The success of British director Steve McQueen’s film 12 Years a Slave at the Golden Globe Awards last night (it won Best Film) has shone a light on the plight of African Americans in the pre-Civil War United States.
During the 1800s, thousands of enslaved people sought freedom along a secret network of meeting points, trails, waterways and sanctuaries. This was the Underground Railroad – and Maryland, located on the border between North and South, played a prominent role.
One of the Railroad’s most famous “conductors” was Harriet Tubman. Born into slavery on the Eastern Shore of Maryland, she became known as “The Moses of Her People”.
After escaping slavery in 1849, she returned 13 times over the course of a decade to guide about 70 people to freedom. She was also a Union spy during the Civil War and became active in the women’s suffrage movement.
The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway is a drivable trail which brings to life the remarkable stories of those freedom seekers.
With more than 30 sites, which include the newly designated Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument, the self-guided driving tour shows you the places where Tubman grew up, worshipped, laboured, and led others to freedom.
In 2014, a series of 17 custom-designed, historical markers are being installed at sites along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway. These markers can be found through Dorchester and Caroline Counties, where Harriet Tubman spent 27 years of her life.
In Dorchester County, seven new markers (with five installed so far) are located at sites including Long Wharf in Cambridge (pictured), where captive Africans were unloaded during the early years of the slave trade; Stanley Institute in Cambridge, where four enslaved families made a daring escape for freedom in 1857; and Malone’s Church in Madison, close to where Harriet Tubman lived and worked with her father in the timber industry.
In Caroline County, 10 new markers can be found at sites along the Tubman Byway such as Choptank Landing in Preston, near where Harriet Tubman’s parents lived and worked; the home of Jacob and Hannah Leverton, Quakers who operated a safe house; and Linchester Mill, where free and enslaved blacks would have had the opportunity to meet and share secrets of the Underground Railroad.
A century after her death, the new markers are part of a broader commemoration of Tubman, including the designation of the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Monument in Dorchester County and the groundbreaking Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad State Park and Visitor Center, also in Dorchester.
Some other memorials to Harriet Tubman stand at Wilmington, Delaware
And Harlem, New York
(Featured image: justinrudisille)
