Remarkable places and events like this are really remarkable opportunities we have. I always like to start with these events especially on nights when we are inviting remarkable writers into our midst to talk a little bit about the shop. First i want to talk about richard bell tonight who is a scholar and writer, beautiful writer. This particular book really jumps in with this incredibly human picture of a young boy and from that moment i knew i was in short creative hands as well as scholarly hands. He is educated at cambridge and harvard and beloved professor at the university of maryland. One of the Major University system of maryland awards. I think if there is a round of applause as well its for people educating the next generation of people to have a sense of our history and a sense of what it means as human beings in the world but also particularly americans and someone from elsewhere dedicated to helping us mind history. He is a 2017 public scholar after the National Endowment of humanities. He said scholarships from the Huntington Library in california to cambridge and england and everywhere in between places like yale and the library of congress. This is the mind we want tilling the soil of americas past and helping us come to understand it and hes written a really remarkable book. Its a history about five young men in philadelphia, boys, who were kidnapped and taken back into slavery. Its a beautifully told story and i think that merging of incredibly insightful Historical Perspective pushing out the sense of who we been merged with real storytelling ability is sort of an Important Service of all the readers around us. That leads me to talk a little bit about bookstores. Its important to support people working alone on incredibly important pieces of scholarship. The novels that help us understand how other human beings think and feel. We want to support that. In order to support opportunities like this. Which is people coming together to talk about books to hear from people who have thought incredibly deeply on other topics. And combine the sense of who we are as individuals and together. Its one of these more remarkable things about books. You have this independent bit experience but can join each other people in the communal experience. Specifically at the end of this book and ive now lost my place. There is a moment at the very end when richard writes about the act of writing this book as much as the story itself. He had some two things. This is a book that tries to find moments of abalso something that wanted to highlight revel in liberty and seek it to grasp it back when its been taken away. Its an important thing for us to look back in our history and five important thing to do at this moment in time so we at the iv bookshop are incredibly pleased to have all of you here on this first wintry night weve had in the city of baltimore but yall came out says something about what we are seeking collectively. Its just a delight to have richard moment. Thank you to richard, thank you to all of you and we have a really interesting conversation next. What a thoughtful wonderful introduction. Im so humbled to be here at the iv bookshop in baltimore. Im also grateful to abfor the opportunity to talk about some of the stuff on the record. Im going to speak for abim getting a nod to use the microphone. Im going to speak for about 25 minutes. You see i brought some notes because i think the story is important and i want to get it right and you dont want to hear me abim going to try to frame remarks around what ive written and hopefully if there are questions or comments we can talk fully about this. Obviously this is a story full of adult themes to folks in the back know that. Cornelius sinclair was 10 years old and he was trapped. He was trapped in the belly of a small ship in the Delaware River just a mile south of philadelphia. The man had crammed 10yearold cornelius from the city markets one hour ago pushed a black gag into his mouth s tossed them into a wagon and held him here. It was dark below the waterline but 10yearold cornelius could see just enough from in the ships holders to know he was not the only black child lock down here. For other pairs of eyes stared back at him. For other black boys. One looked about his size he was probably nine or 10 or 11 years old but cornelius. Two more were obviously taller and older perhaps 14 or 15. The last of them were shorter and smaller than everyone else. He mightve been as young as eight years old. Yesterday all five of these boys had been free but today they were slaves. They were prisoners as of again of child snatchers who plan to sell their lives and leaders. Most likely to plantation owners in the deep south. These boys of doctors got away with this. 10yearold Cornelius Sinclair would spend the rest of his life is someone elses property somewhere very far away. He would never see his family again he was one of dozens African American children to vanish in similar circumstances from philadelphia that year alone. In the early 19th century the city of philadelphia was actually the hub of american slavery blackest market its graded streets entangled alleys were hunting grounds for cruise of professional kidnappers who made their livings turning free black kids like 10yearold cornelius into slaves. They did their work swiftly and shamelessly. In brazen affront to the city of philadelphia rep used abas a safe haven for people of color and at the headquarters of americas Antislavery Movement in this period. None of that to kidnappers mattered. Early 19th century philadelphia was actually one of the most dangerous places to be free and black anywhere in the United States. Maryland, delaware, virginia whats now west virginia. All of them run along pennsylvanias southern border and the border was known as the masondixon line the boundary seems increasingly important as a marker when you move into southern slave states and pushing to free Northern State like pennsylvania. By 1825 the year that cornelius was kidnapped, pennsylvania was a free Northern State one of the many in the north that slowly disentangled themselves from grace slavery over the previous 50 years. That meant that that Boundary Line running across pennsylvanias southern border the masondixon line as far as black people were concerned became ever more important. By 1825 the year that cornelius was kidnapped that masondixon line along pennsylvanias southern border for black people it seemed to divide two worlds, separating northern free states from southern slave states. It was the closest thing for African Americans to moderate International Border anywhere in north america. Philadelphias proximity to the masondixon line to the frontier line made its money black residents whether legally free or runaways from slavery seeking refuge in philadelphia it made philadelphias many black residents attractive targets for professional kidnappers. Professional people snatchers. They prayed on the members of this citys black community relentlessly putting bullseye on their back, putting prices on their heads. The people they stole away could fetch in louisiana and mississippi and alabama anywhere up to 15,000 per person in modern money. And of course mississippi alabama louisiana think of them on the map the three of the New Territories and states rising up along the gulf of mexico along the gulf coast. The american settlers swarming into territories and states like those three they needed and demanded a nearly bottomless supply of forced labor to cut sugarcane and pick cotton. It seems that they would take almost anyone to do that work including children of as young as 10yearold Cornelius Sinclair. Planters might not have liked a small proportion five percent of their and slave labor force from kidnappers but they have few other options. They been forced to look to forces within the United States to satisfy their labor needs ever since 1808 the year lawmakers in washington passed legislation that outlawed any further slave imports from overseas from africa, from the caribbean, wherever it might be. That 1808 decision outlawing further legal participation in atlantic slavery. It proved to be a major turning point in the history of slavery in america. The 1808 decision spurred the growth of an internal slave trade within the United States. The domestic slave trade within the United States. A massive forced redistribution of enslaved people from plantations in places like virginia or maryland and delaware so that many of them gets sold to legal interstate slave traders who carried himself and west to resell them a check that prices in Louisiana Mississippi alabama according to the best scholarship illegal domestic slave trade moves about a million enslaved people all of them against their will in the course of about 50 to 60 to 70 years after the revolution. Thats the legal domestic slave trade. Settlers down the deep south they want more. The more they were willing to pay, the more tempting and profitable it became for anyone professionally coldblooded to try to kidnap free adults and children including cornelius from northern cities like philadelphia. Tried to smuggle them into the larger legal supply chain and try to sell them in this vast new southwestern slave market. These incentives left philadelphia large and dynamic Free Black Community dangerously exposed. By 1825 the city of philadelphia become the center of an interregional kidnapping operation. It was the northern terminus of what we might usefully call the reverse underground railroad. Lets talk about that comparison a little bit. This reverse underground railroad the kidnapping of Human Trafficking into slavery of free people and its much better known namesake the underground railroad they ran in opposite directions of course but in many ways they were actually mirror images of one another. On the underground railroad, the famous one enslaved people abandoned southern plantations and dreaming of new lives and new opportunities in aon the reverse underground railroad, free black people banished from northern cities like philadelphia and were made to trudge southward to be sold into plantation slavery. On the underground Railroad Conductors like harry tubman risked their lives and liberty to help fugitives and slavery make these Epic Journeys of freedom on the reverse underground railroad the conductors and station agents were kidnappers and human traffickers the number of people who made these journeys in one direction or the other out of or into slavery was roughly the same. Each one carried hundreds of black adults and children across state lines each and every year in the early 19th century. Both of these networks ruled to life in the earthly ato exploit what then was becoming major differences in the legal status of slavery in the north and the cell. Both of these networks were loosely opportunistic, loosely organized and highly opportunistic both ran on secrecy and relied on close circles of trusted participants on forged documents on false identity on disguise. Whether traveling from the slave states into the free states or vice versa from the free states into the slave states black voyageurs on these two networks had to hide often they had to hide in stables addicts and bars. The roots might have even passed one another on the roads from time to time. Most americans i hope you know a good deal about the underground railroad and im saying this in november 19 when theres a movie the box office that made 12 million last week outperforming expectations by two percent and that movie is harriet for the record. Most americans i hope know something about the underground railroad. Historians have spent decades, almost 100 years or more studying the strategies and tactics that Harriet Tubman and her fellow conductors and station agents used to help freedom seekers escape from slavery. Accounts by former passengers on tubmans railroad and biographies of many other former participants spurred immense interest not just in topic but many other colleagues comrades and collaborate. There are walking tours there are museums like the National UndergroundRailroad Freedom center in cincinnati or the amazing underground railroad visit center outside cambridge maryland here in the state. There was a Television Show until last year and now this movie harriet. All of them are dedicated to celebrating the man and woman who created the secret network through which the enslaved critics escape to freedom. Conductors and station agents work tirelessly to remain untouchable and the identities of all but a handful of those grotesque actors still remain a secret centuries later. She would go on lecture tours to spread the word about this important thing. She would go on fundraising tours to raise money for her important work. And to be clear, the people who ran the reverse underground railroad did not do that. Only rarely did their names and their crimes appear in surviving police files or trial transcripts. That lowprofile the result of years they spent in the shadows unlike legal interstate slave traders who acted out from the open who were doing by the standards of the law of the day nothing wrong legal slave traders sometimes left their papers to Historical Society to Southern College just and you can go read them. Thats not true for the conductors and station agents who did the kidnapping and freeman chop human traffic on the reverse underground railroad. Those outlaws left no Business Records they left no bundles of private letters for historians like me to stumble across in an airconditioned reading room in the library of congress. These kidnappers and human traffickers did not write memoir bragging about what they did they did not post paintings they did not pose for photographs. There houses, warehouses no longer stand. But as i argue in this new book stolen, which came out a couple weeks ago, these professional kidnappers in this reverse underground railroad left its mark everywhere in 19th Century America. If you look over six decades the first five or six decades of the 19th century the numbers are nothing left less than staggering. Over that halfcentury they stole away probably tens of thousands of free black people in that period. Many of them children like cornelius. Minimally many of them under the age of 16. Most of those they kidnapped could not read or write. Most of those that kidnapped were never heard from again. Their families and friends searched petitioned advertised. They waited in earnest for news, any news but usually no news came. Free black people in northern cities like philadelphia had very few white allies in the early 19th century beyond the ranks of a few quaker led antislavery societies. Whats more, white employers openly discriminated against africanamerican job applicants in the early 19th century while city constables generally ignored people of colors complaints generally turned a blind eye to most white on black street violence. So when children like 10yearold cornelius went missing their parents can hardly ever persuade magistrates to get involved to do something. It was rarer still for anyone to be able to gather enough evidence to issue warrants, to search properties, to interrogate suspects and on the very rare occasions when things like that did happen, even then experienced members of kidnapping crews new what to do and what to say to talk their way out of trouble and get back to work. How many people here have heard of 12 years a slave . A lot of hands in the room which is wonderful. You remember 12 years a slave is both a movie and memoir. A movie based on a memoir the memoir is called 12 years of slave too and written by man called Solon Northup about his experience as a prisoner passenger on the reverse underground railroad. In being a passenger against his will and being kidnapped and trafficked into slavery he was not at all unusual. What is unusual about his story that he was ever able to escape from the slavery into which he had been cast and that he chose to write about it and we have this amazing extraordinary memoir 12 years a slave. In it i will just recap his story. He tells his story of what happened to him. He tells us that in 1841 he was living in upstate new york when one day he is lord backend into manhattan by two welldressed white confidence men. To be clear, norfolk is an adult at this time hes in his mid30s. He is relatively prosperous. He is a highly skilled musician he is also literate. In manhattan these two welldressed white confidence men wine him and dine him and they drug him. Then they sell him to legal interstate slave trade. Not very legal, he is clearly corrupt. He they sell him to interstate slave trader in washington dc he is then forced onto slave ship which is bound for new orleans and in new orleans he is sold in one of the cities infamous slave markets to atlanta who puts him to work in his cane fields. In 2013 and oscarwinning film starring aban extraordinary film based on his even more extraordinary autobiography through overview attention to the ordeal what i would like to say tonight is that both the memoir and that amazing movie offer distorted and perhaps misleading views as to who the agents of this reverse underground railroad typically work. Who they typically targeted and how they typically made money because it turns out the northup experience grotesque as it was, was in many ways not typical of the larger reverse underground railroad. Most kidnappings were committed not by smartly dressed competent men but by poor people who never set foot in a fancy bar or restaurant and never whined or died anyone in their life. Most of the kidnappers acted on the reverse underground railroad. Some were women. Most of the kidnappers on the reverse underground railroad were white, which you should not surprise us. What startled me was to find a tiny