A few of those who were active in aiding slaves to escape to Canada have published volumes of personal recollections, in which, among other things, they tell more or less about their connection with the humane but illegitimate work of the abolitionists, and give vivid sketches of some of their associates, as well as of some of their dark-skinned protégés. Such books are the Rev. James Freeman Clarke's Anti-Slavery Days, the Rev. Samuel J. May's Recollections of our Anti-Slavery Conflict, J. B. Grinnell's Men and Events of Forty Years, Mrs. Laura S. Haviland's A Woman's Life Work and Mrs. E. B. Chace's Anti-Slavery Reminiscences.
A small class of books, of which the Personal Memoirs of Daniel Drayton, and the books by Dr. A. M. Ross and the Rev. Calvin Fairbank are representatives, are indispensable as sources of information relating to the abduction of slaves from the South. The little book entitled Harriet, the Moses of her People, in which that remarkable guide of fugitives, Harriet Tubman, relates her exploits through the pen of her friend, Mrs. S. H. Bradford, properly belongs to this group.
4. Letters, Diaries and Scrap-books
The liability of Underground Railroad operators to severe penalties for harboring runaways explains the dearth of evidence in the form of letters, diaries and scrap-books they have left behind; such evidence would have been incriminating. It is known that a few abolitionists kept diaries and scrap-books and even wrote letters in regard to the business of the Road, but most of these records appear to have been destroyed before the beginning of the Civil War. The author has been able to secure only two or three letters and the single leaf of a diary in centres where much work was done. Three scrap-books in the Boston Public Library, containing memoranda, clippings, handbills, etc., that refer in particular to the experiences of Theodore Parker, shed much light on the work of the Vigilance Committee of Boston, and supply important information in regard to the famous case of Anthony Burns.
5. Biographies and Memoirs
Biographies and memoirs of anti-slavery men not infrequently contain references to aid rendered to fugitives, explain the motives of the philanthropists, and give their versions of the fugitive slave cases that came within their immediate knowledge; such books are often indices of the public sentiment of the localities in which their subjects lived, and when read in conjunction with the biographies of pro-slavery advocates help us to realize the conflicting interests that expressed themselves in the slavery controversy. Lydia Maria Child's Life of Isaac T. Hopper has preserved to us the record of one of the pioneers of the underground movement, while the biographies of Gerrit Smith and James and Lucretia Mott, show these persons to have been worthy successors of the benign and shrewd Hopper. In the biographies of John Brown by Redpath, Hinton and Sanborn, and in the Life of Harriet Beecher Stowe, by her son, Charles E. Stowe, we have proofs of the deep and enduring impression made by underground experiences upon strong characters capable of assimilating and transforming these into forces of historical moment. Chase, Seward and Sumner were among our public men who acted as counsel for fugitive slaves; it is not surprising therefore that their biographers have given considerable space to the consideration of cases with which these men were connected. The prominence of the statesmen just named and others of their class as party leaders makes their biographies indispensable in tracing the political history of the ante-bellum period. Claiborne's Life and Correspondence of John A. Quitman may properly be named as an excellent and valuable example of the class of biographies of prominent men of the South.
A few obituary pamphlets have been gathered, which have proved to be of some service: such are A. L. Benedict's Memoir of Richard Dillingham, and pamphlets relating to Mr. John Hossack, of Ottawa, Illinois, and Mr. James M. Westwater, of Columbus, Ohio.
6. Slave Biographies and Autobiographies
A recital of the life and sufferings of many colored refugees in books written by themselves or by sympathetic friends, and published in various free states during the two or three decades preceding 1860, tended to increase the Northern feeling against slavery and doubtless also to carry to many minds convictions that found a partial expression in underground efforts. These books contain descriptions of slave life on the plantation and tell with the omission of particulars, which it would have been imprudent at the time to relate, the story of the escape to liberty. The omission of these particulars renders these sources of little use in tracing the secret routes to Canada followed by the refugees, or in confirming, in part or in whole, the routes of others. In the case of Frederick Douglass, the gaps and omissions appearing in the first autobiography are filled with much valuable information in the second, written after slavery was abolished. The books by Josiah Henson, the Rev. J. W. Loguen and Austin Steward are interesting as the narratives of negroes of superior ability who spent a part at least of their time after self-emancipation in Canada, and could therefore write intelligently on the condition of their people there.