{"id":37130,"date":"2014-08-22T20:05:32","date_gmt":"2014-08-22T20:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mixedracestudies.org\/wordpress\/?p=37130"},"modified":"2016-06-11T23:20:22","modified_gmt":"2016-06-11T23:20:22","slug":"on-the-trail-of-brooklyns-underground-railroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/?p=37130","title":{"rendered":"On the Trail of Brooklyn\u2019s Underground Railroad"},"content":{"rendered":"

On the Trail of Brooklyn\u2019s Underground Railroad<\/strong><\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

The New York Times<\/a>
\n2007-10-12<\/p>\n

John Strausbaugh<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

LAST month the City of New York<\/a> gave Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn<\/a> an alternate name: Abolitionist Place. It\u2019s an acknowledgment that long before Brooklyn was veined with subway lines, it was a hub of the Underground Railroad<\/a>: the network of sympathizers and safe houses throughout the North that helped as many as 100,000 slaves flee the South before the Civil War<\/a>.<\/p>\n

With its extensive waterfront, its relatively large population of African-American freemen \u2014 slavery ended in New York in 1827 \u2014 and its many antislavery churches and activists, Brooklyn was an important nexus on the \u201cfreedom trail.\u201d Some runaways stayed and risked being captured and returned to their owners, but most traveled on to the greater safety of Canada.<\/p>\n

Because aiding fugitives from the South remained illegal even after New York abolished slavery \u2014 and because there was plenty of pro-slavery sentiment among Brooklyn merchants who did business with the South \u2014 Underground Railroad activities were clandestine and frequently recorded only in stories passed down within families. Corroborating documentation is scarce.<\/p>\n

Still, it\u2019s possible to follow some likely freedom routes through Brooklyn. You begin in Brooklyn Heights<\/a>, where the Promenade offers sweeping views of the East River<\/a> waterfront. In the decades before the Civil War, this waterfront bristled with the masts of sailing ships. Many were cargo vessels bringing cotton and other goods from the South. Sometimes they brought secret passengers: slaves fleeing to freedom. The fugitives slipped ashore and filtered into Brooklyn, where they were hidden and helped along on their journeys. Acquiring its railroad imagery by the 1830s, this antislavery network had its own \u201cstationmasters\u201d and \u201cconductors,\u201d who helped organize runaways\u2019 passages north, and its own \u201cstations\u201d and \u201cdepots,\u201d where they hid. Several Brooklyn churches participated. Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims<\/a>, a few blocks from the Promenade on Orange Street, between Hicks and Henry Streets, was called its \u201cGrand Central Depot.\u201d…<\/p>\n

…[Henry Ward] Beecher<\/a>\u2019s most successful tactic for arousing what he called \u201ca panic of sympathy\u201d for slaves was to stage mock slave auctions in the church, with the congregation bidding furiously to buy the captives\u2019 freedom. The 1914 bronze statues of Beecher and two girls in the church\u2019s courtyard by Gutzon Borglum<\/a>, who later sculptured Mount Rushmore<\/a>, depicts the first such auction, in 1848.<\/p>\n

The most famous auction occurred in 1860, when Beecher urged his congregation to buy the freedom of a pretty 9-year-old from Washington<\/a>, Sally Maria Diggs<\/a>, called Pinky for her light complexion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the service he called her to the platform and told the congregation her story,\u201d Ms. Rosebrooks said. \u201cHe said, \u2018No child should be in slavery, let alone a child like this.\u2019 I\u2019m sure he played on this. She could be your niece. She could be your sister. Your next door neighbor. So they passed the collection plate and raised $900, which is about $10,000 in today\u2019s dollars.\u201d<\/p>\n

Congregants gave jewelry as well as cash. In a theatrical flourish Beecher fetched a ring from the collection plate, slipped it onto Pinky\u2019s finger and declared, \u201cWith this ring, I thee wed to freedom.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

In 1927 when Plymouth Church celebrated the 80th anniversary of Beecher\u2019s first sermon there, one who attended was Mrs. James Hunt, a stately woman of 76. She was Pinky and had grown up to marry a lawyer in Washington. According to Plymouth Church lore, she brought the ring with her; Ms. Rosebrooks showed me a simple gold band set with a small amethyst. (A Brooklyn Eagle<\/em> article from 1927, however, quotes Mrs. Hunt as saying the ring had been lost.)…<\/p>\n

Read the entire article here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On the Trail of Brooklyn\u2019s Underground Railroad The New York Times 2007-10-12 John Strausbaugh LAST month the City of New York gave Duffield Street in downtown Brooklyn an alternate name: Abolitionist Place. It\u2019s an acknowledgment that long before Brooklyn was veined with subway lines, it was a hub of the Underground Railroad: the network of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12,459,8,820,6940,20],"tags":[6675,34,17785,2711,2640,37,2327],"class_list":["post-37130","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-articles","category-history","category-media-archive","category-religion","category-slavery","category-usa","tag-brooklyn","tag-henry-ward-beecher","tag-john-strausbaugh","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-times","tag-sally-maria-diggs","tag-the-new-york-times"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37130","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37130"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37130\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43011,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37130\/revisions\/43011"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37130"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37130"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mixedracestudies.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37130"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}