[greenyes] Evangelicals in Another Role

["Peter Anderson" <anderson@no.address>]

WALL STREET JOURNAL  March 29, 2005

BOOKS

Destination, Freedom
By JOHN J. MILLER

On a cold winter night in 1838, a woman carrying an infant fled across the 
frozen Ohio River. The ice had started to thaw, but she could hear the dogs 
of her pursuers barking in the distance and decided to push forward. Cracks 
opened beneath her twice, drenching her in the frigid water. When she 
finally reached the far shore, she somehow mustered enough strength to 
stumble to a farmhouse. She and her baby warmed themselves before a fire, 
received a change of clothes and were led to another home before sunrise.

It was their first stop on the Underground Railroad. Harriet Beecher Stowe 
eventually heard the story and turned it into one of the most memorable 
episodes in "Uncle Tom's Cabin." In the novel, the woman was called Eliza. 
In real life, none of the people who helped "Eliza" that night knew her 
name.

That was typical -- and it presents a mighty challenge to historians. The 
network of abolitionists devoted to helping slaves find their freedom wasn't 
described as "underground" for nothing. Records of its operations are 
scarce. Frederick Douglass urged his allies to keep mum. "Let us not hold 
the light by which [our enemies] can trace the footprints of our flying 
brother," he said.
Y
et in "Bound for Canaan" (Amistad, 540 pages, $27.95), Fergus M. Bordewich 
illuminates the lives and times of the Underground Railroad's 
stationmasters, conductors and passengers. He has written an excellent book 
that is probably as close to a definitive history as we're likely to see.

Myth surrounds our sense of the Underground Railroad. What was it really 
like?

When the Underground Railroad was running, frustrated Southerners imagined 
it to be much more extensive than it really was. Today Americans are likely 
to overstate its significance because they want examples of moral virtue to 
make up for a national stain. As Mr. Bordewich notes, there is a "national 
fairy tale" quality to the Underground Railroad, and any serious chronicle 
must break through "the hard sheen of myth."

"Bound for Canaan" offers several myth-busting lessons, including the 
unsurprising fact that few of the movement's white leaders subscribed to 
21st-century notions of racial equality. One of the most influential 
figures, Levi Coffin, hoped that ending slavery would put a stop to 
miscegenation.

Yet the primary inspiration for Coffin and his band was religious. In the 
1820s, Pennsylvania Quakers developed the idea of concealing fugitives in 
their attics and cellars and then moving them to new hideaways during the 
night. THE PRACTICE SPREAD QUICKLY, ESPECIALLY AMONG EVANGELICALS IN OHIO 
AND INDIANA. Free blacks played vital roles as well. The revolutionary new 
technology of locomotives offered a handy metaphor.

What started out as a mishmash of volunteers became a sophisticated system 
of furtive transportation. Successful escapes involved feeding runaways, 
giving them new clothes and shoes, and providing them with medical care. 
Stationmasters also had to procure horses and wagons, dispatch messages, and 
find ways to pay for it all. It was like running a small business, or 
perhaps a nonprofit organization, on a shoestring budget. Although money 
frequently traded hands -- many of the conductors who led slaves to liberty 
were compensated -- the motives were almost entirely spiritual.

The Underground Railroad's trains ran on time because a remarkable group of 
men and women believed that civil disobedience was their pious duty. Even 
more remarkable were the runaways themselves, who risked everything for 
freedom. Relatively little is known about them. In the midst of a movement 
that left behind few documents, they left behind the fewest.

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_________________________
Peter Anderson, President
RECYCLEWORLDS CONSULTING
4513 Vernon Blvd. Suite 15
Madison, WI 53705-4964
Ph: (608) 231-1100
Fax: (608) 233-0011
Cell: (608) 698-1314
eMail: anderson@no.address
web: www.recycleworlds.net

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