I wrote this for a class in the spring. It is a final paper after learning about slavery and indentured labour. The resistance of slaves was focussed on because the slaves were not sympathetic figures; they fought back. Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad is a great resource to learn more about the story of the quilts.
The Underground Railroad was seen as a route to freedom; a dangerous
journey to Canada that was undertaken by brave slaves and their allies who were
determined to help them reach freedom. Do to the illegal nature of this work
those who ran the Underground Railroad used hard to identify symbols to help
the slaves find their way from station to station. On the other hand the slaves
themselves found a way to pass the legend of the Underground Railroad without
getting caught; through song. These two different forms of communication helped
the Underground Railroad remain underground and away from slave owners and
drivers. The safety of everyone involved in the Underground Railroad was paramount
and to achieve success at moving slaves out of slavery and into Canada so they
could be free. By focusing on two components of the communication methods used
by the slaves and the station managers. The coded messages shared through both
song and quilt were key to the safe escapes of those who decided to run. What
did the codes in the quilts and in “Follow the Drinking Gourd” represent? How
did the codes and the community surrounding the enslaved Africans help them
preserve the heritage that the slave owners were trying to steal from them?
The Underground Railroad is the most famous way that slaves escaped
to freedom in Canada. Through a series of safe houses or stations, slaves moved
through the United States of America by foot until they reached Cleveland, Ohio
where they were transported across Lake Erie into Canada where they would be
free at last. The journey usually occurred at nighttime, with the dark allowing
for some security for the slaves[1].
The journey was treacherous. If a slave was caught they were punished severely.
The Underground Railroad became a way to escape the harsh conditions and to
experience freedom, even if that freedom was achieved in another country.
Both former slaves and white folk who were sympathetic to the plight
of the enslaved slaves facilitated the Underground Railroad. Many of the former
slaves who helped facilitate the Underground Railroad were granted manumissions
because of the War of Independence and their willingness to fight along side
Americans to gain freedom from Great Britain[2].
These former slaves gained knowledge once they became free, but they never lost
touch with the community of slaves that they knew through the plantation
grapevine, a system of communication devised by the slaves to share information
from plantation to plantation. This form of communication became vital to the
spreading of the Underground Railroad as a means to achieve freedom. The
Underground Railroad was one example of slave resistance and silent protest.
Slaves did not hold power, but they were able to control their lives to a
certain extent by fighting back through marooning and creating an entire system
to help slaves escape to Canada.
The Underground Railroad was the silent way that slaves fought back.
It was silent in the sense that it was hard to trace. The slaves and those who
ran the Underground Railroad formed a system of communication that was
intricate and based on both African culture and basic ideas of remaining
hidden. The slaves and those who helped run the Underground Railroad used
everyday items and songs to communicate the instructions for travelling on the
Underground Railroad. The everyday item that was used was the quilts. Quilts
were the everyday item that was used by slaves to learn the way to Canada and
to communicate how to prepare. Song was used to pass the directions along. One
of the most famous Underground Railroad song is the African American folk song
“Follow the Drinking Gourd”. By combining the use of the quilts with the lyrics
from “Follow the Drinking Gourd” it becomes apparent that communication about
the Underground Railroad was coded in a way that was easy to understand, yet
easy to hid from the slave masters and overseers[3].
There are two key components to the discussion of how the
Underground Railroad used hidden culture to enable communication is the quilts
of the Underground Railroad and the popular African American folk song “Follow
the Drinking Gourd”. The oral tradition of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” has led
some historians to believe that there were changes to the song from the
original Creole language to the Anglicized version that is known today. By
interpreting “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, valuable information about the
Underground Railroad can be discovered. The route and how to travel safely are
hidden within the song, which was sung by the slaves. “Follow the Drinking
Gourd” traveled from plantation to plantation with slaves who were traded. Although
the song has been Anglicized, the lyrics still tell the route to Canada and how
to reach each key destination safely. It can be argued that the Anglicizing of
“Follow the Drinking Gourd” makes it a less valuable source because of the
changes made through the years as the song became a popular piece of African
American music[4].
“Follow the Drinking Gourd” is a concrete example of how music
influenced the use to the Underground Railroad. Due to the lack of education of
slaves, there is no written documentation of their songs. The songs traveled
from plantation to plantation via slaves who had be traded or sold. The song
contained key instructions for the journey to Canada including how to cross the
Ohio River without drowning and clues on how to find the point of crossing.
Crossing the Ohio River was one of the main problems faced by the Underground
Railroad because the river was dangerous, but crossing it was a key part of the
journey to Canada. By using a song that was full of instructions, the slaves
were given a safe way to remember how to get to Canada. “Follow the Drinking
Gourd” is a verbal representation of the clues that are presented in the
quilts.
The use of quilts on the Underground Railroad involved different
patterns with each pattern acting as a different instruction. The quilts were
used to help instruct slaves on how they were go forth in their journey to
Canada. Much like “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, the quilts were used as a tool
to communicate through the plantation grapevine that was hidden from the slave
owners. The plantation grapevine was a tool that not only allowed slaves at
different plantations to communicate, but it also allowed them to communicate
with the freed slaves of the North[5].
It was this communication that allowed for the creation of the Underground
Railroad because the freed slaves, many of whom had received manumission for
fighting in the War of Independence, were now educated and literate. Those two
factors helped the freed slaves create a simple system of communication that
was difficult to break because system was based around everyday tasks that did
not look out place and yet those tasks were sending valuable instructions to
the slaves.
Quilts were a key form of communication because they were a household
item that needed to be aired out. The quilts acted as a step-by-step guide for
how to escape and what move should be next[6].
From gathering tools to when to leave; the quilts were a silent message to the
slaves planning to maroon. The quilts were the safest way to communicate about
escaping the oppressive system. The quilts were put out at different times to
help remind of tasks that needed to be completed or routes that needed to be
taken. The quilts came out in a certain order to ensure the code was followed.
The last quilt shown was the quilt that had the tumbling blocks pattern,
meaning it was time to move.
The names of the quilts were also used to safely talk about escaping
while in earshot of their overseers. Terms like “around the world” took on new
meaning thanks to the quilt code[7].
The slaves code allowed them to share the knowledge that they gained through
the grapevine. Coded directions like “around the world”, which means to walk
around the Appalachian Mountains, were key to the success of the Underground
Railroad because the directions were able to be kept hidden from the overseers.
Besides the patterns, the stitches themselves held valuable
information for the slaves including distances to safe houses and other key
landmarks on the slaves journey to Canada. Once again, this information was
only known to slaves and was easily hidden from the slave owners. The use of
stitching is another tie to African tradition as quilts in Africa featured
stitching to hold the filling. Another key part of the journey that was
influenced by African is the zigzag pattern that the safe houses were set up
in. Many African cultures believed that nothing good traveled in straight lines
and this is shown in the pattern of safe houses along the Underground Railroad[8].
These little details allowed the slaves to remain true to the homeland that
they were torn from unwillingly, forced to move to a strange land to work under
horrible conditions for nothing in return.
The power of the quilts and of the Underground Railroad was is was a
concentrated act of resistance that was aided by those who had been freed
before. There were coded messages that harkened back to different cultures in
Africa and different African American societies in the United States. The power
of the quilts was that they took components of their homeland and allowed them
to use those components to help guide the marooned slaves to freedom.
The use of songs like “Follow
the Drinking Gourd” added another layer to the coded messages of the
Underground Railroad. The quilts did not travel with the marooned slaves; they
stayed on plantations and were used as a way to train the mind to remember the
journey before hand. They were used a mnemonic devices to help the marooning
slaves remember their route[9].
Song was used in the same way. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” provides explicit
instructions on what path to take to Ohio and even how to cross the Ohio River
without drowning. Much like the quilts, music allowed for the memory of these
instructions through mnemonic device. “Follow the Drinking Gourd” has become a
well-known African American folk song, helping to create the unique culture
that the community harbours today.
The two different forms of
mnemonic devices share a lot of similarities. Both “Follow the Drinking Gourd”
and the quilts place an emphasis on the North Star. The North Star represented
the direction that they had to walk to reach freedom. The quilts and “Follow
the Drinking Gourd” reference the North Star repeatedly. In fact, the drinking
gourd is a reference to the Big Dipper, a constellation that is apart of Ursa
Major, which is found by finding the North Star. The importance of the North
Star as a navigational tool is one that goes back centuries before it became a
key part of the navigational methods employed by marooned slaves to reach their
destination. The North Star is a key symbol unto itself when it comes to the
Underground Railroad.
Although the end game of all slaves on the Underground Railroad was
to reach Canada, their key destination in the United States of America was
Cleveland, Ohio. The quilt code was used to communicate the importance of
Cleveland through the cross road pattern[10].
The quilt signified the crossroads that the marooned slaves had reached. All of
a sudden they were a boat ride away from freedom and the most dangerous part of
the journey was over. No longer were they traveling through the southern states
where being caught meant going back to the plantation that they ran away from
and being punished for their actions. The journey was all but over for the
marooned slaves once they made it to Ohio because Ohio was a free state. Cleveland
was the city that was chosen for the final crossing into Canada because
Cleveland is a port city that borders on Lake Erie; one of the four Great Lakes
that is shared between Canada and the United States of America. The passage
over Lake Erie was the final passage before reaching freedom. That final
passage, a boat ride across Lake Erie, was taken at night when it was harder to
see other boats to ensure that the marooned slaves would remain safe from
capture for the last part of their journey to freedom[11].
The use of coded messages in quilts and in songs as a means of
communication for the Underground Railroad is one of the silent ways that
slaves protested their enslavement. Their quiet act of resistance, building a
community to aid in the marooning of slaves to a free land, was a powerful message
much like the infanticides and suicides that took place on the passage over.
The use of silent protests as an act of resistance is a pattern seen time and
time again in the slave movement. The silent protest that the coded messages of
the Underground Railroad represents goes beyond the resistance of slavery and
into holding onto a culture that the slave trade was actively trying to
destroy. By using the art of coded
messages in quilts to allow the traditions of the slaves’ African homeland to
stay with them in the United States, even when it seemed like it was not
allowed. The small ways in which the slave community tried to preserve their
heritage was an act of resistance. By not giving up their traditions entirely,
the slaves were not allowing their traditions from home to be stolen from them
entirely. In their own silent way, the slaves were protesting their enslavement
in every way possible.
The Underground Railroad was a way that slaves were able to fight
for themselves and for each other. They would work together to help slaves
escape. The quilt code was used on the plantations as a way to help prepare the
slaves for escape. Different quilts gave them different sets of instructions on
how to prepare for their escape. The Underground Railroad became a community
for the slaves, allowing them to work together to get members to Canada where
they were free. Former slaves who had received manumission were apart of this
community, helping the marooned slaves moves safely through dangerous territory
to help them reach the free state of Ohio. The coded communication system that
the slaves created was part of the community. The code traveled through the slave grapevine,
allowing the slaves to be connected, even when on different plantations. There
were even people who visited the plantations that helped the slaves by giving
them information on the surrounding geography. The Underground Railroad, with
its coded messages and symbols, became a powerful community of marooning slaves,
freed slaves, and white sympathizers who worked together to help slaves reach
freedom. Together, they achieved just that.
The Quilt Code and “Follow the Drinking Gourd” represent far more
than just the route of the Underground Railroad to Canada. Both coded messages
carried in them ingenuity in extenuating circumstances that would have left
many helpless to the atrocities that the slaves were facing. Under these
conditions the slaves, along with freed slaves and white sympathizers, a way of
slaves reaching Canada and freedom was developed. The slaves were able to turn
everyday objects into a system of communication that helped the slaves move
towards freedom in Canada. By building the system in a way that the plantation
owners and the overseers could see the codes without knowing that they were
looking at anything beyond a quilt being aired out speaks to the daring nature
of the slaves. The slaves had to be brave to escape. They had to be willing to
risk everything to have a chance at freedom. The story of the slaves quest for
freedom does not end with the open use of the coded messages and what they
meant, it continues on through the connections to different beliefs in Africa
and how those beliefs influenced the making of the quilts. The story of the quilts
on the Underground Railroad and the lyrics of “Follow the Drinking Gourd” point
to a connection to the culture that the slaves had been taken away from when
they were captured to journey to the United States was found throughout the
coded messages and even in the set up of the safe houses on the Underground
Railroad harkens back to old beliefs held by some African cultures. The
connection, no matter the outside influences that were projected onto them by
groups and traditions formed in the United States, were still a form of
preservation of a culture that was being ripped away from the slaves. The knots
that help hold the stuffing in place were an African influence. The use of the
number five and zigzag patterns when tying the knots. All of these symbolize
influences from Africa; influences that helped preserve the culture that the
plantation owners were trying to eliminate. The slaves never allowed everything
to be taken from them and they fought back. Slowly. Meticulously. Purposefully.
They fought back until they were able to gain freedom. First by escaping
silently after weeks of preparation: slipping away and running through the
night until they reached Canada. The journey was treacherous. It was risky. It
helped build a community where there was not one because of the dangers. The
Underground Railroad, built to help slaves escape their misery and journey to
Canada became part of a greater community built around innovation and secret
codes that allowed the slaves to communicate within earshot of their overseers;
to plan how to best escape. With the help of the quilt code and songs like
“Follow the Drinking Gourd”, enslaved Africans were to preserve the culture
that they were stolen from and form a community that spanned across
plantations.
[1] George and Willen Hendrick, ed., Fleeing to Freedom. (Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2004) 3
[2] Raymond G. Dobard and Jacqueline L. Tobin. Hidden in Plain View: The Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground
Railroad. (New York: Random House,
1999) 55
[4] James B. Kelley, “Song,
Story, or History: Resisting Claims of a Coded Message in the African American
Spiritual “Follow the Drinking Gourd” Journal of Popular Culture 41 (2008):
264
[5] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 39
[6] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 68
[7] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 90
[8] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 78
[9] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 73
[10] Dobard and Tobin Hidden 98
[11] Fergus M. Bordewich Bound for
Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America. (New
York: HarperCollins, 2005) 190
