Having just nominated a site for the UGRR Network to Freedom designation, I'm reading with interest the comments back and forth about the National Park Service's operations and the Freedom Center. As to some earlier criticism about the Seminole cemetery site, in the NPS' defense it should be noted that signage isn't really a part of the designation. It's left up to the local owner/organization. The Park Service doesn't really have the money for detailed historical markers, though that would certainly be nice.

I was surprised when I first read about the guidelines for applying as they are quite - from the traditional UGRR safe houses or stations which no one would question, to even the plantations from which slaves escaped.

Of course it all depends on what story you want told. If you focus a story simply on known conductors and their houses, in other words the "organized" UGRR, you'll end up with a story primarily about a bunch of white abolitionists with Harriet Tubman thrown in for good measure. If, on the other hand, you want to tell the story of the struggle to escape slavery then the larger definition is needed.

I've just nominated the Old Slave House outside Equality, Illinois, as a site. It seems counter-intuitive to nominate it since it wasn't part of that positive struggle for freedom. Instead, it's the last "station" on the Reverse UGRR still standing as far as we know, at least since the Patty Cannon house in Maryland was debunked last summer (the site is real, but the current house wasn't the original house used apparently).

The legislation creating the Network to Freedom also allowed for the opposition to be recognized. Again, if the purpose of the network is to tell the whole story of the struggle of the American slave for freedom, then highlighting, rather than covering up, the opposition to it, should be a goal as well.

A Kentucky slave named Andrew Jackson escaped in 1840 and traveled westward through the state until finally crossing the Ohio River at Cave-in-Rock, Illinois. Using a unique cover story he found it relatively easy to traverse the commonwealth. Traveling through southeastern Illinois proved tougher. He ran into slave catchers the first day, escaped, but was captured the next.

He didn't receive help from any conductor, at least he didn't mention any help given in his autobiography published before the Civil War - (it's possible though that he may have deliberately kept that secret as not to interfere with others fleeing slavery). However, his story of entering Illinois is compelling because it shows how quickly the UGRR could crash when organized opposition prepared for it.

Jackson was captured in what is now Hardin Co., Illinois, and then probably Gallatin County as they took him to the Gallatin County seat rather than Hardin's new county seat (though it might have been because Hardin County was less than a year old and may not have had a jail yet). That county seat, ironically, was named Equality. Based on the dates in his book, he was probably kept in the jail next to the courthouse the same time Abraham Lincoln was in town for politics and probably his law practice as well.

In Gallatin County I've found three sites that local folklore at one point or another suggested as UGRR stations. The first was the Old Slave House which had counter-folklore stating it was a kidnapping station. The second was the Green House Inn, which come to find out, was where they took captured runaway slaves to temporarily hold them until taking them to the county seat. (The short version of the story always just said it was a "stop" on the UGRR). The third station was the Logsdon home outside of Shawneetown. We have a two-sentence description written in the 1930s that states the house was a station in the first sentence and talks about the poor souls imprisoned there in the second. Nearby residents remember seeing jail-like cells in the basement along with rings in the walls. Without any other evidence I have to believe this was a station, though whether a "legitimate" station helping slaves escape north or a kidnapping station I'm not able to determine.

The point is that opposition is what makes the stories of the positive UGRR so interesting. When we go to the movie we expect to see interesting opposition to the main character. If the purpose of the movie is a boy-meets-girl romance we expect there to be someone in the movie who doesn't want the two to pair up - another boyfriend, the girl's best friend, or somebody's mother. If the boy gets the girl in the first 10 minutes without a hitch, then what's interesting about that story?

If all Harriet Tubman had to do was walk up the front driveway of a plantation and notify the owner that she was there to pick up some slaves who desired their freedom - and the owner agreed - it wouldn't be a very interesting story. It certainly wouldn't be a very historically accurate story as well.

Opposition sites and figures need to be recognized and remembered because they were part of the environment in which escaped slaves had to traverse. Removing them from the history is removing the obstacles those slaves faced in their race to freedom. It's lessening the achievement of those to did find their way out of slavery.

In terms of a possible solution, I would recommend endorsing the NPS Network. It's already in place and it's something everybody can influence through their representatives in Congress. However, outsiders will never be able to direct the work of the Network. For that you will need organization, i.e., the Friends of the UGRR Network to Freedom, or the National UGRR Association, etc.

A few years ago, before I started my time-consuming work on the Old Slave House I became a founding member and director of the River-to-River Trail Society here in Southern Illinois. The US Forest Service was updating the management plan for the Shawnee National Forest. Myself to a minor extent, and others to a greater extent, had been actively lobbying the Forest Service for the development of a long-proposed river-to-river trail running from the Ohio to the Mississippi. Our lobbying paid off and the trail became part of the official plan. However, if we hadn't organized as a stand-alone not-for-profit and actually started doing the trail work, then the trail would not exist today. Money and bureaucracy could only go so far. It took outside help to actually get it built. The same is going to be true for a national network of linked UGRR sites.

Bureaucracies are a necessary evil in modern society. The people in those bureaucracies are often the ones who hold everything together, who get a lot of the work behind the scenes done. But we should never look to the bureaucrats for leadership and I'm afraid that what some are doing.

Government employees can't lobby Congress. They can't argue with major $100 million museums. They have to work with everybody and if that means spreading themselves out too thin to accomplish all their tasks, then that's what they have to do.

Here in Illinois, the River-to-River Trail Society is affailiated with the Illinois Hiking Society and the National Hiking Society (or whatever it's name). The members have in place a mechanism of not only affecting the local trail here in the region, but have a voice in Springfield on other trail issues as well as Washington.

The same probably needs to be done with the Underground Railroad.

Sincerely,

Jon Musgrave
www.IllinoisHistory.com