Guest Post by Kristine Schwartzman

​Like others who helped enslaved people on their journey for freedom, Nancy Kendall rarely knew what happened to the freedom seekers after they left her home. But she did hear from one woman she helped. She’d made it to safety. 

We often speak about the Emancipation Proclamation as a happy ending. But, for many freed people, the end of slavery was far from the storybook ending many imagine. 

An excerpt from the Library of Congress collection of recordings of former slaves, Voices Remembering Slavery: Freed People Tell Their Stories, Laura Smalley describes what happened:

“We didn't know where to go. Mom and them didn't know where to go. You see, after freedom broke, they started just, like, to turn some of them out, you know? We didn't know where to go. They turned us out just like, you know, you turn out cattle (laughter), I'd say.”

Smalley was a child in Texas when her parents and the rest of the enslaved were told they were free. It was not the “master” who told them. He’d kept their freedom a secret. 

​She explains:

“No, he didn't tell. They went there and turned them loose on the 19 of June. That's why, you know, we celebrate that day — colored folks celebrates that day — celebrates that day.”

Guest Post by Kristine Schwartzman

Written after the event by Clarina Nichols in a letter to a friend, those chilling words struck fear into both Nichols' heart and, most terrifyingly in the heart of runaway slave, Caroline hiding with another freedom-seeker in Nichols' Kansas home. 

As they waited in hiding for morning, creeping in slippered feet, whispering and drinking coffee, Nichols hid her own fear in apparent cheerfulness. In her words, she was "really in a tremor of indignation and fear; fear of a prolonged incarceration of the poor victim of oppression and indignation at the government that protected and the manhood that stayed its hand from “breaking the bonds and telling the oppressed go free.”"

At 7:00 in the morning, Nichols got word that the slave hunters rode out of town without their "quarry." When night fell Caroline and her fellow runaway found safe conveyance to Leavenworth for the next leg of their journey north. 

I accidentally came across Clarina Nichols name as I browsed books at PaperBackSwap.com.  The title "Revolutionary Heart: The Life of Clarina Nichols and the Pioneering Crusade for Women's Rights" intrigued me. Clarina Nichols? Who was THAT? 

Written by Diane Eickhoff, the book indeed describes a "revolutionary heart." A woman who was not only a women's rights advocate who worked alongside her more famous counterparts, but also a woman who fell in love with the West, settled in "Bleeding Kansas" and became an integral part of the Underground Railroad. 

Nancy Kendall talks about Kansas in her journal:

"For number of years and in mean time kansas was being settled and it (editor's note: "it" refers to slavery) was a little of a stir to keep it out of Kassas but they S Succeeded in keepping it out and in later years they had quite a work on the Under Ground Rail Road for about two years there*"

Clarina Nichols was instrumental in keeping Kansas a free state. She was a divorced mother, a journalist, lecturer, women's rights activist and Underground Railroad participant.  It's time Clarina Nichols got her due.

* Transcribed with original spelling, wording and punctuation.
​

The year is 1863.
​
In the west, as many as 15,000 Chinese immigrants do the dangerous, backbreaking work of blazing a path across the US to make the Transcontinental Railroad a reality. As they dynamite their way west, thousands die.

In other parts of the country, hundreds of thousands, indeed millions of enslaved people bend over under the scorching sun, toil in the vast fields of cotton, rice and tobacco, to build the very economic backbone of the United States. Many will perish. Others will be enslaved for the length of their lives. A few will try to escape on the Underground Railroad.

So lucrative and profitable are the industries dependent on millions of slave workers, that when the issue of slavery became a national conversation, with two opposing positions, the result was the bloody, destructive Civil War. This was possibly the most traumatic and destructive period in the life of our nation.

The Chinese immigrant history is long-standing, complicated, tragic, and similar in some aspects to that of the enslaved. Below is a brief overview of one chapter in the lives of Chinese immigrants in America:
​

I have always been moved by the story behind the Statue of Liberty, which in my mind, is the quintessential heart of the United States of America.

I do so hope we can live up to that gift from France. One has only to read the beautiful accompanying poem by Emma Lazarus to feel how encompassing our country could be.   

​It reads, in part:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

We are, indeed, a nation of immigrants. I can’t forget what a huge part the fabric of our nation was woven by members of the African and Chinese cultures as well as other slaves, indentured servants and immigrants.

Sometimes, as I fall asleep at night, I listen to the music written to accompany the Statue of Liberty poem. Call me schmaltzy. That’s OK. 
​

​For a more in-depth look at the Transcontinental Railroad and the workers who built it, watch the documentary, “The Transcontinental Railroad: Amazing American History: "
​

​Note: The Civil War was still raging when Abraham Lincoln made the decision to back the Transcontinental Railroad. Lincoln realized the important role the railroad would be in the development of our nation. He endorsed these endeavors even before he gave the Gettysburg Address.

My great-great-grandmother, Nancy Kendall and her husband, Andrew had eight children. Only six of those children survived to adulthood. We have all read accounts of what it was like in earlier centuries for parents going through the child bearing years. Life spans were short, and losing a child to illness or a mishap was commonplace.

According to my grandfather, Nancy Kendall was a devoted and loving grandmother to all of her grandchildren. Her act of sharing a few stories about her involvement in The Underground Railroad was, for my grandfather as an eight-year-old boy, a precious gift he always cherished.

As a mother, I think of Nancy’s life - bearing and caring for a large family of children of her own, while at the same time doing what she could to help fugitive slaves. But Nancy, as a free woman, had something enslaved persons did not - freedom. She had a home. She knew she might lose a child. But, she also knew she would never have a child ripped from her arms and sold away from her. 

One of the worst tragedies a slave could experience was that of family separation. Many never saw their loved ones again. ​

Losing a child tears at the heart of every parent like no other pain. As with any parent, the fear of losing their children was greater for the enslaved than the physical pain of being whipped or beaten.

In recent times, parents and children experienced child separation at the southern border of our country. Approximately 5,500 families were ripped apart.  Hundreds of families have not been reunited. 

We do not have audio recordings of enslaved families being torn apart. We can, however, hear the haunting voices of children separated from their parents at the border. The language may be different, but the cries are the same.

 
​Next time:  More on the Tragedy of Family Separation​

The head of the Free-Soil Party was Henry Stanton, husband of the suffragette, Susan Cady Stanton. Other well-known abolitionists active in the Free-Soil party included Frederick Douglas, the Beecher family, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Walt Whitman and John Greenleaf Whittier. The Free-Soil Party enjoyed brief revivals in 2014 and gained attention again in 2019. ​

Nancy believed in her father's dedication to abolitionism. It is likely that the home's secluded location on the outskirts of Washington was chosen with the Underground Railroad in mind.

Andrew was a gifted and talented craftsman and builder and went right to work on completing the large home the Jones boys had begun. He originally wanted to build the home out of wood but lumber was not readily available. Instead, he made the 60-mile drive to a brick factory in Burlington a number of times to build the family home. ​

Although not documented, the Kendall home may have included secret hideaways for fleeing slaves. Many abolitionist homeowners did just that. Reverend Alexander Dobbin's historic home in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, contains sliding shelves that conceal a large crawlspace with room for several adults.
 
Other abolitionists were defiantly bold in their work. Quaker businessman Thomas Garrett of Wilmington, Delaware, made no attempt to hide what he did.
 
He was harassed, threatened, assaulted and heavily fined for his troubles. After a court forced him to pay $5,400 in assessed damages in a staggering financial loss, he declared, "... I will go home and put another story on my house, so that I can accommodate more of God's poor."

The movie does help us understand some little known ways and methods used to aid fugitives. Early in the film, Harriet decided to return for her husband and children and is told that she might get help from men who made the journey back and forth on boats, helping people where they could. It was with their help that she reconnected with her husband. I will not be a spoiler. You will have to watch to learn what happens next.
     
Harriet, who had been known as Araminta Ross when a slave on the plantation, had actually grown up, as many did, along with their white master’s children. Some of those relationships over those years, were deep and true, despite the differences in stations. 
 
Harriet Tubman, called the Moses of her people, never learned to read. But, some slaves did because of the close relationships that developed with the children in the household. Nancy Kendall speaks of one such young woman. The 25-year-old woman arrived at the Kendall home one night exhausted and cold. 
 
Nancy asked her why she was being so heavily pursued. The woman explained she had been a house "girl" for a family with two young daughters. The girls thought highly of her and taught her to read. When their father found out his house "girl" could read, he made plans to sell her for $1000. Apparently the ability to read added to her "value." 
 
The two young daughters, who were 16 and 18 at the time, warned their friend of what was about to happen, and she fled. Nancy Kendall writes, "When I See the Intellect that Girl Seemed to have it Was too bad and unjust for any one to Say they are not Capable of learning an Couldent manage business."*

Nancy asked the young woman if she would write to her from Canada to let her know she was safe. "About a Month After She Was here I got a letter from her," Nancy writes.*

Cynthia Erivo plays Harriet Tubman in the film. As with most life stories on the big screen, the timeline of events and a few of the side stories are not completely accurate. But film has a wonderful way of making us feel part of something bigger. And, making us want to know more.

* Spellings and wording as transcribed from Nancy Kendall's journal.​

Nancy Jones Kendall was about 17 years old when her father decided to flee Kentucky.  At the time, of course, helping slaves escape was against the law. The enslaved were considered property. As an abolitionist, Nancy's father published anti-slavery articles and felt increasingly threatened in Kentucky because of his views.
 
The family settled in Washington, Iowa, in 1840. The time between 1840 and 1863 was feverishly desperate for enslaved peoples. Nancy's father,  Edward Jones, was one of many who worked to help them to freedom. 
 
For many years, there was not an abundance of written documentation of the details of these desperate, terrified people.  Many of the first accounts came from Quakers, who were heavily involved. Some recognizable names, such as the Beecher family were active.
 
When Abraham Lincoln first met Harriet Beecher Stowe, so the story goes, he looked down at her small form from his great height and said, "So, you're the little woman who wrote the book that started the big war."  He referred, of course, to Harriet Beecher Stowe's groundbreaking story, "Uncle Tom's Cabin." Flawed as it was, the book became influential in the abolitionist movement.
 
Harriet Beecher Stowe was not only a housewife but also a mother of six. Her work appeared as a series that ran in the abolitionist newspaper, The National Era. The series became so popular; the paper published it in book form in 1852. "Uncle Tom's Cabin" quickly became a bestseller.
 
Other famous names, such as Frederick Douglass, Cotton Mather, and, of course, Harriet Tubman are synonymous with the Underground Railroad and civil rights. But, we often don't know the stories of those like my great-great-grandmother and her husband, Andrew, who were only a small part of a wide-reaching, brave and dangerous effort to help enslaved people escape to the north.