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Archiver > QUAKER-ROOTS > 1998-06 > 0898172383


From: Barbara Eberly <>
Subject: Re: Quaker UGRR Conductors
Date: Thu, 18 Jun 1998 08:19:43 -0400


I do not have any references at hand at the moment because I am in the
midst of a massive rearranging of my house, but I remember reading
that the primary method of removing slaves from NC was to move to
Indiana or Ohio. It was not unusual in the early 1800 to find a will
where slaves have been left to Quaker families. (It was usually
illegal to free slaves in your will and if you happened to hit a time
when it was legal, they usually had to leave the state immediately.)
When Quaker families moved, they went openly with slaves. It wasn't
as dramatic as some of the stories about hiding in small enclosed
spaces, but it was apparently effective. One account I read was by a
woman remembering one of these trips as a child. She talked of
running alongside the wagons and horses playing hide-and-seek with the
black children. I think that was the first time I really realized that
the overland migrations (from PA to NC and from NC to Indiana, etc.)
usually took place on foot -- unless you were too old or infirm to
walk. I think I saw too many western as a child where everybody was
in the buckboard of the covered wagon drawn by four or six horses. It
never occurred to me that this was anything but absolute fact. I now
live in the mountains of North Carolina. Sometimes I come over a hill
in my trusty car going fifty-five miles an hour to see another range
of mountains spread out ahead of me and wonder how it would have felt
to see that same beautiful vista knowing that I had to get through
hundreds of miles of mountains to get to my new home.

Back to the Underground Railroad, the tales of hiding slaves and going
from safehouse to safehouse was a "last resort" sort of thing. The
Quakers tried every legal means and then went to the legislature to
try to change the laws on slavery.

Barbara

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