The book traces the history of slavery in the United States and includes excerpts from the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, information about the 1793 Fugitive Slave Law, and a chronology of the antislavery movement. The Underground Railroad is as much about the practice of slavery as about people who escaped slavery. Thomas Garrett sheltered more than 2,500 runaway slaves before he was arrested and bankrupted by the huge fines assessed for his "crime." Elijah Lovejoy published an abolitionist newspaper and was killed "while protecting his printing press from a proslavery mob." John Parker, a free black, rescued a baby from the very foot of a slave owner's bed so the baby and his parents could escape slavery. The book also introduces readers to many of the heroes of the Underground Railroad. "Imagine," the author asked, "the desperate fugitive who had to run for his life through the woods and fields in bare feet." Bial writes of carts with false bottoms "beneath which runaway slaves could be hidden under sacks of grain," of chains "used to hobble slaves" to keep them from running away, and of a slave's wooden shoes. Tunnels where "runaways waited in silence, their only light a candle or oil lamp" come to life. The text and detailed photographs provide images of safe houses, where slaves hid under eaves or behind fake walls. It was important for me to visit these placesto stand on the very ground of the slave cabins where men, women, and children were held in bondage, to gaze on the courthouse yard where human beings were auctioned off to the highest bidder, to wander through the antebellum homes that served as 'stations' on the Underground Railroad."īial's book allows readers to stand on that very same ground. The excerpt below is from author Raymond Bial's forward to The Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman, from The Underground Railroad, by Raymond Bial Bial visits slave cabins, auction yards, and other stops along the Underground Railroad, and he introduces readers to some of the heroes - black and white - of the time. Text and photographs detail the history of slavery and the laws that governed slaves. The Underground Railroad, a new book from Scholastic, author Raymond Bial paints a vivid picture of the lives of slaves and of the emotions behind their desperate need to escape - whatever the risks.
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