PART I - Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “We are determined to work and fight until justice rains down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”  Paraphrasing the Biblical book of Amos 5:24, King did just that with God at his side to challenge us to seek justice.  Sadly, slavery is still a profitable venture around the world, including in our nation under various guises.  It flourishes in over 100 countries with India, China, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Uzbekistan, and North Korea topping the charts.  And it continues to survive because of the illicit financial profit it brings to the traffickers.  

Several years ago, I researched, read, and wrote this article, “The Underground Railroad,” for my historical blog.  In honor of February being Black History month, I’d like to share part of my extensive article in series format. We can collectively learn from history’s mistakes to understand and improve life for our future, but erasing history serves no good purpose.  Just as the slaves arrived with memories of their African homeland, values, religious beliefs, intellect, wisdom, music and song, artistry, and skills, so their old ways were fused with the newly learned, blending and creating a new way of life as they strove for freedom.  (My resources available on request, books listed at article’s completion.)

Just mention the Underground Railroad and the words evoke images of slaves huddled together, speaking in hushed tones, making plans with great fear and yet tremendous hope, depending on certain symbols to guide them… of those with unspoken plans to escape entirely alone… of lonely walks through the dead of night… of traveling with extreme vigilance in broad daylight… of being concealed under the false bottom in the bed of a wagon carrying produce, hay or bricks, etc… of stowaways hidden aboard ships bound for northern cities… of being hidden in a home or barn until it was safe to move on again… all while living under the overwhelming fear of discovery at any moment by both passenger and conductor/stationmaster alike.

In reality, the abolitionist movement took tremendous faith and courage on the part of every participant on this train of sorts.  Most often, it was facilitated by one’s faith in God and knowing that “all men are created equal…” as the U.S. Constitution avers.  There was a spiritual impetus in seeking emancipation for a people who should not be held captive as someone’s possession, regardless of how ancient the tradition of slavery might have been… even from Biblical times.  But it also took bravery and self-sacrifice for a seemingly “hodge-podge” system to thrive in secrecy while operating within plain sight of those vehemently opposed to its intrinsic value.  Unfortunately, many who considered themselves “good Christians” were just as adamantly opposed to freeing the slaves. 

Abolitionists were involved in an act of civil disobedience like no other, punishable by fines and/or imprisonment upon discovery, never mind the slave who was disciplined/punished in varying degrees of severity, even death.  With all of that at stake, how did the “underground railroad” ever manage to pull out of the station on such successful clandestine lines? 

In 1823, the British Anti-Slavery Society was established by William Wilberforce, a former member of Parliament.  Having become an evangelical Christian in 1785, Wilberforce carried on a 20-year fight against the evils of slavery.  In 1787, after meeting with a group of British abolitionists, he recorded in his diary that his life’s purpose was to end the slave trade.  Becoming a leading abolitionist in parliament, he saw his cause through to the passage of the Slave Trade Act of 1807.   He continued to support the full abolishment of slavery even after his retirement from parliament in 1826. When his efforts were rewarded with passage of the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, slavery ended in almost every corner of the British Empire, and Wilberforce died three days later. 

Meanwhile, it was the notorious 18^th century captain of a slave ship, John Newton, who realized the gravity of his evil ways as a foul-mouthed captain of ill repute when he, too, converted to Christianity.  Captured and pressed into service for the Royal Navy in 1743 at a young age, he led a hard life, once being whipped on board ship for attempted desertion. 

In March 1748, Newton called out to God during a severe storm when his ship almost sank.  Every year thereafter, he recalled March 21^st as the anniversary of his spiritual conversion to Christianity.  (Parker, p.12)  Though continuing in the slave trade despite his new-found faith, he treated others better, refrained from certain vices, and worked his way up to become captain of his own slave ship.  Newton felt he was doing nothing different from other Christians at the time in both owning and selling slaves, eventually retiring from the sea in 1754. 

Yet, it was Newton who later penned the words in 1772 for one of our all-time favorite hymns as evidence of God’s grace in his life. “Amazing grace!  How sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!  I once was lost, but now am found; was blind, but now I see.” 

In 1788, Newton published a pamphlet, “Thoughts Upon the Slave Trade,” describing the appalling conditions of slave ships.  He apologized with “a confession, which…comes too late…  It will always be a subject of humiliating reflection to me, that I was once an active instrument in a business at which my heart now shudders."  Newton became an active supporter of Wilberforce’s campaign to end the slave trade, dying December 21, 1807 well before Wilberforce’s end to slavery was realized in 1833.

Mistreatment of slaves was universally known.  Being in the hold of a ship was difficult enough of a trial being typically pressed in together with barely enough room to move.  Sickness and death, tossed overboard for infractions, jumping overboard in suicide, or being jettisoned overboard as unnecessary cargo were just some of the fates awaiting the slaves en route.  Then, being put on the auction block under close inspection, they were forced to endure yet more humiliation. In addition, there were often agonizing family separations of spouses and of parents and children. 

Any slave found guilty of infractions (from some simple error, running away or murder) was punished, some more severely than others.  Should a slave not perform up to expectations, he or she often met with discipline.  Floggings or whippings, branding, mutilation of the ears or hands, cutting off of the ears or hands, hanging, overwork, and many other unsavory forms of punishment were meted out as seen fit by frustrated, angry and authoritative owners.  Man’s inhumanity to man was evidenced in untold suffering, too despicable to enumerate here, something which we cannot begin to fathom or contemplate.  To their credit, however, there were those who treated their slaves in exemplary fashion and whose slaves in turn were loyal and faithful servants, albeit still in bondage.

And yet, this evil was part of normalcy for many centuries.  We are able, with hindsight, to see the injustice forced on fellow humanity through our combined modern ideology and spiritual insight.  Then, it was considered part of the established way of life, a substantial and valuable labor force.  Their times and understandings were so different from our perspectives.  Thankfully, there were those who saw the inequalities inherent within the slave trade even then, despite popular opinion to the contrary; and, gradually, the early abolitionists’ ideas took root and grew from their understanding of God’s inherent biblical truths.

In 1619, “The White Lion” seized 20 African slaves from a Portuguese trading ship, the Sao Jao Bautista, selling them to the English settlers at Jamestown in Virginia.  Slaves began to arrive in New Netherlands as early as the 1630s by the Dutch West India Company.  The company was more interested in the labor that slaves could provide, not perpetual ownership.  Roughly “two thousand American and British ships were engaged in transporting between forty thousand and fifty thousand Africans to the Americas every year” during the 18th century. It was even this tremendously profitable venture which fed England’s industrial revolution of the 18^th century. 

In 1784, Thomas Jefferson, a member of the Continental Congress, helped draft a plan for settlers of the nation’s new lands between the Appalachians and the Mississippi River.  The plan was meant to prohibit slavery in all western territory.  Then, defeated by only one vote, hopes were dashed for preventing the spread of slavery.  Out of this dichotomy with which our nation struggled, Jefferson wrote he “feared that the continuation of slavery would inevitably lead to bloody rebellion and race war.” 

Long before that bloody civil war began though, there was a movement afoot to assist slaves in escaping their plight rather than turning them in to the law for bounty money, or back to their masters for certain discipline, aka punishment.  Even most northern states had passed helpful laws by 1800 for the gradual abolition of their slaves.  

PART II to follow...

Feature photo courtesy of www.history.com