Gateway to Freedom, by Eric Foner

The phrase "Underground Railroad" conjures up images of escaped slaves fleeing through woods and swamps, crossing perilous rivers, getting assistance from kind-hearted farmers' families, and crossing the border to Canada.  While there is much truth in that stereotype, historian Eric Foner presents a much more complex picture in Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad.

Foner, a historian at Columbia University, focuses much of his attention on the activities of the underground railroad in New York City.  Drawing on some previously unexamined records kept by organizations aiding fugitive slaves, Foner details the work of sometimes competing, sometimes cooperating groups.  I found it interesting that the work of the Underground Railroad was so varied.  For example, one point of contention was the support of helping escaped slaves get to freedom as opposed to working toward "making their own soil free."

Even though major Underground Railroad groups worked in New York, New York was not necessarily a great place for anti-slavery activists or for former slaves.  Much of the business of southern agriculture and trade went through the financial houses of New York; they were not clamoring for the end of slavery.  Slave hunters moved freely about the city, entering private homes and churches to find their prey.  As in many other places, free blacks were regularly kidnapped and sold into slavery, as in Twelve Years a Slave.

Gateway to Freedom is very readable; it's not written only for the scholar or professional historian.  However, the stories Foner tells of the experiences of the slaves are too short to satisfy the reader looking for drama.  There is so much drama to be found here.  Any one of the stories he hints at could be a gripping movie or book.  But drama is not his purpose.  He provides context and structure to what we think of as the Underground Railroad.  It's not as simple as is popularly thought, but turns out to be much more interesting and real.  Foner is to be commended for adding to body of knowledge of this troubling, but important and inspiring, chapter in American history.



Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for the complimentary electronic review copy!