WEBVTT - SYSK Selects: How the Underground Railroad Worked 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:03.720 M Hey everybody, it's me Josh and for this week's 0:00:03.840 --> 0:00:06.640 s Y s K Selects. Me and Chuck agreed that 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:10.880 we should re release our episode on the Underground Railroad. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.440 First came out in June of two thousand and eleven 0:00:13.640 --> 0:00:15.280 and it was a pretty good one. But since we 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.160 just released our Harriet Tubban episode, we thought this might 0:00:18.239 --> 0:00:21.680 tie in quite well. So sit back, relax, and enjoy 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:25.360 hearing about the thrilling stories from the Underground Railroad and 0:00:25.480 --> 0:00:35.080 Happy Black History Month. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know 0:00:35.680 --> 0:00:43.920 from house stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to 0:00:43.960 --> 0:00:46.800 the podcast. I'm Josh Clark and with me as always 0:00:46.800 --> 0:00:49.839 as Charles W. Chuck Bryant, which makes this stuff You 0:00:49.840 --> 0:00:53.199 should know the podcast because Chuck and I are the 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:59.760 hosts of that hostesses no host yep, Chuck, Yes, how 0:00:59.840 --> 0:01:01.880 your How are you? I'm great, man? How are you? 0:01:02.560 --> 0:01:05.440 I'm fine? It's you and I and Matt are guest 0:01:05.440 --> 0:01:10.360 producer alone in this entire building. Yeah, this it's uh, 0:01:10.440 --> 0:01:14.280 the Friday before Memorial Day, Friday afternoon even and it's 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:18.319 pretty empty in here, Yes it is. There's lots of 0:01:18.319 --> 0:01:20.560 echoes that we're gonna have to adjust for and post 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:23.680 do we do post anymore? Is this like basically just 0:01:23.840 --> 0:01:27.679 live to tape. At least we're not getting hateful stairs 0:01:27.680 --> 0:01:33.200 as we walk through the office. Yeah, it's refreshing, so Chuck. 0:01:34.000 --> 0:01:36.800 As you know, I grew up in Ohio. I was 0:01:36.800 --> 0:01:38.959 hoping you had mentioned this. Well, I grew up in Ohio. 0:01:39.880 --> 0:01:43.240 Your hopes are are fulfilled. Well another reason why, Well, Um, 0:01:43.280 --> 0:01:45.760 it turns out I recently learned from this article on 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.280 how the underground Railroad, how the underground railroad worked. We 0:01:49.320 --> 0:01:52.520 talked about how this is gonna be problematic. Um that 0:01:53.120 --> 0:01:58.960 an estimated half of all underground railroad workers. Um, we're 0:01:59.400 --> 0:02:02.000 from Ohio or lived in Ohio or part of Ohio. 0:02:02.120 --> 0:02:04.480 I had no idea that, but reading that it makes 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.480 sense because that was such a part of my um 0:02:07.640 --> 0:02:11.720 upbringing as a child. Everybody's house that was built in 0:02:11.840 --> 0:02:15.600 like the nineteenth or eighteenth century had like an oh, 0:02:15.639 --> 0:02:17.800 this is where they kept the freed slaves in the 0:02:17.880 --> 0:02:20.840 underground roildroad. Everybody's house had like a little spot that 0:02:20.919 --> 0:02:25.320 supposedly was part of the underground road heritage or some 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.720 real some were um more believable than others, but normally 0:02:29.720 --> 0:02:32.080 it was like a public building or like a National 0:02:32.160 --> 0:02:35.520 Historic Register building that like they gave tours to that 0:02:35.600 --> 0:02:38.880 was part of the underground railroad. But like everybody's house 0:02:39.000 --> 0:02:43.320 like had like a little spot in the basement where like, yes, 0:02:43.400 --> 0:02:47.240 conceivably human beings could stand here and and uh, you know, 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:49.240 hide out. But yeah, see I grew up in Georgia. 0:02:49.280 --> 0:02:52.600 Said that we didn't have those talks. No, And apparently 0:02:52.720 --> 0:02:56.399 in this article the author points out and I don't 0:02:56.440 --> 0:02:59.880 know where she got this, but um that there's there's 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:03.359 still blemishes on families who were known to have helped 0:03:04.080 --> 0:03:07.000 slaves on the underground road road in the South still today. 0:03:07.080 --> 0:03:09.520 I totally I don't know if she's talking about. I 0:03:09.520 --> 0:03:11.880 thought that was completely out of left field. It was. 0:03:12.000 --> 0:03:14.560 I grew up in this state and never heard anybody 0:03:14.600 --> 0:03:16.280 be like, yeah, that guy that lives down the street 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:21.120 their family used to hide slaves. Yeah that's not that's 0:03:21.120 --> 0:03:24.400 not true. So so um, but you you were familiar 0:03:24.400 --> 0:03:27.680 with the underground road road before this article. I was. 0:03:27.800 --> 0:03:30.360 But it's a good time to point out that not 0:03:30.560 --> 0:03:35.040 nearly enough, because black history is so glossed over in 0:03:35.240 --> 0:03:39.640 American schools except in February. Except in February, and it's 0:03:39.640 --> 0:03:41.760 still even in February that I went through all my 0:03:41.800 --> 0:03:45.240 schooling with just knowing like there was an underground railroad 0:03:45.240 --> 0:03:50.440 and Harriet Tubman ran it. That's it. Period. Yeah, never 0:03:50.520 --> 0:03:53.560 learned about Malcolm X. I think dread Scott may have 0:03:53.600 --> 0:03:56.480 been mentioned briefly, but yeah, it's very sad. Yeah, and 0:03:56.480 --> 0:03:59.920 hopefully that's changed some since then. Well for the list 0:04:00.080 --> 0:04:04.240 nurse who had similar experiences. Um, we're about a remedy 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:07.000 that because we're gonna tell you not only how it worked, 0:04:07.040 --> 0:04:08.720 we're gonna tell you in so much detail that you 0:04:08.720 --> 0:04:11.360 could conceivably go start your own right now. That's right, 0:04:11.600 --> 0:04:15.720 And there are some still around today. Yes. Human trafficking 0:04:15.880 --> 0:04:20.400 is the new word for um slavery basically um where 0:04:20.839 --> 0:04:25.840 it usually it's forced into sex work, right, um. And 0:04:25.880 --> 0:04:28.839 there are groups who are dedicated to like freeing sex 0:04:28.880 --> 0:04:34.320 workers from forced labor. They're called Polaris, which is renaming 0:04:34.360 --> 0:04:38.440 of the North Star. Yeah. Um, and then and others. 0:04:39.320 --> 0:04:41.600 We should do a podcast on human trafficking. I think 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:44.640 we have a good article on that that Molly wrote. 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:48.400 If I'm not mistaken. Oh really yeah, okay, you're ready, Yeah, 0:04:48.440 --> 0:04:52.240 let's do it all right, so chuck um, basically the 0:04:52.240 --> 0:04:57.600 the origins of the UM Underground Railroad, which was the 0:04:57.760 --> 0:05:02.839 network by which is skate slaves ran along to freedom, 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:05.680 almost always to Canada if they were going north. As 0:05:05.680 --> 0:05:13.800 it turns out, UM probably started before the eighteen twenties. UM, 0:05:13.839 --> 0:05:16.440 but it couldn't have possibly been called the underground road 0:05:16.520 --> 0:05:20.000 road until after the eighteen twenties because the actual railroad 0:05:20.040 --> 0:05:22.720 system wasn't invented until them. Either that or they were 0:05:22.760 --> 0:05:24.960 like way ahead of their time, right, But it may 0:05:24.960 --> 0:05:27.040 have had some sort of name, And we know that 0:05:27.080 --> 0:05:30.840 there were groups of people who were uh formed for 0:05:30.920 --> 0:05:36.279 the common purpose of aiding escaped slaves to go secure freedom, 0:05:36.320 --> 0:05:38.440 to get out of the South, or get out of 0:05:38.440 --> 0:05:41.880 a slave state into protection in a non slave state. 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:46.000 Because George Washington complained about it in a letter in 0:05:46.040 --> 0:05:49.479 seventeen eighty six that he suspected some Quakers that helped 0:05:49.480 --> 0:05:52.479 some of his slaves escape. He was probably right on 0:05:52.480 --> 0:05:54.920 the money, tail, yeah, because Quakers were one of the 0:05:54.960 --> 0:05:59.360 earliest members of the Underground Railroad, and they were the 0:06:00.200 --> 0:06:03.920 was trusted because they were so recognizable in everybody. Yet 0:06:04.279 --> 0:06:06.680 Quakers will help you out. Definitely the most trusted white 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:11.839 people for sure. UM. We but we should probably point out, um, 0:06:12.000 --> 0:06:15.520 the reason everybody went to Canada was because there was 0:06:15.560 --> 0:06:18.560 a federal law in the US. Right, that's right. What 0:06:18.600 --> 0:06:22.440 was it called. It was called the Fugitive Slave Act 0:06:22.480 --> 0:06:27.440 of seventeen nine, and uh, it was around since sevente 0:06:28.040 --> 0:06:30.280 but it really got its teeth in eighteen fifty when 0:06:30.279 --> 0:06:35.479 it's strengthened the fines and basically made um, helping a 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:39.640 slave escape a federal crime, and then uh in non 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:44.400 slave states as well, and uh pretty much meant if 0:06:44.400 --> 0:06:46.279 you were caught as a slave, you were going to 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:49.520 be put to death and likely tortured in a public place, 0:06:50.160 --> 0:06:53.800 and maybe even your slave family or friends that you 0:06:53.800 --> 0:06:57.160 were with on the plantation were also punished, even though 0:06:57.160 --> 0:06:59.880 they didn't try to escape. So anyone involved in the 0:07:00.360 --> 0:07:03.200 and even not being involved but being involved by relationship 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.479 or something like that, UM, really had a lot to 0:07:06.640 --> 0:07:10.720 lose from this one person making it to freedom, which really, 0:07:10.960 --> 0:07:14.120 um is it's just very heartening when you look back 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:17.720 on what these people did. They risked a lot. Um 0:07:17.720 --> 0:07:23.520 in the eighteen fifties stiffening of the Slave Act. Right, Um, 0:07:24.160 --> 0:07:27.559 if you armed a slave, which was routinely done because 0:07:27.600 --> 0:07:32.560 this is dangerous. Um. Then you were subject to execution 0:07:33.200 --> 0:07:36.680 no matter who you were, white, black, whatever um that was, 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:39.080 that was punishable by being executed. So people who were 0:07:39.080 --> 0:07:43.240 helping escape slaves were putting a lot on the line, right, Yeah, 0:07:43.280 --> 0:07:44.960 And and one of the miss there's a few miss 0:07:45.040 --> 0:07:48.000 that even this article kind of uh perpetuates a bit. 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:52.760 But um rarely or not rarely, but more often than not, 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.880 they were other black people or former slaves or current 0:07:56.920 --> 0:08:00.240 slaves helping the other slaves on the underground round road. 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.239 It was not a big happy group of white northern 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:06.440 abolitionists risking their life to help out the slaves. They 0:08:06.440 --> 0:08:10.400 did that some, but it was usually quakers um or 0:08:10.440 --> 0:08:14.640 you know, like I said before, slaves or former slaves. Okay, 0:08:14.760 --> 0:08:18.640 so that's one myth. There's a few others. Well, let's 0:08:18.680 --> 0:08:20.840 go through this. What what did an escape look like 0:08:21.000 --> 0:08:24.280 right along the underground railroad during its height in the 0:08:24.320 --> 0:08:29.559 mid nineteenth century, h what would happen was free black 0:08:29.560 --> 0:08:31.840 people would send a field agent, what they called the 0:08:31.840 --> 0:08:34.520 field agent. Um. It was a lot of times a 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:37.280 minister or a doctor posing as like a census taker 0:08:37.840 --> 0:08:41.000 to anybody who could move throughout a community undetected so 0:08:41.040 --> 0:08:45.400 they would make contact with a current slave who supposedly 0:08:45.400 --> 0:08:47.480 wanted to escape, and they had to gain their trust, 0:08:47.600 --> 0:08:51.120 because this whole thing was about trust. You really had 0:08:51.160 --> 0:08:54.200 to trust because people would sell out their own own 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:58.559 kind to gain favor with with the master sometimes, so 0:08:58.720 --> 0:09:01.520 sometimes you couldn't even trust your fellow slave, So you 0:09:01.520 --> 0:09:03.320 really had to gain their trust as the field agent, 0:09:03.360 --> 0:09:05.600 and then they would eventually, once that trust was gained, 0:09:06.000 --> 0:09:11.480 arranged for the escape from the plantation to travel to 0:09:11.960 --> 0:09:16.480 the first safe house to a conductor. Actually, I'm sorry, 0:09:16.520 --> 0:09:18.520 they passed along to the conductor who would take you 0:09:18.559 --> 0:09:22.160 to your first station. Yes, and that was the beginning 0:09:22.360 --> 0:09:25.800 of the journey, right, And the station was basically somebody's 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:29.120 house usually UM, and the head of the household as 0:09:29.120 --> 0:09:32.640 a station master, and that was somebody who was putting 0:09:33.600 --> 0:09:36.559 his life in the life of his family's on the line. 0:09:37.200 --> 0:09:40.520 Feed and house and hide this person for a little while, 0:09:41.160 --> 0:09:44.040 UM possibly set him up with the disguise, which um 0:09:44.160 --> 0:09:51.320 they got fairly um. Yes, yeah, there's there's a story 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.280 of one in a um apparently with a seminal work 0:09:54.520 --> 0:09:58.920 on the Underground Railroad, appropriately titled The Underground Railroad, written 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:03.120 by Wilburt Sea Bird, right, and he talks about how, um, 0:10:03.160 --> 0:10:06.960 a black woman was basically made up to look like 0:10:07.080 --> 0:10:10.640 a wealthy white woman and to complete this disguise, was 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:15.920 given a white baby, um too for her journey. Yeah, 0:10:16.080 --> 0:10:19.480 so people were, you know, fanatic about this. I read 0:10:19.520 --> 0:10:24.720 another one, UM, a couple from Savannah. UM. The woman 0:10:24.920 --> 0:10:29.360 was the daughter of the slave, her slave owner, and 0:10:29.440 --> 0:10:33.240 her mother was a slave, a house servant ever, um, 0:10:33.320 --> 0:10:36.520 so she was light skinned, so they had her pose 0:10:36.679 --> 0:10:41.560 as a frail, aging white man and her husband posed 0:10:41.600 --> 0:10:45.720 as like a you know, a loyal servant slave UM 0:10:45.760 --> 0:10:47.800 on their journey all the way from Savannah up to 0:10:47.840 --> 0:10:51.480 I think Philadelphia or Boston. Um. But yeah, that was 0:10:51.679 --> 0:10:54.560 kind of harrowing. Apparently they were almost found out a 0:10:54.600 --> 0:10:58.160 bunch of times. Yeah. So I can imagine, like just 0:10:58.280 --> 0:11:01.360 trying to escape through the woods scary enough. Trying to 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:05.840 escape disguised in plain sight has to just be nerve racking. Yeah, 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.520 you know, especially the lady with a white baby, because 0:11:08.640 --> 0:11:10.840 I imagine that whoever might have found her out would 0:11:10.840 --> 0:11:13.040 not have been too happy about that at the time. 0:11:13.080 --> 0:11:16.600 At least along the way if you did maybe encounter 0:11:16.640 --> 0:11:19.440 a train conductor who found you out, but was willing 0:11:19.480 --> 0:11:22.520 to keep his mouth shut for money. You needed money. 0:11:22.800 --> 0:11:26.840 Most slaves didn't have money because they were not paid. Um. 0:11:26.960 --> 0:11:31.560 And the this was I guess at the station. The 0:11:31.600 --> 0:11:33.760 station master might also hook you up with some money 0:11:33.760 --> 0:11:37.280 that came from what are called stockholders. Um. And stockholders 0:11:37.280 --> 0:11:39.880 were probably wealthy abolitionists who didn't really want to get 0:11:39.920 --> 0:11:46.000 their hands dirty. But we're happy to support the cause financially. True, right, yeah, 0:11:46.040 --> 0:11:47.920 And I didn't get I mean, were they just people 0:11:47.960 --> 0:11:51.800 who supported the cause basically financially, Yeah, but you know, 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.760 obviously in their in their hearts as well. Uh, now 0:11:55.840 --> 0:11:58.000 I know what you mean. Though they didn't risk, you know, 0:11:58.360 --> 0:12:01.679 walking people through the woods. No. Abolitionists, despite you know, 0:12:01.720 --> 0:12:07.599 they're there desire to end slavery, were frequently accused, and 0:12:07.760 --> 0:12:10.600 rightfully so in a lot of cases of you know, saying, 0:12:10.679 --> 0:12:14.360 what we we think, slavery is vomitable, but you're freed, 0:12:14.400 --> 0:12:17.360 and that's great, but go live over there. We still 0:12:17.440 --> 0:12:19.600 want to just have our very lily white parties and 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:23.640 lives and all that. Um. And there were a lot 0:12:23.679 --> 0:12:25.960 of abolitions like that. So I would imagine that just 0:12:26.720 --> 0:12:30.480 giving money two people to use for bribes or for 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.520 travel or you know, to support these station houses. Probably 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:37.079 really you know, hit home. It's the same thing today, 0:12:37.280 --> 0:12:39.600 like people don't go help like say the homeless, you're 0:12:39.600 --> 0:12:43.559 resolving your guilt, they give money to, you know, organizations 0:12:43.559 --> 0:12:45.760 that actually deal with the homeless. I think that this 0:12:45.800 --> 0:12:49.400 was very similar to that. I think you're probably right. Uh, runaways, 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:54.080 um usually didn't travel alone, although again I read somewhere 0:12:54.080 --> 0:12:56.360 else on on one of the websites that a lot 0:12:56.400 --> 0:12:58.880 of times they were alone. Um. But when they weren't, 0:12:58.880 --> 0:13:01.280 they would have a conductor guide them to the next station, 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:04.280 usually about a day away. They didn't want to make 0:13:04.320 --> 0:13:06.079 it like, you know, a three day journey because it 0:13:06.240 --> 0:13:08.440 just you know, you you probably don't have tons of 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.520 food and water, and it's just more dangerous the further 0:13:10.559 --> 0:13:13.679 you're going, right, not between station houses. The journey itself 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:17.160 to freedom yet last days, weeks, months. Yeah, each each 0:13:17.160 --> 0:13:20.120 station was about a day away ideally, right, they would 0:13:20.160 --> 0:13:23.640 follow the north star. Yeah, that's good. That's why that one, 0:13:23.840 --> 0:13:29.200 um modern hilarious. Yeah, that's why it's called that full circle. Yeah. 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:32.720 When the clouds were out, Um, there's the old trick 0:13:32.880 --> 0:13:35.920 of looking where the moss grows because on tree trunks, 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.960 moss usually grows on the north side, and you wanted 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.760 to be headed north. There were instances where because they 0:13:42.760 --> 0:13:44.920 made it a very zig zagging route usually you know, 0:13:44.960 --> 0:13:46.360 they didn't want to make it a straight line, so 0:13:46.400 --> 0:13:48.439 it made it easier to track, but it also made 0:13:48.440 --> 0:13:51.920 it easier to get lost as a slave. It did. 0:13:52.000 --> 0:13:55.040 And actually there's a sidebar towards the end of this 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:59.840 talking about quilt patterns, right, and there are codes embedded 0:13:59.840 --> 0:14:04.640 with the I I found a substantial amount of it. 0:14:04.920 --> 0:14:07.360 I see, I found stuff saying that was like mythical 0:14:07.640 --> 0:14:11.240 that in the songs. Check out um os black history 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:14.679 dot com. They have this list, this key of like 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:17.120 what all of these different quilt patterns are and what 0:14:17.160 --> 0:14:20.640 they meant. Um two slaves who came upon a quilt 0:14:21.160 --> 0:14:24.560 and one of them was this um kind of zigzagged X. 0:14:24.680 --> 0:14:28.640 It's called the um the drunken Path, And basically it's 0:14:28.640 --> 0:14:32.240 saying like going a zigzag pattern because there's guys out, 0:14:32.320 --> 0:14:36.000 there's slave hunters around, and if you say turned started 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:39.160 walking south, they would be less likely to suspect that 0:14:39.240 --> 0:14:41.800 you were an escape slave if you looked like you 0:14:41.840 --> 0:14:45.360 were purposefully walking south, because what slave of walks south? 0:14:45.440 --> 0:14:48.120 That's where the south is right right that point. But 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:49.720 I mean, if it is made up, this guy did 0:14:49.760 --> 0:14:53.000 a good job of perpetuating it because it's very interesting. Well, 0:14:53.040 --> 0:14:55.640 even in here it says it's it's one of the 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:58.200 well known legends or not. They just don't know because 0:14:58.680 --> 0:15:00.240 a lot of this stuff and this could the bring 0:15:00.280 --> 0:15:02.680 that up. A lot we don't know about because the 0:15:02.760 --> 0:15:05.480 underground railroad was secret, so we don't know about a 0:15:05.520 --> 0:15:07.680 lot of the places. We don't know a lot of 0:15:07.720 --> 0:15:10.120 the routes or the people who worked there or who 0:15:10.160 --> 0:15:13.800 actually started it. Oh and Josh also I mentioned the 0:15:13.800 --> 0:15:16.280 moss on the trees. Clear nights were better to see 0:15:16.320 --> 0:15:18.520 the stars, but traveling in the rain was pretty good too, 0:15:18.960 --> 0:15:22.560 because fat white plantation owner probably wanted to be inside 0:15:22.560 --> 0:15:25.600 by the fire when it was raining and not chasing 0:15:25.600 --> 0:15:58.240 after his slaves. So let's talk about UM the laws. 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:03.240 We we mentioned it kind of specifically UM earlier about 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.880 some of the I guess the punishment that that could 0:16:05.960 --> 0:16:13.160 befall anyone helping somebody right, Um. And in the Fugitive 0:16:13.200 --> 0:16:17.040 Slave Act, UM basically created the first laws that said 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:22.200 this an escape slave can be gone and gotten legally right. 0:16:22.960 --> 0:16:25.680 But there were slave states and there were non slave states, 0:16:26.040 --> 0:16:29.040 and the non slave states said, well, yeah, that's a 0:16:29.080 --> 0:16:31.360 great law, and you do whatever you want down in 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.520 the South, but we're not really going to enforce it, 0:16:33.600 --> 0:16:37.720 and when we do, it's going to be very light. Well, 0:16:37.720 --> 0:16:40.920 in eighteen fifty, this thing got a lot of teeth, um, 0:16:41.000 --> 0:16:44.560 like you were saying in the fines were were stepped up, 0:16:44.640 --> 0:16:48.920 the penalties were harsher execution, um was it was a 0:16:48.960 --> 0:16:54.440 lot more um doable, I guess. And then um, it 0:16:54.600 --> 0:16:57.480 also became legal for slave hunters to walk into a 0:16:57.520 --> 0:17:00.680 free state, a non slave state and be like, Hey, 0:17:00.720 --> 0:17:03.000 that black guy right there, I think he's an escaped slave. 0:17:03.040 --> 0:17:06.399 He should come with me to anybody he could legally 0:17:06.440 --> 0:17:08.640 claim it without having to justify even if they were 0:17:08.680 --> 0:17:11.919 free men. Yes, um. And apparently there were rumors of 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:17.520 like slave traders like luring um, young black kids in 0:17:17.800 --> 0:17:20.840 free states onto boats and then like taking them off 0:17:20.840 --> 0:17:22.520 to the deep South. It's like, what are you gonna do? 0:17:22.960 --> 0:17:24.320 How are you going to find these people? There's no 0:17:24.440 --> 0:17:28.480 documentation like this. Um. So basically the North came to 0:17:28.640 --> 0:17:33.080 really resent this change in the law in eighteen fifty 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:36.520 because people who were complacent living in non slave states, 0:17:36.880 --> 0:17:39.960 suddenly we're kind of having slavery imposed upon them a 0:17:39.960 --> 0:17:43.000 little more. And then the dread Scott case, like you 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:48.320 mentioned earlier, that really sealed the deal and really got abolitionists. UM. 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:52.240 I guess their their roles expanded tremendously after that. And 0:17:52.280 --> 0:17:55.760 then as a result also the underground railroad became much 0:17:55.800 --> 0:18:01.080 more organized. Yeah, that is dread Scott v. Sandford, and UH. 0:18:01.080 --> 0:18:04.880 It was famous because dread Scott, a slave, sued for 0:18:04.960 --> 0:18:07.640 his freedom for himself and his wife and his two 0:18:07.680 --> 0:18:12.200 daughters and uh on the grounds that they lived quite 0:18:12.200 --> 0:18:15.760 a bit of their lives in places like Wisconsin and Minnesota, 0:18:16.200 --> 0:18:20.040 in these outlying Northwest territories that or northern territories that 0:18:20.160 --> 0:18:23.120 had where it was illegal slavery was actually illegal. So 0:18:23.800 --> 0:18:26.280 he sued on those grounds, and in one of probably 0:18:26.320 --> 0:18:28.800 the worst Supreme Court decisions in the history of this country, 0:18:29.400 --> 0:18:34.600 they decided because the panel was full of Southerners. The 0:18:34.640 --> 0:18:38.560 panel Supreme Court justices were a lot of Southerners, and 0:18:38.600 --> 0:18:41.560 they ruled that black people were not or people of 0:18:41.560 --> 0:18:45.160 African descent were not citizens of the United States, free 0:18:45.800 --> 0:18:48.440 or not they are not citizens. Therefore they cannot sue 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.280 for their freedom right. They don't have any rights, so 0:18:52.320 --> 0:18:55.639 they can be basically captured and taken to Yes, the 0:18:55.720 --> 0:18:58.000 a life of slavery again. But if it hadn't been 0:18:58.000 --> 0:19:00.919 for the dread Scott case, Uh, we may never have. 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:03.119 Well we may have, but it really sped up the 0:19:03.160 --> 0:19:06.520 process of the Thirteenth Amendment in the Emancipation Proclamation and 0:19:06.560 --> 0:19:09.040 hence the Civil War and hence the Civil War. And 0:19:09.080 --> 0:19:13.120 some of his descendants still live in St. Louis today. Well, 0:19:13.119 --> 0:19:17.080 shout out to the Scots of St. Louis. UM and 0:19:17.160 --> 0:19:20.600 Chuck we said that this this um precipitated the Civil War. 0:19:21.119 --> 0:19:24.560 The underground railroad helped move it along. The dread Scott case. 0:19:24.600 --> 0:19:32.680 It's it's basically these things, UM, Northerners actively subverting federal law. UM. 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.920 And the South economic cloud really ticked the South off 0:19:37.560 --> 0:19:41.320 the the South imposing its views on slavery on the 0:19:41.359 --> 0:19:46.600 North through this eighteen fifty strengthening and the dread Scot case. UM, 0:19:46.720 --> 0:19:50.160 it really ticked off the North. So this division was 0:19:50.160 --> 0:19:53.600 was UM, it's very much part of what led up 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:59.280 to the Civil War. Yeah, Pennsylvania even thought about ah 0:19:59.520 --> 0:20:01.919 nullified ring the Fugitive Slave Act. They didn't like it 0:20:01.960 --> 0:20:03.720 so much, but then they decided, you know, a better 0:20:03.720 --> 0:20:06.600 way to do this is probably to be subversive and 0:20:06.680 --> 0:20:09.160 to support things like the underground railroad on the down low, 0:20:09.800 --> 0:20:12.560 rather than cause some big political snake write a check. 0:20:13.240 --> 0:20:18.919 Exactly right. Um, So we say that because the Civil Wars. 0:20:20.280 --> 0:20:22.480 Whenever you ask a kid, you know what why the 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.159 Civil War happened? Slavery. I mean, that's a that's a 0:20:26.160 --> 0:20:28.520 big part of it. But that's why it's not just slavery. 0:20:28.600 --> 0:20:31.480 It wasn't like the North was like, slavery is wrong 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.199 and we're gonna go to war with you over it, 0:20:33.320 --> 0:20:36.360 or the South was like, we love slavery, We're not 0:20:36.520 --> 0:20:39.720 part of you any longer, although the latter I've heard 0:20:39.760 --> 0:20:43.040 recently was um much closer to the point that the 0:20:43.040 --> 0:20:46.000 South was perfectly happy with succeeding creating its own country 0:20:46.000 --> 0:20:50.159 and basically creating an economic empire based on free labor, 0:20:50.200 --> 0:20:53.119 that that took over the entire Caribbean, and that the 0:20:53.400 --> 0:20:56.359 Southern US. Yeah, I wish I was more of a 0:20:56.359 --> 0:21:00.320 civil war. Buff. I'm glad you're not shuck. Really, they're 0:21:00.359 --> 0:21:03.760 in I wouldn't say obnoxious, but man, do they know 0:21:03.840 --> 0:21:06.040 a lot about the Civil War and they like correcting 0:21:06.040 --> 0:21:09.520 people too. Yeah, and we're going to hear from them. 0:21:09.560 --> 0:21:12.640 So chuck, Um, when you did finally make it out 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:15.800 along this this route, um up to the northern the 0:21:15.880 --> 0:21:20.240 extreme Northern States, the northern part of the extreme Northern States, 0:21:20.640 --> 0:21:25.600 and to Canada. Um, it could take days, weeks, months, 0:21:25.600 --> 0:21:27.480 It could take twenty four hours if you happen to 0:21:27.960 --> 0:21:30.600 have the money and the gaul to ride a train, 0:21:31.000 --> 0:21:33.680 or if you live in a border state. Yeah, which 0:21:33.680 --> 0:21:36.560 apparently is why a lot of slaves never escaped from 0:21:36.560 --> 0:21:40.240 the Deep South. It was longer ago and they didn't. 0:21:40.359 --> 0:21:43.960 They wouldn't have taken the underground railroad, which went exclusively north. 0:21:44.000 --> 0:21:46.880 I believe they would have gone to Florida or to Mexico. 0:21:47.280 --> 0:21:50.920 Never knew that. So Mexico in eighty nine outlawed slavery 0:21:50.960 --> 0:21:56.000 and became active in protecting slaves who escaped to Mexico. Yeah. 0:21:56.080 --> 0:22:00.680 Native American Indians go figure, we're very empathetic. They were 0:22:00.680 --> 0:22:03.760 probably like join the club, my man, come on in 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:10.480 almost literally chuck so in Florida in Spain said we're 0:22:10.520 --> 0:22:14.639 issuing a decree here that says, any any slave or 0:22:14.720 --> 0:22:18.240 native American who leaves an English colony and makes it 0:22:18.280 --> 0:22:22.320 to Florida is a free florid Ian, a free a 0:22:22.400 --> 0:22:25.440 free member of the Spanish crown. Right. All we want 0:22:25.480 --> 0:22:28.320 from you is that you convert to a Catholic convert 0:22:28.359 --> 0:22:31.199 to Catholicism and become a member of the military for 0:22:31.640 --> 0:22:35.160 a prescribed amount of time, right, um. And in return 0:22:35.280 --> 0:22:38.800 you're a citizen here. Right. So that's why Florida attracted 0:22:38.840 --> 0:22:40.159 a bunch of people, and the reason they did it 0:22:40.200 --> 0:22:44.520 was specifically to attract people from um England, the English 0:22:44.600 --> 0:22:47.520 territories like Georgia or South Carolina, because they wanted to 0:22:47.600 --> 0:22:50.040 jump start the economic engine, but they weren't going to 0:22:50.080 --> 0:22:53.080 do it on slavery. Right. I wonder what impact that 0:22:53.160 --> 0:22:56.040 has today. I wonder if there are more African American 0:22:56.080 --> 0:22:59.480 Catholics in Florida proportionately because of that. Well, one of 0:22:59.480 --> 0:23:01.920 the impacts that it had that's still around the day 0:23:02.000 --> 0:23:04.919 are the Seminoles. The Seminoles were a recent tribe that 0:23:05.160 --> 0:23:09.480 started in about the eighteenth century UM based on displaced 0:23:09.520 --> 0:23:11.720 Creek Indians who made it to Florida to take Spain 0:23:11.800 --> 0:23:16.000 up on their offer and escape slaves. And now there's 0:23:16.000 --> 0:23:18.560 a division in the Seminole tribe between Black Seminoles and 0:23:18.560 --> 0:23:21.119 Red Seminals, and it's not they don't always get along. 0:23:21.200 --> 0:23:26.880 But during this time, the Seminole Indians came up because 0:23:27.040 --> 0:23:29.760 in a lot of cases, black slave, freed slaves or 0:23:29.840 --> 0:23:32.560 escaped slaves would come up to an Indian Indian sentiment, 0:23:32.800 --> 0:23:35.600 lived near it, or be absorbed into it. And that's 0:23:35.600 --> 0:23:38.000 where the Seminoles came from. That's pretty cool, didn't it. 0:23:38.480 --> 0:23:40.479 There's really one jerk in this whole thing, and that's 0:23:40.480 --> 0:23:46.359 that's yeah. Our ancestors chucked. They were white Northerners too. 0:23:46.800 --> 0:23:51.919 It's not all in the South, white jerk, white Northerners probably, 0:23:52.160 --> 0:23:55.400 h Yeah. Anyway, I'm just always stick up for the South. Well, 0:23:55.440 --> 0:23:57.879 think about it that there were an estimated two thousand 0:23:57.880 --> 0:24:03.240 to three thousand underground railroad workers. Yeah, there there are 0:24:03.280 --> 0:24:05.160 a lot more people in the US and the North 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:07.320 and the South than that at the time. Buddy. Yeah, 0:24:07.359 --> 0:24:09.960