting haven, as did Native American areas in Florida and elsewhere. For port towns along the Mississippi or on the Atlantic coast, black sailors and river men became legendary for their willingness to assist fugitives who might stow away on vessels bound for the North, Latin America, Europe, or other freedom ports. Slaves held in the upper South—in Kentucky just across the Ohio River from the freedom of Ohio or in Maryland or northern Virginia within a few days travel of Pennsylvania—had the best opportunity for escape to the northern states where they could often find aid from the organized underground railroad groups that have become a part of American folklore. Once in Cincinnati or Ripley, Ohio, or in New York, Boston, or Philadelphia, a fugitive could find people to help and various kinds of aid, from food and clothing to medical attention, legal assistance, or a job if need be. A fugitive could also find protection from slave catchers, bounty hunters employed by slaveholders to recover and return runaways. Blacks and whites who formed abolitionist groups also established vigilance committees that hid and defended fugitives when needed. Spontaneous protection was also provided by local black communities.

One of the most effective organizers of the formal segment of the underground railroad was Philadelphia African American abolitionist William Still. Born free in New Jersey in 1821, Still was the son of former slaves. His father, Levin Steel (later Still), was able to free himself by self-purchase, but his mother, Sidney, and his two brothers and two sisters born in slavery remained enslaved in Maryland. Levin and Sidney concluded that escape was the only way to free the family. They were successful in getting to New Jersey, but their freedom was short lived. Slave catchers overtook them, captured Sidney and all four of the children and returned them to Maryland. For months Sidney’s master watched closely to insure that she would not attempt another escape. When after a number of months she finally found her chance, it was clear that a second attempt with all of the children would be impossible. At this point Sidney made one of the most difficult decisions any mother can make. Leaving the two older boys in slavery, she struck out for freedom a second time, taking only the two younger girls with her. On the night she left in 1807, she went to her sons’ bed and while they slept she “kissed them—consigned then into the hands of God and took her departure again for the land of liberty.”

This time, the slave woman and her two daughters made good their escape and joined her husband. They changed their last name from Steel to Still, and Sidney changed her first name to Charity in order to conceal their true identities. They settled in Burlington, New Jersey, and over the next four decades, the Stills built a life for themselves and their growing family in New Jersey. By 1850 their children were grown. Three of their daughters lived in Philadelphia. One, Mary, ran a school for black children, was active in the African Methodist Episcopal church, and after the Civil War worked to aid newly-freed slaves in South Carolina and Florida. One of the boys, James, became a doctor in Medford, New Jersey, and another, Samuel, became a farmer in New Jersey.

There were eighteen children in all. William was the youngest and historically the most well known. He moved to Philadelphia at the age of twenty-three where he worked as a mail clerk and a janitor for the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. He educated himself, became a businessperson, and eventually was appointed chair of the General Vigilance Committee of Philadelphia, a group dedicated to defending and assisting fugitive slaves seeking refuge in the city. Over the next few years William Still worked to organize an extensive network of safe houses and conductors, as the foundation of one of the most effective underground railroad systems in the country. The group raised money to assist fugitives and maintained a watchful eye on the movements of slave catchers throughout Pennsylvania. Still also acted as an agent for two black newspapers published in Canada, one, Voice of the Fugitive, edited by Henry Bibb and another, Provincial Freedman, edited by Mary Ann Shadd Cary, formerly of Philadelphia. Information gathered from these publications was invaluable to runaways bound north from Philadelphia.

In his work, William Still became acquainted with the giants of the abolitionist movement. He knew Frederick Douglass, the former slave who had become one of the most powerful voices of antislavery in the world, and white abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison, whose Boston newspaper, the Liberator, was the most effective of all antislavery organs. He was good friends with Harriet Tubman and most of the other prominent abolitionists of the time. Still is also one of the most well-known abolitionists of our time, in part because he left documents that historians have found invaluable. He maintained meticulous records of his organization’s activities and of the almost eight hundred fugitives it assisted before the Civil War ended slavery. In 1872 he published his records along with the personal stories of hundreds of runaways in The Underground Railroad.

One of the unforgettable stories told in this book illustrates the personal meaning of slavery to all African Americans of the time. Even for those who had never been slaves, slavery was a very personal enemy and an ever-present evil. Especially after the passage of the federal Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, free blacks were vulnerable to being kidnapped into slavery. This new law strengthened the 1793 law making it easier for slaveholders to recover their human property. Under it, persons accused of being fugitives had no right to a jury trial, no right to a lawyer, not even the right to speak in self defense. It was not difficult to charge a free person with being a runaway slave and, with minimal official procedure, to take them from a northern state into the slaveholding South to be illegally bound into slavery. Thus, no African American was completely safe from slavery even if they lived in the North. As Daniel Payne, bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Church argued, slavery was the concern of every African American and “weighed heavily on every man who had a drop of African blood in his veins.” Still agreed passionately and demonstrated his commitment to antislavery work with unmistakable action on behalf of fugitives. Yet, not even he knew how personal his work would become when he was introduced to a middle-aged man from Alabama in search of information.

In a letter written on 8 August 1850 from his office in Philadelphia, William Still described the encounter.”Two men came into this office, one of whom I recognized, the other was an entire stranger. My acquaintance introduced the stranger to me by the name of Peter Freedman of Alabama.”Still went on to explain that Freedman sought information about his family who had come north as fugitives some years before. Freedman then related a long heart-rending tale of his beingstolen awayfrom some place near Philadelphia when he was six years old. He had only dim memories of his parents but did remember a brother with whom he had lived in slavery in Kentucky and then in Alabama. In Alabama, they were sold and resold until finallyFreedman’s brother died. After several years, Freedman convinced a white man to buy him and to allow him to work to earn enough money to buy his freedom. Working at night and extra hours during the day, Peter became a free man. Determined to find his family after more than forty years, Freedman worked until he accumulated enough money to finance his search. He traveled 1,500 miles north and finally arrived in Philadelphia. He told Still that he intended to post notices and to have messages read in the city’s black churches. At this point Still asked Freedman if he knew the names of his parents, and suddenly there was no need for further notification. He did not know their last names, but their first names were Levin and Sidney. Still continued asking questions but, as he said, “by this time I perceived that a most wonderful story was about to be disclosed,”and so it was.

It was after his mother Sidney had escaped with the two younger girls that Peter and his brother Levin Jr. were sold to the owners of a brickyard in Lexington, Kentucky. After Levin Jr. died in Alabama, Peter married a slave, Lavinia, and the couple had three children. He was allowed to hire out his spare time, and it was at that point that he began saving to emancipate himself and his family. When he became friends with Joseph Friedman, a Jewish merchant, he hit upon the plan to have Friedman buy him and allow him in turn, to buy his freedom.

We can hardly imagine the emotions shared by the two men as they realized that they were brothers. William Still perceived it first. “My feelings were unutterable,”he explained.”I could see in the face of my newfound brother, the likeness of my mother.” At first William considered not telling Peter what he had discovered before speaking to their sister who lived in Philadelphia and who William had planned to meet with that evening. But the emotion of the moment was too great. William asked others in the office to leave, then turned to Peter.”I told him I could tell him all about his kinfolk.”The next day Peter was reunited with his mother. Levin Sr., the father of the family, was dead by this time, but Peter met five brothers and three sisters that he had never known.”I shall not attempt to describe the feelings of my mother and the family on learning the fact that Peter was one of us; I will leave that for you to imagine,” William wrote. Indeed it is hard for us in the twenty-first century to imagine those feelings or a time when the separation of families and the bondage of human beings was constitutional and supported by the full force of the federal government of the United States of America. Yet, slavery as a central social and economic feature of the South and a legal and political fact of American life created these and other hardships for families as a matter of course.

This family’s struggle was not over, however. When Peter left Alabama, he left behind a wife and children whom he was determined to free. William reminded him of how difficult this would be, but Peter answered that hewould as soon go out of the world as not go back and do all he could for them.William was right, of course; it was a very difficult task, but Peter would not give up. For five years he struggled to free his family. He worked with members of the underground railroad who at one point secured their escape to Indiana, but the arm of slavery reached out from the South, and they were recaptured and taken back. When Peter attempted to purchase their freedom, their master demanded the almost impossible sum of five thousand dollars. At this point, the networks of underground railroad contacts established by William Still over the years became the source of salvation for Peter and his family. With the assistance ofmany of his brother’s abolitionist friends, Peter began a lecture tour, telling his story and that of his enslaved family in order to raise the money that was demanded for their freedom. It took four additional years of fundraising for Peter to gather the money, but in October of 1854 he accomplished his goal.

Once free, Peter Still and his family settled on a ten-acre farm in Burlington, New Jersey, where they lived until Peter died of pneumonia in 1868. William Still continued his underground railroad activities and worked for civil rights in Philadelphia throughout the Civil War. He also raised funds to assist former slaves, served on Philadelphia’s Board of Trade, and helped to establish a Young Man’s Christian Association (YMCA) for the city’s blacks. He lived into the twentieth century and died in 1901. Many descendants of the Still family continue to live in southern New Jersey, where they hold regular family reunions.

The story of the Still family illustrates the intimate nature of the antislavery movement and the underground railroad to African Americans in the decades before the Civil War. Even free blacks like William Still had a personal stake in freeing slaves and generally saw abolition and achieving civil rights for themselves as twin issues to which they were committed. The Stills understood that running away from slavery was no easy decision. For women especially, it sometimes meant deciding to leave children behind. For men, it often meant leaving their families. But family ties were strong, and even though it often took years, African Americans struggled to protect their families and to reunite those torn apart by slavery. The Still family story, like that of the underground railroad and the story of the abolition movement, is a freedom story, an all-American story of the many who refused to accept the denial of freedom. Their courage and their cause can inspire Americans at the beginning of the twenty-first century to push on towards the completion of their struggle.

Bolster, W. Jeffrey. Black Jacks: African American Seamen in the Age of Sail. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997.

Horton, James Oliver. Free People of Color: Inside the African American Community. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1993.

Horton, James Oliver, and Lois E. Horton. In Hope of Liberty: Culture, Community, and Protest Among Northern Free Blacks, 1700-1860. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Powers, Bernard E., Jr. Black Charlestonians: A Social History, 1822-1885. Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 1994.

Wilson, Carol. Freedom At Risk: The Kidnapping of Free Blacks in America, 1780-1865. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1994.

James Oliver Horton is the Benjamin Banneker Professor of History at George Washington University and director of the African American Communities Project at the Smithsonian Institution. He is a member of the Executive Board of the Organization of American Historians.