On a moonless night in September, Josiah strapped his two youngest children in a knapsack and the family quietly boarded a small boat to cross a river. When they reached the shore, Josiah prayed that their journey would be safe.
For weeks, the family walked miles and miles at night. Whenever they heard a sound—a wagon’s wheels, a dog baying at the moon—they hid. Soon, their food was all eaten. The children cried with hunger. Josiah bravely knocked on doors and asked for food. But the answer was always the same: No. Still, the family pressed on.
Josiah and his family hiked through the forest over fallen logs and branches, up and down steep ravines, and across fast-moving streams. At times they heard wolves howling nearby, but they remained brave. Once, a kind person gave the family a ride in a wagon. Another gave them passage on a boat.
At last, Josiah’s family reached Canada. Josiah threw himself on the ground and kissed the sand. “I’m free!” he shouted. But this wouldn’t be Josiah’s last dangerous journey. Over his lifetime, Josiah helped approximately two hundred slaves find their way to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad did not run under the ground. It wasn’t even a real railroad, with train cars and tracks, although there were passengers. The Underground Railroad was a series of routes and hiding places that slaves took to reach freedom.
The white lines and arrows on this map show the routes people took to escape from slavery in the South to freedom in the North
No one really knows where the name “Underground Railroad” came from. One story was about a slave named Tice Davids, who escaped from Kentucky and swam across the Ohio River to freedom in Ohio. When Davids’s owner discovered he was gone, he said that his slave “must have gone off on an underground railroad.” Another story says that slave hunters in Pennsylvania came up with the name. And yet another story tells about a slave who claimed he was making his way north, where “the railroad ran underground all the way to Boston.”
Slaves desperately sought freedom and they would try to escape their harsh lives any way they could. Some walked hundreds and hundreds of miles. Others traveled by boat. Some were smuggled in a train or wagon. Most traveled at night so as not to be seen and caught.
The road to freedom was dangerous. If slaves were caught, they would be sent back to their master and punished. The punishments were horrible. But to many slaves it was worth the risk, for at the end of the road was a light—a light called freedom.
The fictional story of Addy Walker started in 1864, when Addy was nine years old. Addy; her older brother, Sam; her baby sister, Esther; and her parents were enslaved on a plantation in North Carolina. The Walkers lived in a tiny windowless cabin. They had hard lives in slavery. But they were together, and their love for each other gave them strength. Then the worst happened—Addy’s family was torn apart, as enslaved families often were, when Sam and Poppa were sold to a different owner. Addy’s family was divided, just as the nation was divided, North against South, by the Civil War.
Although Addy is a fictional character, her story will help you imagine what it was like to escape slavery on the Underground Railroad.
“The night is real hot and I’m sweating. On my pallet, I try hard not to move—I don’t want to bother my brother, Sam, who’s sleeping at my feet, or baby Esther at my side. Flies buzz in my ears. I can hear more buzzing—a different kind. Momma and Poppa whispering. I want to hear what they’re sayin’, but I know I best keep still and pretend I’m asleep.
“Poppa get up and walk ’cross the dirt floor. He tell Momma we need to run away from Master Stevens’s plantation. Poppa say the time is right to take our freedom. He wants us to run to the North. But Momma don’t want to go.
“Then Poppa say Uncle Solomon tell him of railroad tracks near ten miles up the road. Uncle Solomon say we should follow them north till they cross another set of tracks. Where they cross, look for a house with red shutters. That’s a safe house. An old white woman live there, name Miss Caroline, and she gonna help us.
“I’m scared as I listen to Poppa talk. Almost too scared to breathe. Was we really going to run away and take a train north to freedom? I never seen a train, but I want to. I’m scared, but I’m ready for my family to live free.”
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Special thanks to Benjamin L. Carp
Photos ©: back cover: Library of Congress; Chapter 2: North Wind Picture Archives, Library of Congress; Chapter 3: North Wind Picture Archives; Chapter 4: Library of Congress, Historia/REX/Shutterstock; Chapter 5: Library of Congress, Alfredo Dagli Orti/REX/Shutterstock, Library of Congress; Chapter 7: Library of Congress; Chapter 8: North Wind Picture Archives, Library of Congress; Chapter 9: Library of Congress; Back matter: MPI/Getty Images
Book design by Suzanne LaGasa
Cover design by Suzanne LaGasa
Cover art by Kelley McMorris
© 2018 American Girl. All American Girl marks, Felicity™, Felicity Merriman™, Addy™, and Addy Walker™ are trademarks of American Girl. Used under license by Scholastic Inc.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Number: 2017049568
