The Spirit of the Underground Railroad

by

Henry Robert Burke
burkeh@charter.net

To some it may appear that I have accumulated a lot of Underground Railroad research. Perhaps this is true, but this was only possible because I live where a lot of Underground Railroad history occurred.

When I was a child, I thought that the Underground Railroad a mile of old road that ran though our farm at Stafford, Monroe County, Ohio. By the time I was a teenager, I realized that the Underground Railroad not really a road at all! I gradually understood that the Underground Railroad occurred all along the Ohio River in Ohio. When I really started doing research, I soon learned that it not only took place along the entire length of the Ohio River but also along the Upper Mississippi River as well. Over time, I came to the realization that the Underground Railroad operated all across the United States that existed before 1861.

I have been able to accomplish much more detail about the Underground Railroad along the Ohio River in southeastern Ohio simply because that is where I was born, grew up, worked and lived most of my life. For my researching efforts it is fortunate that my family was part of the Underground Railroad. That I was born in 1940 when some of my older relatives who were born during the 1860s were alive to spark my interest in the history of the Underground Railroad. It was also fortunate that I learned about my ancestors who fought with the USCT during the Civil War. Finally I am fortunate that there is am incredible store documented history about the Underground Railroad in southeastern Ohio.

North of the Mason-Dixon Line, some of the "free people of color" were literate and thus able to write some details about the Underground Railroad from a "black" perspective. For obvious reasons, it was possible for the Underground Railroad to operate more openly north of the Mason-Dixon Line, and many members of the white community were involved. This meant that Underground Railroad activity got a large amount of popular press coverage.

South of the Mason-Dixon Line, it was the enslaved people themselves who carried out most of the Underground Railroad activity. Underground Railroad Stations in the Deep South were actually the plantations where enslaved people helped their fugitive slave brothers and sisters. The Underground Railroad in the Deep South was both complicated and effective!

Sadly Underground Railroad activities in the Deep South were not well documented, at least not in a form that is easily researched. Most enslaved people could not read and write. Underground Railroad in the Deep South had to be kept super secretive. It would have been extremely dangerous to write about Underground Railroad activity. People who were convicted of violating the Fugitive Slave Laws north of the Mason-Dixon Line received relatively small fines and jail sentences. People, black or white, who were even suspected of helping fugitive slaves were often killed without benefit of a legal trial.

After the Civil War, most of the details about Underground Railroad activity was carried by "oral history". The very nature of “oral history” consists of localized versions and lacks specific details such as names, places and dates where the Underground Railroad events may have occurred. Unfortunately, "oral history" becomes distorted or lost over time.

It is my view, that the Underground Railroad did not really end until around 1944 when a "cotton picking machine" was invented. Until that time many African Americans were still enslaved on plantations in the Deep South by the "Share Cropping System", and the blacks who left had to do so by escaping, almost like the fugitive slaves had done before the Civil War.

Let us remember that Jesus Christ was the first fugitive on the Underground Railroad flight from Bethlehem to Egypt over 2000 years ago. It was his Spirit that created the Underground Railroad and for as long injustice thrives the Spirit of the Underground Railroad will be alive!