Nearly a century after the American Revolution, the waters of the Ohio River provided a real and complex barrier for the United States to navigate. While this waterway was a symbol of freedom and equality for thousands of enslaved black Americans who had escaped from the horrible institution of enslavement, the Ohio River was also used to transport thousands of slaves down the river to the Deep South. Due to Cincinnatis location on the banks of the river, the citys economy was tied to the slave society in the South. However ...
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Nearly a century after the American Revolution, the waters of the Ohio River provided a real and complex barrier for the United States to navigate. While this waterway was a symbol of freedom and equality for thousands of enslaved black Americans who had escaped from the horrible institution of enslavement, the Ohio River was also used to transport thousands of slaves down the river to the Deep South. Due to Cincinnatis location on the banks of the river, the citys economy was tied to the slave society in the South. However, a special cadre of individuals became very active in the quest for freedom undertaken by African American fugitives on their journeys to the North. Thanks to spearheading by this group of Cincinnatian trailblazers, the Queen City became a primary destination on the Underground Railroad, the first multiethnic, multiracial, multiclass human-rights movement in the history of the United States.
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The Underground Railroad was a system of routes and places of support that helped African American slaves escape to the North and to Canada during the decades before the Civil War. The Underground Railroad worked most effectively in the border states because escape routes were shorter and clearer than in the Deep South. Located on the Ohio River across from Kentucky, Cincinnati, Ohio proved to be an important route of escape on the Underground Railroad. Richard Cooper and Dr Eric Jackson have written this new book "Cincinnati's Underground Railroad" (2014) which tells the story of the Queen City and its role in helping slaves find freedom. Cooper is manager of content development and interpretation at the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, a museum founded in Cincinnati in 2004 to teach about the Underground Railroad. Jackson is associate professor of history and director of the black studies program at Northern Kentucky University.
The book presents the story largely through photographs, engravings and drawings from the era accompanied by text and annotations. It begins with a brief section offering an overview of slavery in the United States beginning with the Northwest Ordinance and continuing through the Constitution and the compromise of 1850. The Northwest Ordinance had banned slavery in the area that became Cincinnati. The authors further describe the rise of the Abolition movement beginning in the early 1830's to provide further background.
The book ties in the history of Cincinnati and the Underground Railroad with the romance of the Ohio River. There are photos of river scenes, steamboats and skiffs, stevedores, and the attendant river industries. The book offers a sense of the topography of the area and of the possibilities for the movement of slaves seeking to attain freedom across the river. The book describes the Cincinnati of the era. In 1850, the Queen City or "Porkopolis" was the sixth largest city in the United States with a large population of free blacks. Abolitionist sentiment was strong, but it was balanced by a great deal of pro-slavery, anti-black feeling.
The book offers portraits and brief discussions of the many people, African American and white, involved in the Underground Railroad in Cincinnati. The book shows ministers, businesspeople, publishers, and teachers from a variety of backgrounds. Many people connected with Cincinnati wrote books about their experiences. Some of these books are little-known today but others such as "Uncle Tom's Cabin" became famous. Harriet Beecher Stowe lived in Cincinnati for many years before leaving the city and writing her novel.
The book is also valuable for its rare photographs and depictions of the Queen City during the early to mid-19th Century. I enjoyed seeing the many old churches and schools, neighborhoods, old homes, and businesses, cemetery's and pictures of the waterfront. The book ties this broader local history in well with the history of the Underground Railroad.
The textual portions of the book tell the story simply and clearly on the whole. In some instances, the photographs do not have a clear relevance to their captions. In other instances, the photographs obviously post-date the events under discussion. More detail about the precise dates and locations of the photographs would have been welcome. In addition, the book includes a small number of errors which should have been caught. For example, Salmon P. Chase receives substantial attention, but the book incorrectly identifies him as Lincoln's Secretary of State rather than as the Secretary of the Treasury. The book describes Rutherford B. Hayes, who practiced law in Cincinnati before the Civil War, as serving as president during the Reconstruction Era. Hayes took office in 1877, and the beginning of his presidency marked the end of Reconstruction. These relatively minor errors do not detract from overall success of the book in offering a portrayal of Cincinnati's role in the Underground Railroad. The book concludes with a short bibliography for readers wishing to learn about the Underground Railroad in more detail.
"Cincinnati's Underground Railroad" is part of the "Images of America" series of local photographic histories published by Arcadia Publishing. The book offers the opportunity to combine an important national event with a history of a particular place. I visited Cincinnati for the first time shortly before reading this book. I appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the city I saw all-too-briefly and its connection to the Underground Railroad.
