Between 1783 and 1860 more than 100000 enslaved African Americans escapedacross the border between slave and free territory in search of freedom. Mostof these e... » 

Between 1783 and 1860 more than 100000 enslaved African Americans escapedacross the border between slave and free territory in search of freedom. Mostof these escapes were unaided but as the American antislavery movement becamemore militant after 1830 assisted escapes became more common. Help came fromthe Underground Railroad which still stands as one of the most powerful andsustained multiracial human rights movements in world history. This workexamines and interprets the available historical evidence about fugitive slavesand the Underground Railroad in Kentucky the southernmost sections of the freestates bordering Kentucky along the Ohio River and to a lesser extent theslave states to the immediate south. Kentucky was central to the UndergroundRailroad because its northern boundary the Ohio River represented a threehundred mile boundary between slavery and nominal freedom. The book examinesthe landscape of Kentucky and the surrounding states fugitive slaves before1850 in the 1850s and during the Civil War and their motivations and escapestrategies and the risks involved with escape. The reasons why people broke lawand social convention to befriend fugitive slaves common escape routescrossing points through Kentucky from Tennessee and points south and specificindividuals who provided assistanceall are topics covered. «