Sub-title: The Heroic Bid for Freedom on the Underground Railroad
I picked this up in Tucson at Bookman's before the Tucson Book Festival. I read the first chapter and was hooked into continuing to find out what happened to a group of 77 Baltimore, Maryland slaves in 1848 who attempted an escape by ship to the North.
The book revealed for me the stark divide over slavery, beginning the story in the late 1840s and leading up to the Civil War. The author used extensive materials from the time to tell the story of two sisters in the group, Emily and Mary Edmonson, whose family was scattered in the aftermath of their capture. The girls' became spokespersons for the anti-slavery movement, subjects of Harriett Beecher Stowe's second true book of slavery, and ancestors of a family who still honor their legacy.
I learned context for a time when there were tic mark censuses of slaves without their names, the background of the country's leaders leading up to the Civil War, and the attitudes and practices of slaveholders in our nation's capital, Washington D.C.
An engaging read that I highly recommend, to history lovers and genealogists alike.
Published: 2007 Read: April 2024 Genre: History
