Slave Voices

Breaking from bondage, for many slaves, was worth risking their lives. (WARNING: THIS LINK TAKES YOU TO GRAPHIC MATERIAL FROM AN 1840 ANTI-SLAVERY ALMANAC.) The Fugitive Slave Law however, complicated things.

Passed in 1850, the law required officials in the North to assist in capturing runaway slaves. The "Underground Railroad" (a network of routes, safe-houses, and people) was, therefore, a slave's best mode of escape. It is believed that the Underground Railroad helped about 100,000 slaves escape. The perilous journey was often deadly.

William Still, a free-born black man who has been called "Father of the Underground Railroad," recorded many first-person accounts of people who took that dangerous "passage" to freedom. In his preface to their stories, Still wrote:

The race must not forget the rock from whence they were hewn, nor the pit from whence they were digged.

Like other races, this newly emancipated people will need all the knowledge of their past condition which they can get.
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Frederick Douglass, Henry Bibb, Wm. Wells Brown, Rev. J.W. Logan, and others, gave unmistakable evidence that the race had no more eloquent advocates than its own self-emancipated champions.
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Here, therefore, in my judgment is the best possible reason for vigorously pushing the circulation of this humble volume - that it may testify for thousands and tens of thousands, as no other work can do.

What testimony did Still record in his book, The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters? He begins with the story of his own family's journey.