Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad (placement is Futter lot on Main next to Keystone Restoration)

Underground Railroad was a loosely-structured, spontaneous liberation movement that evolved over time. Its peak years of operation were from 1850 until the end of the Civil War. As more slaves escaped from their owners, more people—black and white—risked their own lives to help them escape.

Across America, wherever there were people who opposed slavery and were willing to help fugitives escape, the Underground Railroad was there. It was particularly active in border regions, like southern Indiana, and cities like New Albany played a critical role in the Underground Railroad’s success.

Technically, Indiana was a free state. But that didn’t mean runaway slaves were free once they’d made it to the Indiana shore. A slave-owner or slave-hunter could track a fugitive into Indiana, and they had the legal right to capture him and take him back across the river.

The only place where slaves could be truly free and safe from capture was across the border into Canada, a safe-haven for America’s escaped slaves. No one knows exactly how many escaping slaves crossed the Ohio River into Indiana during the years of slavery.

The distance between Louisville and the Indiana shore is one mile, one mile between a slave-holding state, and a free one. New Albany in the 1850s and 1860s was certainly no haven for escaping slaves, but it was an important gateway to freedom.

Some escaping slaves arrived in New Albany knowing the name of a contact person who could help them travel north on the Underground Railroad. Those who didn’t had to trust their instincts when it came to deciding whom they would ask for help.

One bad choice could spell tragedy. Many of the black families in the West Union neighborhood were workers for the Underground Railroad, but not all, some would turn in runaways for a reward. In New Albany and throughout southern Indiana, members of the free black community were the backbone of this movement. Many were descended from families who had lived in the region from its earliest days of settlement.

Of course, not everyone in the black community was a part of the Underground Railroad. Some were understandably reluctant to risk their own freedom and economic security, because the penalties for a black person caught helping runaway slaves were much harsher than they were for a white person.

For escaping slaves, clues or signs in nature were often used as guides: the Big Dipper constellation, or the “drinking gourd,” became an icon of the quest for freedom. The stars at the pouring end of the Big Dipper’s cup point to the North Star—a fixed sign in the heavens, always pointing north. Since many slaves traveled by night, the drinking gourd became their guide to freedom.

During the daylight, moss, which mostly grows on the north side of trees guided them through thick woods and along rivers and streams, which also offered protection from trackers and their dogs.

The Underground Railroad could not have succeeded without the determination and conviction of the African Americans and whites in Indiana and elsewhere who were willing to risk everything to help total strangers.

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