I will be chairing or moderating the panel. After the three papers i will offer some brief comments, some thoughts, some questions i had in order to make it hopefully start generating conversations for us for the q a portion. I will introduce our three presenters. We will go in the order they appear on the program. The presenters will speak for roughly 20 minutes, and that i will speak for a few minutes and open things up. Our first presenter will be Graham Hodges, the George Langevin professor of history at Colgate University. He has written on africanamericans and labor in new york city, and more recently written a political apathy of david robles, and important figure in railroad activities. He is working on a book that reframes the underground railroad and will hear about his ideas about reframing, thinking about the underground railroad and a larger context if reading freedom making. Kate mazer, associate professor of history at northwestern. She has written on emancipation and washington, d. C. And recently edited a collection of essays about the war the u. S. Civil war made. Arthur presenter will be philip troutman, assistant professor of writing in history at George Washington university. He is working on a project that essentially explores of the literature and the images of radical antislavery during the antebellum period. We will hear about his approach that combination of literature and images today. We will go through these presenters and then we will move towards opening things up. All right. Thank you and good morning to everyone here. It is lovely to be in this historic church. My father was a parish minister for 50 years and i learned how to speak in places like this. I feel very much at home. I feel so very inspired by what i have seen with the taliban tubman center. , teach at Colgate University right in the middle of northstar country. Tubman lived in auburn and they will be rebuilding and recreating a center there. I hope they look to what you have done here for inspiration. It is really beautiful and moving for me. I did find one small thing wrong when going to the center yesterday, and perhaps something that is easily rectified. I hope the point in that direction this morning. There was a column that lists the places where tubman worked and helped people. It mentioned maryland and delaware in new york, pennsylvania. But not new jersey. New jersey was absent. Despite the wonderful work by childs right, who outlined the underground railroad in new jersey. Despite the fact that new jersey has a very significant black population that goes back to the origins of our nation. Between cityhis island, new york and the philadelphia airport, including new jersey, with well over 50 of americas black population. 15 of americas black population. We know in 1849 Harriet Tubman makes her famous burst to freedom. She goes to William Still. After that she begins to go back to maryland, rescue her family, bring them out of slavery. She does this for several years. We know as well according to an interview she made with franklin sanborn, one of the john brown eight of famous journalists, he talks about working as a domestic and the Cape May Hotels in the summer of 1852, and then leaving from cape may in the fall to go back to maryland to bring out nine people listed as unnamed over at the center. She brought them out. It was a failed attempt to bring up her family has kate larson talks about in her wonderful book. We know these kind of things, but there is a lot we dont know. Well we she doing besides cooking in the summer of 1852 . Who did he associate with . If you build an underground Railroad Operation there and use it over the years . We dont really know that. Cape may is a place right across from delaware. It is about 70 miles a very rough water. Water. Iles of very rough it was used only during the most dangerous and difficult of moments. Otherwise she would have gone further westwards. Cape may is a special place, as is the surrounding region. Whatever like to do is suggest to you some of the ways in which we can think about that region. The cape may slavery case goes back to 1688. They were plantations. Most notably it was a seafaring area. Most of the slaves worked for whalers or for fishermen. They were skilled at water men. Is a predominant aspect of the underground railroad from North Carolina and maryland and elsewhere. The watermen were skilled people and there were a lot of them there. New jersey begins emancipation and 18 o for. It does not end until the passage of the 13th amendment. There were enslaved people in the cape may area right until the time of the civil war. Th is a kind of a culture hear that it shares with nowhere delaware and maryland. There are a number of freed blakccks. Some of them prosperous. Most impoverished, living on slivers of land they have been able to purchase to create a hardscrabble life. To build the church is that populate the accounts down there. The kind of thing cheryl talks about further west. The emergence of these black towns as spots of freedom. It is impossible to think that was not the case in new jersey. There is a very interesting book. I look at jennifer laroches study about annamarie trustee, ad immature genealogist, woman of faith who identifies many of the families living around the cape may area, cumberland county, Foster County glouster county. All she argues as part of this underground operation. It is not always reliable, but there are nuggets of genuine insight into that book. I rely on it a lot. By the late 1840s they were coldspring,ities, goshen, springtown. These are north of cape may. They attract self emancipated people from the seventh eighth, known depots on the underground railroads, and were slave catchers would go to try to receive the survivors of retrieve the survivors of slavery. They were black women that were very important. The first lacking the minister. She is from cape may, foreign in 1783. She becomes an itinerant on her own, going all around the same culture hearth. He is the first licensed minister in the ame church, she was alive when tubman was there. A powerful fascination. I will go back to the order of people in a moment but i want to speak about the black middle classes who come out from philadelphia along with the many members of the society of friends to enjoy the ocean breezes. Cape may becomes a resort town by the 1830s and 1840s. There is a steamship that goes out everyday. Railroads come in later on. This place is where the africanamerican elite can go and enjoy good weather. There was a man named George Woolford who establishes a hotel for blacks in cape may, an area where Harriet Tubman may have found employment. There was another fascinating guy we should think more about named Stephen Smith. Anybody know this name . Stephen smith is one of the wealthiest lack men in the United States. He was somebody who worked out of philadelphia with the eminent william weber. They were involved in lumber. They would hide people in false bottoms in the car trains of their railroad. They were so notorious that at one point smith, it was worth about 500,000 at the time, board member of a number of banks, was warned by local whites that your presence is not agreeable. The less you appear in the assembly of the white, the better it is for your black hy de as many think your absence of the benefit. You are considered an injury to the Real Property of columbia. You better take the hand. When they ransacked his office, smith left her philadelphia where he operated an underground Railroad Depot unless he spent the summers in cape may. This is not the kind of man who would just stand there and let other people struggle. He would join with them. The underground railroad in western new jersey. It was also one in the east. One source for that is Thomas Clement oliver who was interviewed in 1895. He talks about how we keep passengers in greenwich with five or six wagons. We are armed and ready to be anybody. Meet i have the keys to 15 to 20 stables so they can travel quickly. Just outside cape may there was a man named john coleman. I go to the cousin of henry highland garnet. Very famous and africanAmerican History. These are all men and women, very prominent on the underground railroad. I want to go back for a moment to those hotels. Smith and course others were very important. But for most blacks the res ort world network. Black man became the dominant population in the township. I think there is a lot of sense to this. Not only did they go west towards philadelphia, but they would go along the atlantic. Oast this was a world in which i think tubman felt at home. Yes, she dealt with still and smith and garnet and later she would deal with other very prominent white people, but its the ordinary working black people in the resort hotels that she liked. These are the domestic people she would work with. Where those place hotels that were racial battlegrounds. Southerners would come up during the summer to escape the oppressive heat of the south. They would encounter sometimes self emancipated people. They would encounter free blacks. That werefistfights known to break out in the 1840s and 1850s between aggrieved whites who could understand the insolence of the waitstaff, and the waiters not willing to accept any demands for inferiority. Perhaps at that point he did not intentslight tough woman upon wrestling her family. Area tubman was there Harriet Tubman was there. Such locales the underground railroad to thrive. About the area itself. Trustee identifies people like julie sharp and ezekiel cooper, edward turner, these are all underground railroad operators who are mentioned in trustees book to live outside cape may. They live in cumberland county, cape may county. They are all ministers of the ame episcopal church. They were known to receive slavery survivors that tubman and other spring to freedom. Festivalh Mount Zion Church founded in small glouster was a rest station for weary survivors. The church would feed and house them, send them on with fresh clothing. Slate guesses were near and survivors written at a trapdoor in the secondary. Trustee uses precise information that Thomas Clement oliver provides to support her argument about the underground railroad. I see no reason to doubt them. I think this is something significant in the kind of thing tubman would have been involved with. Instances ofer underground Railroad Operations there. Still talks about a family that comes through in the 1860s. Samuel ward who becomes a prominent minister recalls his parents fully from maryland and flee from maryland and 1820. Live in springtown, burgettstown, black townships. They found numerous colored people. The quakers were truly practically friendly and they were loving in word and tongue, in deed and in truth. This part of the state does get rid of slavery fairly fast. They would help out. There are these resort town, small black towns, the churchs fraternal organizations, farmers and small slivers of land in which they would hide people. Their other prosperous black they can provide money. Smith is a fascinating guy. He is a significant abolitionist involved in all the conventions. John brown looks to him for help in 1859. He is the chief recruiter for black people, black men to go fight in the civil war in 1863. This is not a man who would stand idly aside. Im trying to show along with the betterknown routes to the west, there is a significant amount of activity going through cape may up along the coast, going to black towns. These are the places that do the heavy lifting of the underground railroad. Rescuing, transporting across delaware bay, sheltering, the lives oforing the self emancipated as they pass through the state to free soil. For a times stated new jersey. Those black towns still exist. The descendents of the people that trustee talked about her still living there. They carry on the message. The user environments in which Harriet Tubman with arrive. Also the world that William Still had contact with. David davis pointed out these of the people, prosperous, some prosperous black mostly workingclass blacks who run the underground railroad. Who do the jobs connected to transportation who operate the churches and wish people could succor. Or nots really Harriet Tubman once but probably over and over again. Does anybody know about the wild and scale wellman scale . Five points. The subject is developed. I think this area is right around a five, close to the top of what you can imagine. What is important about all this . Anything new on Harriet Tubman is important and i think we can all agree on that. I like to associate her more with the working classes, ordinary people of southern jersey. Theould help to make underground railroad more visible. A big dividen between Popular History and academic historians but myself about the underground railroad means. That is changing rapidly. The last 10 years and seen an upsurge of studies, was identified very clearly building on older work, where the underground railroad was. To make invisible. To make it a real part of American History. That is why we are here today it is a symbol of the selfless freedom making their regular people. It is something which is really a penalized by Harriet Tubman herself. Thank you. [applause] good morning. Im notg to have sure if the projector is working so im curious if it is or not. It is not . The video is out. We will survive. I would show you one slide of a map. I will just try to describe what would have been there. Its not too collocated. I teach at northwestern university. I was really delighted to hear on the last panel joe polaski , what most struck you about learning the underground railroad for the show . He said this was the spy network for the civil war. I was like, that is what im talking about. I hope this will connect. This is the very beginning of the civil war and some of the things that were going on in maryland, virginia borderland. If i had my slide, i would show you a map of the Potomac River. , talking about the southern Potomac River that stretches from washington, d. C. Down through the border between virginia and maryland. In maryland, it is prince georges county, charles, and st. Marys county. Thats the location im talking about today. I will target with the river and what was going on on both sides of the river, but primarily on the maryland side. Will bethe papers talking about the kind of northsouth or slave statefree stay borderlands so integral to the career of Harriet Tubman and many aspects of marylands history. I will talk about a different kind of border. The boarder created in april, 1861 in the state of virginia declared itself separate from United States and enjoy the extremity known as the Confederate States of america. Going tos paper im talk about how africanamericans on both sides of that brand medical border soft freedom and in some cases held the Union War Effort. When i was at the Harriet Tubman area last night for the first time, i was struck how the scenes in her life on display connect with what im going to talk about. I think those are mainly three things. One is continuity and africanamerican struggle for freedom. Two, the importance in the struggle of family and community. Three, the value and sophistication of enslaved peoples knowledge of the landscape and its people. I will touch on these things and i want to emphasize that beyond the familiar roles that fugitives from slavery played as laborers for the u. S. Forces, know that familiar image of contraband labor working in manual jobs and doing work for forces, theyates offered information which was often called intelligence it was extremely important to the war effort. This is also a story about geography. My focus is on the western shore of the chesapeake, the counties you would see there. Prince georges, charles and st. Marys. Let me set the Historical Context for what im going to talk about. After the battle of bull run on january july 21, 1861, confederates increasingly took up positions on the virginia side of the Potomac River. Werenited states forces somewhat caught somewhat unawares. Navy ships were patrolling up and down truck the Potomac River. Three months after bull run some 10,000 United States soldiers commanded by general Joseph Hooker spread out across Southern Maryland trying to secure the new International Border. Now,u go to the state park you can look across the river and see mount vernon. You can imagine what it would have been like to live in a moment when the Potomac River was suddenly an International Border separating two ostensibly different nations at war with each other. That watery border between maryland and virginia had been remarkably porous to that point, with a shared history of tobacco plantations. Both part of the river were part of a agricultural region. Families often have members living of both sides of the river. On the maryland side, white residents of those counties were among the most proconfederate of maryland. It was a heavenly plantation intensive area of maryland compared to other parts of maryland. Those residents were overwhelmingly favorable towards secession and the confederate effort. Until the civil war there was little they kept thos