Riding Freedoms Train: The Underground Railroad in the Upper Ohio Valley

Michael and Carrie Kline, Talking Across the Lines

[Excerpted from the CD jacket of Riding Freedom's Train: The Underground Railroad in the Upper Ohio Valley] Wherever there are instances of institutionalized oppression and cruelty, history provides us with examples of people who risked everything to free themselves. And often, people nearby have aided in the escape from bondage. Thus, from the beginning of the enslavement of Africans on the American continent, there existed a clandestine means by which slaves fled captivity. The Underground Railroad was not a specific mode of travel nor a singular route, but rather, a secret illegal network which assisted slaves in their flight to freedom. Slaves freeing their owners traveled in many directions. Some planned to settle in the northern United States. Others chose to seek refuge outside of the United States borders in Canada, Mexico, the Caribbean, Europe or Africa. Still others were welcomed and sheltered by Native Americans such as the Seminole Indians. Most of the “conductors” on the Underground Railroad were free blacks, enslaved people, or their relations, yet many Euro-Americans alsdo devoted their lives to this clandestine movement. From the establishment of slavery in the U.S. until the end of the Civil War, between 30,000-100,000 escaping slaves traveled the network of roads, rivers, conveyances and safe houses that comprised the Underground Railroad. This was a brave and sometimes fortunate minority of the millions who were in captivity prior to the abolition of slavery. Most of those who escaped left everything and everyone they knew to be on the run, hunted in unknown territory, sneaking through the wilderness and exposing themselves to wild animals, hunger, terror, slave catchers and their hound dogs, not to mention the wrath of their master, if caught and returned. More information is available from [email protected], or on our CD, Riding Freedom's Train, available at https://www.folktalk.org/merchandise/cds/compilations/i-believe-in-angels-singing-riding-freedoms-train-2-cd-set/