HISTORY

The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to escaped enslaved people from the South. It developed as a convergence of several different clandestine efforts. The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War, at which point its efforts continued to undermine the Confederacy in a less-secretive fashion. 

The earliest mention of the Underground Railroad came in 1831 when enslaved man Tice Davids escaped from Kentucky into Ohio and his owner blamed an “underground railroad” for helping Davids to freedom.

In 1839, a Washington newspaper reported an escaped enslaved man named Jim had revealed, under torture, his plan to go north following an “underground railroad to Boston.” 

Vigilance Committees—created to protect escaped enslaved people from bounty hunters in New York in 1835 and Philadelphia in 1838—soon expanded their activities to guide enslaved people on the run. By the 1840s, the term Underground Railroad was part of the American vernacular.

(Reference: https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/underground-railroad)

Abolitionists, or people who wanted to end slavery, such as Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, Reverend Jermain Loguen helped thousands of escapees find freedom.  Douglass, Tubman, and Loguen were slaves who escaped themselves.  The underground’ network was called this because it was done in secret, not because it was actually underground. Once the Civil War started, it became a more public effort to oppose the Confederates.

MAPS

Kentucky had slavery well into the 1860s. This 1806 map shows a very different Downtown Louisville. It was mostly rural, with trees and swamps near the river that slaves had to prepare.

“Slaves were dispatched in advance of, their owners to clear land, plant crops, and build houses in Louisville... by the 1840s there were slave trade businesses all around this city... with slave pens located downtown.” (Mervin Aubespin, Kenneth Clay, and J. Blaine Hudson. Two Centuries of Black Louisville: A Photographic History.  Butler Books, 2013.)

If you zoom in on this 1806 map you can see Corn Island, the first settlement area of the Europeans who came here, bringing Louisville’s first black resident with them, a slave named Cato Watts. Corn Island is submerged under water now, but it used to be just north of Downtown Louisville and was 17 football fields long. 

Even though Kentucky maintained slavery, Louisville became a base for Union soldiers. The city was never attacked but many battles happened near it. If you zoom in on this 1865 map you can see where some of the forts were.

After the Civil War, Louisville started to grow into more of an urban city, with many factory jobs that attracted freedmen (formerly enslaved) from the southern states. This 1873 map shows some of that urban growth.

UNKNOWN

There were countless slaves who crossed the Ohio River, becoming free. Thornton and Lucie Blackburn crossed it by steamboat. Margaret Garner crossed while pregnant with eight members of her family, and nine other slaves from neighboring plantations. Some made it but others didn’t, and not everyone was known.

Louisville artist Hannah Drake is working to create The (Un)known Project, highlighting stories like these along the Ohio River. The work will include limestone reconciliation benches overlooking the river, a footprint installation, exhibits at various museums, and much more. For more information about The (Un)known Project visit their website via the link below.

QUIZ

As some of Louisville progressed, some of it regressed. A racist practice known as redlining forced many of the black population into certain parts of town. Do you know where most Black Louisvillians live?