The OHIO HISTORICAL Quarterly
VOLUME 69 ?? NUMBER 3 ?? JULY
1960
The Underground Railroad:
A Re-evaluation
By LARRY GARA*
FOR MANY YEARS discerning scholars have
suspected the
inadequacy of traditional accounts of
the underground rail-
road, yet the elusive nature of source
material for re-evalu-
ating the history of the mysterious institution has
apparently
discouraged such reinterpretation.1
Even some recent encyclo-
pedia articles, textbooks, and
monographs describe the
underground railroad in terms of its
legendary character-
istics. The thrilling human drama with
its mysterious signals,
its intricate network of stations, and
its hairbreadth
escapes has a secure place in the
lecture notes of countless
history teachers who have felt
confident that this part of their
survey course, at least, need not be
revised. Yet these same
historians know that an oversimplified
view of the under-
ground railroad which depicts only
saintly abolitionists con-
tending against wicked slaveholders
lacks historical validity.
Three elements in the more traditional
accounts are par-
ticularly open to reinterpretation.
They are: the implication
* Larry Gara is a professor of history
at Grove City College.
1 This article was read as a paper at
the annual meeting of the American His-
torical Association in Chicago in
December 1959. It is based on a book-length
study of the legend of the underground
railroad to be published by the University
of Kentucky Press. A grant from the
Penrose Fund of the American Philosophi-
cal Society made it possible for the
author to complete the research upon which
both studies are based.
218 THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
of very large numbers of underground
railroad passengers;
the role of the underground railroad in
the abolition move-
ment; and the part that the fugitives
themselves played in the
underground railroad saga.
Most accounts of the underground
railroad give the impres-
sion of multitudes of escaping slaves
aided by myriads of
dedicated underground railroad workers,
without whose help
the fugitives' flight would have been
hopeless. Although few
accounts provide specific statistical
information, many of them
are so slanted as to picture the
underground railroad as an
extremely popular and frequently used
mode of transportation.
Newspaper stories, local and county
histories, and the
reminiscences of abolitionists have
usually provided the basis
for such impressions.
The romantic nature of the underground
railroad has
always appealed to feature writers, who
have inserted such
material in hundreds of newspapers from
the close of the
Civil War to the present. The articles
often appeared when a
local abolitionist died or when an old
house--supposed to
have been an underground railroad
station--was razed. On
occasion they reflected local pride in
the community's seldom
documented reputation as an active
depot. Some newspapers
also carried interviews with aged
abolitionists. In 1893 the
Chicago Evening Post reported that a ninety-one-year-old
abolitionist found "an abiding
consolation in the reflection
that he [had] aided 3,000 slaves to escape
from their pursuers
to the safe haven of Canadian
soil." In 1923 an Ohio news-
paper commented on the destruction of a
noted Indiana under-
ground railroad station by fire.
According to the account the
residence had contained "secret
closets, [and] secret cellars
and in the war period a secret tunnel
led to the river." In 1935
the Cleveland Press reported
that an old mill, once a noted
underground railroad station
"where thousands of runaway
slaves hid from their owners in the
south," had fallen into
ruin. The owner of the mill, who
recalled stories he had
heard as a boy, told reporters that
"as many as fifty slaves
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 219
would be housed under the wheel until
officers and owners
would pass by with their
bloodhounds."2
Similar accounts, with more emphasis on
local pride, found
their way into many of the local and
county histories which
were so popular in the latter decades
of the nineteenth cen-
tury. One such Ohio history claimed
that there were many in
the state "who could boast that
they had helped hundreds of
escaping Negroes to the North." An
Illinois county history
maintained that Galesburg was well
known "as the strongest
kind of an abolitionist place. Here the
weary, hunted slaves
could find a refuge, some comfort, and
a host of sympathizing
friends." A history of Walworth
County, Wisconsin, in-
cluded an account of one fugitive slave
incident as evidence
that a branch of the underground
railroad had run through
a part of the county. Despite the
unreliable nature of such
vague and legendary materials,
historians have sometimes
resorted to their use.3
Most of the readily available sources
on the underground
railroad are abolitionist accounts, and
historians have tended
to accept the abolitionist view of the
institution as the authen-
tic historical picture. Scholars have focused
attention on the
abolitionists and their achievements,
portraying them as
clever, daring crusaders whose network
of stations covered
the entire North. Albert Bushnell Hart
described the under-
ground railroad as "a conspiracy
of thousands of people
banded together for the deliberate
purpose of depriving their
southern neighbors of their property
and of defying the
fugitive-slave laws of the United
States."4
The writers of abolition memoirs penned
their accounts
long years after the events had transpired.
Their reminiscen-
ces are highly partisan accounts
written by old men recalling
2 Clippings from the Chicago Evening
Post, July 18, 1893, Columbus Evening
Dispatch, July 9, 1923, Cleveland Press, February 20,
1932, in scrapbooks in the
Wilbur H. Siebert Collection in the library of the Ohio
Historical Society.
3 Alexander Black, The Story of Ohio (Boston,
1888), 217; History of Knox
County, Illinois (Chicago, 1878), 209; History of Walworth County,
Wisconsin
(Chicago, 1882), 354.
4 Albert Bushnell Hart, Slavery and
Abolition, 1831-1841 (New York and
London, 1906), 228.
220
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and justifying their own parts in a
victorious crusade. In
1886, for example, the Rev. Austin
Willey published The
History of the Antislavery Cause in
State and Nation. In
the Preface, Willey revealed his
determination to make a
contribution to the history of the
"great Antislavery Reform
. . . and thus aid in giving its
priceless lessons to mankind,
in protecting the cause from perversion
in history, in honoring
the memory of its noble men and women,
whose self-
sacrificing heroism carried it to
power, and in giving to God
the glory of the victory." The age
of abolition reform,
thought the veteran crusader, would one
day be regarded "as
the supreme era in American
history."
Historians who have treated the
underground railroad
have borrowed heavily from the pioneer
work of Professor
Wilbur H. Siebert, whose first book on
the subject, The
Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom, appeared
in 1898.5 Professor Siebert's diligence
enabled him to un-
cover a great mass of material on the
underground railroad.
He corresponded with hundreds of aged
abolitionists and
their descendants, clipped uncounted
newspaper articles, and
copied all references to the secret
institution that came to his
attention. The Siebert papers at the
Ohio Historical Society
and in the Houghton Library of Harvard
University are
indeed impressive collections.6
Professor Siebert's work reflected the
postwar northern
point of view. He regarded the
abolitionists as sincere and
dedicated people whose persistent and
courageous efforts
brought an end to slavery in the United
States. Siebert
accepted abolitionist statements at
face value. His sources
colored his history, and there was
little in his book with which
the reformers themselves would have
quarreled. He claimed
to have identified more than three
thousand underground rail-
5 The
remarks concerning Professor Siebert and his work also apply to his
several later books and many articles on
the underground railroad as well as to
the work of a number of his students. He
has not modified his interpretation
as set forth in his first book in any of
his later publications.
6 Much of the material in these two
collections is duplicated, and many of the
items at the Ohio Historical Society are
copies of original clippings in the
Houghton Library.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 221
road workers and estimated that as many
as forty thousand
fugitive slaves took the underground
line through Ohio alone
in three decades preceding the Civil
War. Professor Siebert
concluded that the underground railroad
was an extremely
active agency and that the number of
fugitives it assisted was
legion. Siebert's book set the pattern
for underground rail-
road histories. Most later writers
repeated his assumptions
and even lifted some of the facts from
his monumental pio-
neer effort. They did not question his
estimate of the number
of slaves that escaped.7
There is no way to determine the exact
number of slaves
who escaped from the South, and even if
this were possible
it would not reveal how many of the
fugitives received sub-
stantial aid from the underground
railroad. In the period
preceding the Civil War, politicians
frequently cited numbers,
but they seldom disclosed their source
of information. Their
statistics usually reflected their
political concerns rather than
any accurate knowledge of the fugitive
slave problem. In
1850 Senator James Murray Mason of
Virginia said that
Virginia's annual losses from slave
escapes had been estimated
at one hundred thousand dollars.
Congressman Thomas L.
Clingman of North Carolina claimed that
abolitionists had
caused slaves worth the same sum--a
hundred thousand dol-
lars--to flee from a few Maryland
counties in a six-months
period. The figures were inconsistent
with the facts. Those
who compiled them overlooked the
relatively low monetary
value of slaves addicted to running
away and their general
uselessness as servants. Congressman
Edward Stanly, a
unionist Whig from Clingman's own
state, did not share
Clingman's fears. "I do not
believe my colleague's constit-
uents ever lost a slave by northern
Abolitionists," said
Stanly. In answer to Senator Robert
Barnwell Rhett's charge
that there were fifteen thousand
fugitive slaves in the free
7 For
examples of recent pro-abolition accounts of the underground railroad,
see Henrietta Buckmaster, Let My
People Go: The Story of the Underground
Railroad and the Growth of the
Abolition Movement (New York and
London,
1941), and William Breyfogle, Make Free:
The Story of the Underground Rail-
road (Philadelphia and New York, 1958).
222
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
states, of which only half a dozen had
been recovered, Henry
Clay said he did not believe the
statement, for "no man knows
how many fugitives there are in the
North." Clay added that
they had not been returned South
because in most cases their
masters had not cared to take the
trouble to chase them.8
Census statistics on fugitive slaves
were by no means com-
plete or wholly accurate. At best they
provided an indication
of how many slaves were reported by
their owners to have
run away permanently within a one-year
period preceding the
census. These official figures
indicated that the South lost
approximately a thousand slaves a year
by running away.9
Although these census figures were probably
low, they were
accepted as accurate, on occasion at
least, by abolitionists and
antislavery sympathizers. Abolition
newspapers reprinted the
census figures without challenging
them. When a southern
pamphleteer writing under the name
Randolph of Roanoke
claimed that, between 1810 and 1850,
61,624 slaves had
escaped from the South, Gamaliel
Bailey, editor of a Wash-
ington abolition paper, used the census
statistics to refute him.
Bailey believed the calculations of
Randolph were "at least
ten times too large." Randolph had quoted from a
publication
of an antislavery society in which the
abolitionists boasted of
the achievement of assisting a hundred
and fifty-one slaves
in escaping during the previous year.
"All the grievance to
the South, inflicted by
Abolitionists," concluded Bailey, "is
very trifling, even now when it is
represented as so enormous."
Writing at a later date, Bailey pointed
out that the northern
free Negro population increased at a
ratio "scarcely more
than a fifth as high as that of the
white increase, and a third
of that of slave increase." He
concluded, "It is a fair pre-
sumption from this fact, that the
number of fugitive slaves
in the North has been greatly
exaggerated." Of course, the
8 Congressional Globe, 31 cong., 1 sess., Appendix, part 1, 340, part 2, 1605;
31
cong., 2 sess., Appendix, 321.
9 According to the census figures there
were 1,011 fugitive slaves in 1850 and
803 in 1860.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 223
statistics suited Bailey's need for
factual material to clinch
an argument.10
The Canadian census was no more
accurate than the
United States census. Samuel Ringgold
Ward, himself a
fugitive slave, commented in 1855 that
it was "a matter of
great difficulty" for slaves to
reach Canada. "It follows,"
Ward said, "that but few comparatively
can come." The
Canadian census bore out Ward's
statement, though the
statistics were confusing. In 1850 the
Canadian census gave
both 4,669 and 8,000 as the total
number of colored people in
western Canada. In 1860 it was slightly
more than 11,000.
But the census did not reveal what
percentage had been freed
or born in Canada. Around the time of
the Civil War un-
official estimates placed from twenty
thousand to seventy-five
thousand Negroes in Canada, and those
making such esti-
mates usually assumed that all the
colored people in Canada
were either fugitive slaves or their
descendants.11
Actually only a small percentage of the
millions of slaves in
the American South ran away permanently
or seriously
attempted to escape. On the other hand,
temporary escapes
were quite common. Slaves often ran to
the nearby woods
or some other hiding place to escape
punishment, to avoid a
difficult task, or merely to get away
from the drudgery of a
monotonous routine. When slaves
disappeared, their owners,
as well as the professional slave
hunters, usually looked for
them somewhere in the neighborhood.
They did not assume
that the slave had headed north unless they had a
special reason
to think that he had. Most slaves who
ran away returned
voluntarily to their familiar homes.
Only a small minority
risked the ordeal of a terrifying trip
into an unknown land,
10 National Era, August
22, 1850, June 19, 1851. These items were kindly
called to my attention by Joel Goldfarb,
who was doing research for a study of
Gamaliel Bailey.
11 Samuel R. Ward, Autobiography of a
Fugitive Negro: His Anti-Slavery
Labours in the United States, Canada,
& England (London, 1855), 157-158;
extracts from Samuel Gridley Howe, The
Refugees from Slavery in Canada West
(Boston, 1864), and reprint from Ontario
Historical Society Papers and Rec-
ords, XVII (1919), 74-84, of Fred Landon, "Canada's Part
in Freeing the Slave,"
in scrapbooks in Siebert Collection,
Ohio Historical Society.
224
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
and most of that exceptional minority
traveled alone and
unaided by anything remotely resembling
the underground
railroad of legendary fame.
Many fugitives failed to receive
substantial aid from an
organized underground railroad because
there was very little
of such assistance available to them.
In 1896 Thomas
Wentworth Higginson recalled,
"There was no organization
in Mass., answering properly to the
usual description of the
U.G.R.R." The elderly abolitionist
believed that such organi-
zations had existed only in the West.
Yet Oberlin College's
President James H. Fairchild, a veteran
abolitionist from the
West, recalled that the "work of
helping fugitives, although
quite effective, had no visible and
little real organization."
Fairchild believed that the most nearly
organized systems
were found at such points as
Cincinnati, Philadelphia, and
Wilmington, Delaware, where there were
communities of free
Negroes who would receive the fugitives
and give them
shelter until arrangements could be
made to send them on
their way.12
Most abolitionist aid to fugitives was
on a rather hap-
hazard basis, but a small number of
abolitionists did make a
specialty of assisting runaway slaves.
Owen Lovejoy of
Princeton, Illinois, Levi Coffin of
Newport (Fountain City),
Indiana, and later Cincinnati, J.
Miller McKim of the Phila-
delphia Vigilance Committee, and Thomas
Garrett of Wil-
mington all enjoyed well-deserved reputations
for under-
ground railroad service. Those
abolitionists who were leaders
in the work of helping fugitives took
pride in their service and
made little or no effort to hide their
lights under a bushel. On
the contrary, they rather enjoyed the
notoriety. This was
especially true after the passage of
the unpopular fugitive
slave law of 1850. The efforts of a few
abolitionists furnished
the raw material for numerous contemporary stories and
post-Civil War accounts, and helped
create an impression
12 Thomas
Wentworth Higginson to Wilbur H. Siebert, July 24, 1896, in scrap-
book in Siebert Collection, Houghton
Library, Harvard University; James H.
Fairchild, The Underground Railroad (Western
Reserve Historical Society, Tract
No. 87, Cleveland, 1895), 103-104.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 225
that nearly all abolitionists spent
most of their time working
on the underground railroad.
Some abolitionists had little
opportunity to assist runaway
slaves because few if any came their
way. In 1893 an aged
abolition veteran recalled that he saw
only one fugitive, and
that "he turned out to be a liar
and no fugitive" at all. An
Ohio resident who considered himself an
underground rail-
road conductor later admitted that only
about half a dozen
persons had come under his care. Still
another Ohioan said,
"As to the underground railroad
operations I did not have
much opportunity to aid runaways as but
few passed through
[the town where he lived]." A
Massachusetts veteran of the
antislavery struggle recalled that when
he had lived in eastern
New England prior to 1846, "it was
extremely rare for any
fugitive slave to be seen." Later
he saw more, but "still in
comparatively small numbers." 13
Some abolitionists looked upon
underground railroad
activity as only ameliorative and
diversionary. Their prime
objective was to end slavery, not to
assist a few former slaves,
and they made a distinction between the
two activities. In
their annual report for 1844 members of
the Boston Female
Anti-Slavery Society posed the
question, "Who is an Aboli-
tionist?" They answered, not
necessarily he who frees his
slaves, nor he who gives aid to
fugitives or money to purchase
their children. They recognized that
aiding fugitives was a
humane and benevolent pursuit,
"though in its nature, owing
to the necessary secrecy of its
performance, and its tendency
to relieve the glutted market, not
often beneficial even directly
to the cause." 14
In 1850 the Female Anti-Slavery Society
of Glasgow,
Scotland, withdrew support from the
American Garrisonian
abolitionists because of the
Garrisonians' alleged hostility to
Christianity. At the same time, the
Scottish society com-
13 Edward L. Pierce to Wilbur H.
Siebert, March 21, 1893, N. A. Hunt to
Siebert, February 12, 1896, N. D. Rose
to Siebert, September 24, 1894, B. F.
Hoffman to Siebert, October 7, 1892, and
Thomas F. Stone to Siebert, November
3, 1893, in scrapbooks in Siebert Collection, Ohio
Historical Society.
14 National Anti-Slavery Standard, November
21, 1844.
226
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
mended the work of the New York
Vigilance Committee.
Maria W. Chapman wrote a strong reply
to the Scottish
women. She admitted that the objects of
the vigilance com-
mittee were "humane and good
ones." Most abolitionists, she
argued, were "engaged in the work
of secreting, forwarding,
feeding, clothing, and placing fugitive
slaves," but when such
work was proposed as a substitute for
the American Anti-
Slavery Society's job of
"propagating those principles and
inculcating that course of conduct
whose universality will
shake down slavery itself, . . . then
the idea of a Vigilance
Committee becomes a mere hypocritical
pretence." This, said
Mrs. Chapman, was to "shelter two-and-a-half
thousand,
instead of freeing two-and-a-half
millions! the greater all the
while including the less!"15
Abolitionists sometimes deplored the
practice of sending
fugitive slaves out of the country
instead of making it safe
for them to remain in the United
States. In the spring of
1857 Thomas Wentworth Higginson made
two speeches be-
fore his fellow antislavery workers in
which he discussed the
matter of sending off fugitives. He
said: "The Underground
Railroad makes cowards of us all. It
makes us think and hesi-
tate and look over our shoulders, and
listen, and wonder, and
not dare to tell the truth."
"It may be a necessary evil," he
asserted, "but an evil it
is." It was degrading to let any man
leave a city because he had entered it
"upon the Southern
track." "It is degrading,
dishonourable, demoralizing," he
thundered. In the second address
Higginson denied there was
any valid reason for sending slaves
away. Speaking in Bos-
ton, he said, "Once resolve that
Boston is the terminus of the
Underground Railroad henceforth, and
Boston is Canada--
these streets though a part of a
Republic, are as free as if
they were ruled by a Queen."16
15 Anti-Slavery Cause, a four-page pamphlet published by the Glasgow Female
Anti-Slavery Society in 1850 and
deposited in the Weston Papers in the Boston
Public Library; Maria W. Chapman to the
nine signers of the Scottish women's
letter, June 8, 1850, in the Weston
Papers.
16 National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 16, June 20, 1857.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 227
Even some of the most ardent
underground railroad work-
ers disliked putting too much emphasis
on that phase of their
service. J. Miller McKim of the
Philadelphia Vigilance Com-
mittee gave only grudging consent to
having one of his letters
concerning fugitive slaves reprinted in
the 1858 edition of
The Liberty Bell. He would have preferred to write on
another subject, he said, and feared it
might give some of the
British abolitionists the impression
that he was a "man of
one idea, literally, and that idea a
very narrow one." In his
letter McKim had called attention to
the greater significance
of the increased number of slave
escapes. "I rejoice in their
multiplying escapes," he wrote,
"not simply or mainly because
of the individual victims who are
thereby rescued from bond-
age,--though this is no small gain to
humanity--but because
of the moral influence they exert upon
the whole slave system,
and the evidence they afford of a
change going on in public
sentiment."17
It was a change in sentiment that the
abolitionists wanted
to bring about, and the underground
railroad provided excel-
lent grist for their propaganda mill.
Abolitionists exhibited
fugitive slaves at meetings, and some
former slaves like
William Wells Brown, Lewis Clarke, and
Frederick Douglass
became professional speakers in the
antislavery cause. After
the passage of the fugitive slave law
of 1850 the abolitionists
held countless meetings, circulated
petitions, and published
pamphlets against the law and in favor
of aid to the fugitives.
They gained a greatly enlarged hearing
in the North because
many people in that section looked upon
the law as a conces-
sion to southern demands and as a
threat to traditional
American freedom. As the sectional rift
deepened and as
feelings became more bitter, the
underground railroad propa-
ganda became more effective in the North. And in the
South,
a few widely advertised slave rescues
convinced many that the
entire North had become a network of
underground railroad
17 J. Miller McKim to Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, November 19,
December 11,
1857. Weston Papers. McKim's letter was
published as "The Slave's Ultima
Ratio" in The Liberty Bell (Boston,
1858), 325-327.
228
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
stations. It was as a propaganda
instrument that the under-
ground railroad was most effective.18
For those slaves who did escape from
bondage the under-
ground railroad provided only limited
service. Bondsmen
often planned and carried out their own
escapes, and those
who recorded their narratives for
publication seldom gave
very much credit to the abolitionists.
One fugitive summed up
the matter when he wrote of securing
freedom "by his own
good legs."19 Fugitives
usually traveled at night and hid
during daylight hours. They sometimes
got food and direc-
tions from other slaves, free Negroes,
and even, on occasion,
from a sympathetic slaveholder. Some
hid in northbound
coastal steamers and others paid ship
captains handsome fees
for transportation from the land of
bondage. They often
carried forged passes or forged or
borrowed free papers.
Some adopted ingenious disguises; one
mulatto even darkened
his skin and curled his hair so as to
escape notice. When
abolitionists aided the fleeing slave,
it was usually after the
bondsman had broken his own chains, had
fled from his old
home, and had already completed the
most difficult and dan-
gerous phase of his journey. A great
deal of underground
railroad legend rests on aid given to
former slaves after the
passage of the fugitive slave law of
1850, when many erst-
while bondsmen fled in panic from their
new homes in the
North to Canada.
Traditionally the spotlight has singled
out the abolitionists
because underground railroad history
has been based on
abolition sources. In their memoirs the
elderly abolitionists
recalled their impressions of
the heroic underground epoch,
giving little or no recognition to any
achievements of the
fugitives themselves. In 1872 William
Still, a Negro member
of the Philadelphia Vigilance
Committee, published his
Underground Rail Road Records specifically to call attention
to the role of the Negro in the escape
drama. Still's book con-
tained material culled from the records
of the vigilance com-
18 Larry Gara, "Propaganda Uses of
the Underground Railroad," Mid-America,
New Series, XXIII (1952), 155-171.
19 William Wells Brown, The Black
Man, His Antecedents, His Genius, and
His Achievements (New York, 1863), 86.
THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD 229
mittee, together with excerpts from
newspaper articles, legal
documents, and letters, plus many
illustrations. The assump-
tions of Still were much the same as
those of the other
abolitionists, and his language was
harsh and biased. He
referred to the South as "the
prison house" and "the hot-bed
of Slavery," though he stated in
his preface that he had taken
scrupulous care "to furnish
artless stories, simple facts,--to
resort to no coloring to make the book
seem romantic." There
is no reason to believe that Still did
tamper with the evidence,
but he revealed his own viewpoint when
he wrote: "Those
who come after us seeking for
information in regard to the
existence, atrocity, struggles and
destruction of Slavery, will
have no trouble in finding the
hydra-headed monster ruling
and tyrannizing over Church and State,
North and South,
white and black, without let or
hindrance for several genera-
tions."
William Still used the vocabulary of
the abolitionists, but
his book focused attention on the brave
fugitives rather than
on their white abettors. It was no
accidental emphasis. Still's
objective was to keep green the
"heroism and desperate
struggles" of the Negroes. He
aimed to make the under-
ground railroad a "monument to the
heroism of the bonds-
man under yoke." He also wanted to
prove the intellectual
capacity of Negroes. "We very much
need works on various
topics from the pens of colored men to
represent the race
intellectually," he wrote. By
systematic promotion and careful
instruction of his agents, Still sold
many copies of his book,
which ran into a second edition, yet
his emphasis has made
virtually no impact on scholarship or
on the popular legend.
Still's book was unique, but its
message has been drowned
out by the flood of
abolitionist-centered literature published
in books, popular articles, and
newspapers.20
A "cooling off period" of a
full century should enable
scholars to deal with the underground
railroad from a more
20 William
Still, Still's Underground Rail Road Records (Philadelphia, 1872),
Preface, 3-5; William Still to J. W.
Jones, November 4, 1873, to Dr. Henry
Charles, June 6, 1873, to J. C. Price,
June 3, 1873, and to W. F. Teister, June
23, 1873, in the William Still Papers at the
Pennsylvania Historical Society.
230
THE OHIO HISTORICAL QUARTERLY
objective point of view than the
participants themselves
could assume. The complex character of
human nature makes
any oversimplified story untenable as a
realistic portrayal of
the past. Contemporary evidence leads
to a revision down-
ward of the number of slaves who
escaped north. The sig-
nificance of the propaganda uses of
underground railroad
stories calls for new emphasis, and the
role of the fugitives
themselves should be brought into
proper focus. Influenced
by the writings of one set of
participants, scholars have too
long accepted the abolition version of
the underground rail-
road and its place in the American
past.