Book Notes
The Liberty Line: The Legend of the
Underground Railroad. By Larry Gara.
(Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996. xiv + 201p.; index.)
Appropriately titled when originally
published in 1961, this seminal work on one
of America's most enduring legends is
finally available in paperback edition.
Having researched, written and lectured
on this topic for nearly 50 years, Professor
Gara skillfully distinguishes fact and
faction, while chronicling the colorful and
frequently misstated history of the
underground railroad. The author's new preface
reiterates a central theme of the
original volume-that the underground railroad
legend has become part of the American
psyche. Further re-examination of the
traditional version has convinced Gara
the legend of the passive slave being
shepherded by whites to freedom is
overstated, while the roles of white abolition-
ists and the colonization movement,
along with the nonviolent nature of the slave
escapes, are understated in contemporary
literature. Still, the legendary accounts
persist. In this regard the underground
railroad might be comparable to the French
resistance movement, where recent
research indicates the role of an organized,
large-scale resistance has been
exaggerated by postwar reflections and reminis-
cences. Gara examines such historical
dangers as recollections and hyperbole in
his concluding chapter,
"Reminiscences and Romance." In the final analysis,
Americans love their legends, and all
too often, despite Gara's careful scholarship,
are reluctant to be confused by
publication of the truth.
Ohio Historical Society Steve
Gordon
Niagara-1796: The Fortress Possessed.
(Youngstown, New York: Old Fort
Niagara Association, Inc., 1996. 64p.;
illustrations, appendices, notes, authors.)
This attractive booklet commemorates the
bicentennial of one of the last chapters
in the birth of the American nation-the
1796 transferal of the western frontier
forts to U.S. sovereignty. Published as
part of this bicentennial celebration,
Niagara-1796 is a collection of six essays by noted historians
detailing the
events surrounding the thirteen-year
"hold-over" period during which Great Britain
retained possession of five Great Lakes
fortresses located on American soil, focus-
ing particularly on Niagara. The first
essay by R. Arthur Bowler reveals the unre-
solved political and military situation
in the Old Northwest at the time of the 1783
Treaty of Paris and explores the
diplomatic struggles between a young nation and
the old colonial power to come to terms
on a boundary which was actually domi-
nated by Native peoples. Carl Benn's
article examines in more detail the precipi-
tous decline in the fortunes of the
powerful Iroquois Confederacy during this period
caused by the withdrawal of their
British allies and the ascendancy of the new
Republic. The article by Dennis P.
Farmer looks at an emerging American army in
the 1790s, about to take responsibility
for the Northwest frontier outposts. Brian
Leigh Dunnigan takes a closer look at
the American detachment that was to effect
the transfer at Niagara and the last
British garrison which it displaced, while
Robert S. Allen describes the
establishment of Fort George, the new British out-
post across the river. Each article
includes pertinent notes, and the volume also
includes in the appendices excerpts from
the 1794 Jay Treaty, British orders con-
cerning the western posts, contemporary
newspaper accounts of the transfers and