Hi Henry,

The use of textiles to communicate is an intriguing idea, which is not to say I accept the quilt code. There are valid examples of laundry being hung on lines in a certain way during the civil war to convey information about troop movements. So I'm open to the idea that textiles could have been used in the Underground Railroad to communicate.

But what is difficult to understand in the Tobin and Dobard book about the quilt code is who had the first-hand knowledge of using the quilts the SC woman describes. She says this information came from her mother and grandmother. But it is not explained who, if anyone, had first-hand experience with the URR or the code presented. One would also expect other period literature to confirm this unusual and very detailed system.

Because there was a considerable time for unique fusions of African and Euro-American cultures to occur in many slave communities, I don't think it's necessary for symbols used by or for the enslaved to be African. Any symbol that had a shared meaning to a group of people would work. Also consider the black masons were active in the United States since the American Revolution and used a lot of symbols.

cheers,
Jennifer