The Underground Railroad South of Chicago

The Underground Railroad South of Chicago PDF

Author: Larry McClellan

Publisher:

Published: 2019-11-15

Total Pages:

ISBN-13: 9781733064910

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A history of the networks of the Underground Railroad in the region south of Chicago and accounts of freedom seekers traveling through the region. From La Salle and Livingston Counties to the west and east across southern Cook and Will Counties into northwest Indiana, thousands of freedom seekers passed through on their journeys to Canada. In the decades before the Civil War, those going to Chicago and those bypassing the growing city found assistance in small communities and with farmers committed to the abolition of slavery and willing to provide aid.

Onward to Chicago

Onward to Chicago PDF

Author: Larry A. McClellan

Publisher: SIU Press

Published: 2023-09-08

Total Pages: 303

ISBN-13: 0809339129

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WINNER, 2023 Underground Railroad Free Press Hortense Simmons Memorial Prize for the Advancement of Knowledge! Uncovering stories of the freedom network in northeastern Illinois Decades before the Civil War, Illinois’s status as a free state beckoned enslaved people, particularly those in Kentucky and Missouri, to cross porous river borders and travel toward new lives. While traditional histories of the Underground Railroad in Illinois start in 1839, and focus largely on the romanticized tales of white men, Larry A. McClellan reframes the story, not only introducing readers to earlier freedom seekers, but also illustrating that those who bravely aided them were Black and white, men and women. McClellan features dozens of individuals who made dangerous journeys to reach freedom as well as residents in Chicago and across northeastern Illinois who made a deliberate choice to break the law to help. Onward to Chicago charts the evolution of the northeastern Illinois freedom network and shows how, despite its small Black community, Chicago emerged as a point of refuge. The 1848 completion of the I & M Canal and later the Chicago to Detroit train system created more opportunities for Black men, women, and children to escape slavery. From eluding authorities to confronting kidnapping bands working out of St. Louis and southern Illinois, these stories of valor are inherently personal. Through deep research into local sources, McClellan presents the engrossing, entwined journeys of freedom seekers and the activists in Chicagoland who supported them. McClellan includes specific freedom seeker journey stories and introduces Black and white activists who provided aid in a range of communities along particular routes. This narrative highlights how significant biracial collaboration led to friendships as Black and white abolitionists worked together to provide support for freedom seekers traveling through the area and ultimately to combat slavery in the United States.

The Underground Railroad in Illinois

The Underground Railroad in Illinois PDF

Author: Glennette Tilley Turner

Publisher: Newman Educational Publishing Company

Published: 2001

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780938990055

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The activities of the Underground Railroad, and the Abolitionist Movement in Illinois are documented by the author in this meticulously researched book.

Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad

Allen Jay and the Underground Railroad PDF

Author: Marlene Targ Brill

Publisher: First Avenue Editions

Published: 1993

Total Pages: 52

ISBN-13: 0876146051

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Recounts how Allen Jay, a young Quaker boy living in Ohio during the 1840s, helped a fleeing slave escape his master and make it to freedom through the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad in Western Illinois

The Underground Railroad in Western Illinois PDF

Author: Owen W. Muelder

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2008

Total Pages: 208

ISBN-13:

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Fugitives fleeing from slavery in Kentucky, Missouri, and points farther south traversed the entire state of Illinois while moving northward. But they were most likely to receive help from Underground railroad operators if they passed through western Illinois, where a good number of Underground Railroad agents lived.This book briefly discusses the Underground Railroad throughout the United States and all of Illinois. It addresses at length the activities of Underground Railroad operators, both black and white, in western Illinois. The compelling efforts of these people have been surprisingly neglected; this book examines in detail their significant contributions to this heroic chapter in American history.

The Liberty Line

The Liberty Line PDF

Author: Larry Gara

Publisher: University Press of Kentucky

Published: 2013-07-24

Total Pages: 155

ISBN-13: 081314356X

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" The underground railroad—with its mysterious signals, secret depots, abolitionist heroes, and slave-hunting villains—has become part of American mythology. But legend has distorted much of this history. Larry Gara shows how pre-Civil War partisan propanda, postwar remininscences by fame-hungry abolitionists, and oral tradition helped foster the popular belief that a powerful secret organization spirited floods of slaves away from the South. In contrast to much popular belief, however, the slaves themselves had active roles in their own escape. They carried out their runs, receiving aid only after they had reached territory where they still faced return. The Liberty Line puts slaves in their rightful position: the center of their struggle for freedom.

The Underground Railroad in DeKalb County, Illinois

The Underground Railroad in DeKalb County, Illinois PDF

Author: Nancy M. Beasley

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2013-02-23

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1476600805

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This book is about previously unidentified people who became Abolitionists involved in the antislavery movement from about 1840 to 1860. Although arrests were made in nearby counties, not one person was prosecuted for aiding a fugitive slave in DeKalb County, Illinois. First, the area Congregationalist, Universalist, Presbyterian and Wesleyan Methodist churches all had compelling antislavery beliefs. Church members, county elected officials, and the Underground Railroad conductors and stationmasters were all one and the same. Additionally, DeKalb County had the highest concentration of subscriptions to the Chicago-based Western Citizen antislavery newspaper. It was an accepted local activity to help escaped slaves. A biographical dictionary includes evidence and personal information for more than 600 men and women, and their families, who defied the prevailing Fugitive Slave Law, and helped the anti-slavery movement in this one Northern Illinois County. Unique photographs and illustrations are included along with notes, bibliography and index.

Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad

Encyclopedia of the Underground Railroad PDF

Author: J. Blaine Hudson

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2015-01-09

Total Pages: 318

ISBN-13: 1476602301

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Fugitive slaves were reported in the American colonies as early as the 1640s, and escapes escalated with the growth of slavery over the next 200 years. As the number of fugitives rose, the Southern states pressed for harsher legislation to prevent escapes. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 criminalized any assistance, active or passive, to a runaway slave--yet it only encouraged the behavior it sought to prevent. Friends of the fugitive, whose previous assistance to runaways had been somewhat haphazard, increased their efforts at organization. By the onset of the Civil War in 1861, the Underground Railroad included members, defined stops, set escape routes and a code language. From the abolitionist movement to the Zionville Baptist Missionary Church, this encyclopedia focuses on the people, ideas, events and places associated with the interrelated histories of fugitive slaves, the African American struggle for equality and the American antislavery movement. Information is drawn from primary sources such as public records, document collections, slave autobiographies and antebellum newspapers.

President of the Underground Railroad

President of the Underground Railroad PDF

Author: Gwenyth Swain

Publisher: LernerClassroom

Published: 2001-01-01

Total Pages: 68

ISBN-13: 157505552X

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Presents the biography of a Quaker man from North Carolina whose fearless work on the Underground Railroad in Indiana and Ohio helped thousands of men and women escape the cruelty of slavery. Reprint.