This Country of Ours

by H. E. Marshall

"Who's there?" would be asked.

Then the runaway would give the password in answer. Perhaps it would be "William Penn," or "a friend of friends," or sometimes the signal would be the hoot of an owl. And hearing it the master of the underground station would rise and let the "passenger" in.

Sometimes the slavers would come alone, sometimes in twos and threes or even more. As many as seventeen were hidden one day at one of the stations.

Thousands of slaves were in this way helped to escape every year. It was a dangerous employment for the station-masters, and many were found out and fined. They paid the fines, they did not care for that; and went on helping the poor slaves.

Most of the people connected with the underground railroad were white, but some were coloured. One of the most daring of these was Harriet Tubman. She helped so many of her countrymen to escape that they called her "Moses" because she had led them out of the land of bondage. She was nearly white, but had been a slave herself. And having escaped from that fearful bondage she now spent her life in trying to free others.

Again and again, in spite of the danger in being caught, she ventured into the Southern States to bring back a band of runaway slaves. And she was so clever and so full of resource that she always brought them safely away. More than once when she saw she was being tracked, she put herself and her little company into a train, taking tickets for them southwards. For she knew that no one would suspect them to be runaway slaves if they were traveling south. Then, when their track was covered, and danger of pursuit over, they all turned north again.

Harriet was both brave and clever, and when the Civil War broke out, she served as a scout for the Northern Army, earning the praise of those who employed her. She lived to be very old, and died not many years ago, happy to know that all her countrymen were free.

But although many slaves tried to run away, all slaves were not unhappy. When they had a kind master they were well taken care of, and lived in far greater comfort that if they had been free. In the more northerly of the slave states, such as Virginia, the slaves were generally household servants, and were treated in the most affectionate manner. It was farther south in the cotton growing districts, where slaves worked in gangs under the whip of the overseer who was often brutal, that the real misery was.

But even with the kindest of masters a slave could never feel safe. For that master might die or lose his money, and have to sell his slaves. Then husband and wife, parents and children might be sold to different masters, and never see each other again. The one would never know whether the other was happy or miserable, alive or dead. Or they might be sold down South to work in the rice swamps or the cotton fields. It was this that the happy, careless slave from the North most dreaded.

It was just at this time when the Fugitive Slave Law was being enforced, and the Underground Railroad was working nightly that "Uncle Tom's Cabin" was written and published. You all know the story of poor old Tom, of funny, naughty Topsy and all the other interesting people of the book. We look upon it now as merely a story-book. But it was much more than that. It was a great sermon and did more to make people hate slavery than any other book ever written.