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Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad
An important book of epic scope on America's first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for change
The civil war brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery's denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation's imagination as the Lewis and Clark expedition. The true story of the Underground Railroad is much more morally complex and politically divisive than even the myths suggest. Against a backdrop of the country's westward expansion arose a fierce clash of values that was nothing less than a war for the country's soul. Not since the American Revolution had the country engaged in an act of such vast and profound civil disobedience that not only challenged prevailing mores but also subverted federal law.
Bound for Canaan tells the stories of men and women like David Ruggles, who invented the black underground in New York City; bold Quakers like Isaac Hopper and Levi Coffin, who risked their lives to build the Underground Railroad; and the inimitable Harriet Tubman. Interweaving thrilling personal stories with the politics of slavery and abolition, Bound for Canaan shows how the Underground Railroad gave birth to this country's first racially integrated, religiously inspired movement for social change.
588 pages, Kindle Edition
First published April 1, 2005
268 people are currently reading
2442 people want to read
About the author
Fergus M. Bordewich
15 books104 followersFERGUS M. BORDEWICH is the author of eight non-fiction books: "Congress at War: How Republican Reformers Fought the Civil War, Defied Lincoln, Ended Slavery, and Remade America"; "The First Congress: How James Madison, George Washington, and a Group of Extraordinary Men Invented the Government" (awarded the Hardeman Prize in American History, in 2019); "America's Great Debate: Henry Clay, Stephen A. Douglas and the Compromise that Preserved the Union" (winner of the Los Angeles Times award for best history book, in 2013); "Washington: The Making of the American Capital" (named by the Washington Post as one f the best books of 2008); "Bound for Canaan: The Underground Railroad and the War for the Soul of America (named by the American Booksellers' Association as one of the ten best books of 2005)"; "My Mother’s Ghost," a memoir; "Killing the White Man’s Indian: Reinventing Native Americans at the End of the Twentieth Century"; and "Cathay: A Journey in Search of Old China." He has also published an illustrated children’s book, "Peach Blossom Spring" and has written the script for a PBS documentary about Thomas Jefferson, "Mr. Jefferson’s University." He also edited an photo-illustrated book of eyewitness accounts of the 1989 Tiananmen Massacre, "Children of the Dragon." He regularly reviews books for the Wall Street Journal. His articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, TIME Magazine, American Heritage, Smithsonian Magazine, the Civil War Monitor, and many other publications. He lives in San Francisco with his wife, Jean Parvin Bordewich.
BORDEWICH WAS BORN in New York City in 1947, and grew up in Yonkers, New York. While growing up, he often traveled to Indian reservations around the United States with his mother, LaVerne Madigan Bordewich, the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, then the only independent advocacy organization for Native Americans. This early experience helped to shape his lifelong preoccupation with American history, the settlement of the continent, and issues of race, poverty, and political power. He holds degrees from the City College of New York and Columbia University. In the late 1960s, he did voter registration for the NAACP in the still-segregated South; he also worked as a roustabout in Alaska’s Arctic oil fields, a taxi driver in New York City, and a deckhand on a Norwegian freighter.
He has been an independent writer and historian since the early 1970s. As a journalist, he traveled extensively in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, writing on politics, economic issues, culture, and history, on subjects including Islamic fundamentalism, the plight of the Kurds in northern Iraq, civil war in Burma, religious repression in China, Kenya’s population crisis, German Reunification, the peace settlement in Ireland, and other issues. He also served for brief periods as an editor and writer for the Tehran Journal in Iran, in 1972-1973, a press officer for the United Nations, and an advisor to the New China News Agency in Beijing, in 1982-1983, when that agency was embarking on its effort to move from a propaganda model toward a western-style journalistic one.
BORDEWICH WAS BORN in New York City in 1947, and grew up in Yonkers, New York. While growing up, he often traveled to Indian reservations around the United States with his mother, LaVerne Madigan Bordewich, the executive director of the Association on American Indian Affairs, then the only independent advocacy organization for Native Americans. This early experience helped to shape his lifelong preoccupation with American history, the settlement of the continent, and issues of race, poverty, and political power. He holds degrees from the City College of New York and Columbia University. In the late 1960s, he did voter registration for the NAACP in the still-segregated South; he also worked as a roustabout in Alaska’s Arctic oil fields, a taxi driver in New York City, and a deckhand on a Norwegian freighter.
He has been an independent writer and historian since the early 1970s. As a journalist, he traveled extensively in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Africa, writing on politics, economic issues, culture, and history, on subjects including Islamic fundamentalism, the plight of the Kurds in northern Iraq, civil war in Burma, religious repression in China, Kenya’s population crisis, German Reunification, the peace settlement in Ireland, and other issues. He also served for brief periods as an editor and writer for the Tehran Journal in Iran, in 1972-1973, a press officer for the United Nations, and an advisor to the New China News Agency in Beijing, in 1982-1983, when that agency was embarking on its effort to move from a propaganda model toward a western-style journalistic one.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 183 reviews
November 7, 2016
I wanted a book about the Underground Railroad; here's the book my research led me to, and I'm glad it did. I had a pretty murky understanding of what the whole thing was about - like, Harriet Tubman and a bunch of underground tunnels? Now I know better.
Here are all the stories you know: Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup (the Twelve Years a Slave guy), John Brown. The slave escape that inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin and the story that inspired Beloved.
Here also are important figures I didn't know about:
- Isaac Hopper, who with other Quakers in the early 1800s "became what can fairly be described as the first operating cell of the abolitionist underground."
- Levi Coffin, another Quaker (there were lots of Quakers! Go Quakers!) known as "The President of the Underground Railroad';
- Josiah Henson, an escaped slave who founded a Canadian settlement for other escapees;
- Anthony Benezet, who started a black school in 1750 and 'helped convert Benjamin Franklin and others to abolitionism, by demonstrating that his students were capable of the same level of achievement as whites."
- Jermain Loguen,an escaped slave who became a popular preacher
- William Lloyd Garrison, whose fierce Boston-based paper the Liberator was an important abolitionist resource
There are a ton of exciting stories about the Railroad - of course there are - and an awful lot of them are in this book. I totally dug reading it - even with its fairly frequent lapses into breathless, purpleish prose - and I learned everything I wanted to.
Random other quotes
"The British colonies of North America and the United States imported only about 6 percent of the between 10 and 11 million slaves that were brought from Africa."
"From the earliest days of settlement, at least some colonists had equivocal feelings about slavery. In 1641 Massachusetts forbade slavery."
Philadelphia was the early center of the underground railroad, and Quakers were early pioneers: around 1800, "in the cobbled lanes of Philadelphia, fugitive slaves, free blacks, and white Quakers were discovering one another, and recognizing one another as allies in the struggle that was to come."
Other books this one led me to
I've read slave narratives by Northup, Josiah Henson, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. This book also pointed me in the direction of Olaudah Equiano, Henry Bibb and Moses Roper.
William Wells Brown was the country's first African-American novelist.
Here are all the stories you know: Nat Turner, Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Solomon Northup (the Twelve Years a Slave guy), John Brown. The slave escape that inspired Uncle Tom's Cabin and the story that inspired Beloved.
Here also are important figures I didn't know about:
- Isaac Hopper, who with other Quakers in the early 1800s "became what can fairly be described as the first operating cell of the abolitionist underground."
- Levi Coffin, another Quaker (there were lots of Quakers! Go Quakers!) known as "The President of the Underground Railroad';
- Josiah Henson, an escaped slave who founded a Canadian settlement for other escapees;
- Anthony Benezet, who started a black school in 1750 and 'helped convert Benjamin Franklin and others to abolitionism, by demonstrating that his students were capable of the same level of achievement as whites."
- Jermain Loguen,an escaped slave who became a popular preacher
- William Lloyd Garrison, whose fierce Boston-based paper the Liberator was an important abolitionist resource
There are a ton of exciting stories about the Railroad - of course there are - and an awful lot of them are in this book. I totally dug reading it - even with its fairly frequent lapses into breathless, purpleish prose - and I learned everything I wanted to.
Random other quotes
"The British colonies of North America and the United States imported only about 6 percent of the between 10 and 11 million slaves that were brought from Africa."
"From the earliest days of settlement, at least some colonists had equivocal feelings about slavery. In 1641 Massachusetts forbade slavery."
Philadelphia was the early center of the underground railroad, and Quakers were early pioneers: around 1800, "in the cobbled lanes of Philadelphia, fugitive slaves, free blacks, and white Quakers were discovering one another, and recognizing one another as allies in the struggle that was to come."
Other books this one led me to
I've read slave narratives by Northup, Josiah Henson, Frederick Douglass and Harriet Jacobs. This book also pointed me in the direction of Olaudah Equiano, Henry Bibb and Moses Roper.
William Wells Brown was the country's first African-American novelist.
December 13, 2007
A truly, truly amazing read. A page-turner yet full of fascinating information. Best of all it debunks the idea that Blacks were passive victims during slavery who made no attempts to free themselves. If you are interested in this country and the people who created it, White and Black, read this book.
August 17, 2018
Very readable history, though a bit light on the women.
October 25, 2008
I give this an excellent for ease of reading. Fergus unfolds history like an epic story, which is all the better because it was true. Harriet emerges a heroine, and many others who found the courage to fight the system.
This is what history books should read like. Moving and expertly told, you get an immediate sense of what challenges the underground railroad was up against, and find yourself rooting fervently for the slaves bound for freedom.
This is what history books should read like. Moving and expertly told, you get an immediate sense of what challenges the underground railroad was up against, and find yourself rooting fervently for the slaves bound for freedom.
December 16, 2020
Fergus Bordewich's Bound for Canaan offers a lively narrative account of the Underground Railroad. Bordewich's book envisions the Underground as America's "first Civil Rights Movement," emphasizing the biracial coalition between freed blacks and white abolitionists that enabled the escape of thousands of slaves from bondage in the years leading up to the Civil War. The book contains numerous harrowing accounts of escape and pursuit, along with dozens of pen portraits of figures both well-known (Frederick Douglass, Harriet Tubman, John Brown) and lesser-known: William Parker, the protagonist of the Christiana Resistance; Levi Coffin, the Indiana Quaker whose efforts in the Midwest earned him the nickname "President of the Underground Railroad"; John and Mary Meachum, a free black couple in St. Louis who risked life and limb helping others escape; and dozens of other men and women, high-placed and humble, who fought for freedom. Bordewich's book is occasionally light on sketching the broader sweep of the Railroad's operations, preferring individual stories over thorough analysis; similarly, it's light on capturing the sociopolitical context in which it operated. Still, as a highly readable, engaging account of the Underground Railroad, Bound for Canaan is undeniably success. A stirring tribute to the men and women whose efforts struck a blow against slavery.
February 18, 2015
4.5 stars - this was a solid, well-written, clearly well-researched history of an important and fascinating part of American history. Most people have heard of the Underground Railroad, but what do you really know about it? Prior to this book, my answer would have been "honestly, not much." I'm glad that this book gave me a chance to rectify that.
Some standout points for me: the connections between the Underground Railroad and the beginnings of the women's rights movement; the importance of Canada as the final destination for many of the Railroad's passengers; and the Railroad's influence as both a landmark of progressive politics and an example of civil disobedience by deeply religious people against secular laws.
Some standout points for me: the connections between the Underground Railroad and the beginnings of the women's rights movement; the importance of Canada as the final destination for many of the Railroad's passengers; and the Railroad's influence as both a landmark of progressive politics and an example of civil disobedience by deeply religious people against secular laws.
June 6, 2021
An excellent history of not just The Underground Railroad and abolitionism, but also of most of the US at the time period. I really liked all the explanations of the politics. Super interesting and worth the extra time it takes, being nearly 600 pages long. Lots of great personal stories from the Grand Old Quakers, abolitionists, slaves and John Brown.
"The underground was the greatest movement of civil disobedience since the American Revolution, engaging thousands of citizens in the active subversion of federal law and the prevailing mores of their communities."
"The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1850, had awakened whites to the price in personal liberty that they were expected to pay in order to protect slavery in the South."
"At the turn of the century, the few white men and women (nearly all of them Quakers) who were willing to lend help to the fugitive slave were as gentle and religious as Hopper himself, and as reluctant as he was to break the letter of the law. Radical abolitionism had now become a mighty movement. Public opinion in the North was steadily shifting in favor of the abolitionists, who were seen as the defenders of free speech, free assembly, and personal liberty. The once-ridiculed fringe was now an army of resisters capable of heroism on a mass scale, and the civil disobedience that Thoreau preached in genteel Concord was being dramatically acted out in the streets. Old orthodoxies were boiling away. Public opinion in both North and South was galvanized in ways that made it harder to resolve differences over slavery without violence."
"The underground was the greatest movement of civil disobedience since the American Revolution, engaging thousands of citizens in the active subversion of federal law and the prevailing mores of their communities."
"The passage of the Fugitive Slave Law, in 1850, had awakened whites to the price in personal liberty that they were expected to pay in order to protect slavery in the South."
"At the turn of the century, the few white men and women (nearly all of them Quakers) who were willing to lend help to the fugitive slave were as gentle and religious as Hopper himself, and as reluctant as he was to break the letter of the law. Radical abolitionism had now become a mighty movement. Public opinion in the North was steadily shifting in favor of the abolitionists, who were seen as the defenders of free speech, free assembly, and personal liberty. The once-ridiculed fringe was now an army of resisters capable of heroism on a mass scale, and the civil disobedience that Thoreau preached in genteel Concord was being dramatically acted out in the streets. Old orthodoxies were boiling away. Public opinion in both North and South was galvanized in ways that made it harder to resolve differences over slavery without violence."
Read
February 5, 2009The Underground Railroad was, by its very nature, a silent, loose-limbed organization. This fog of anonymity may explain why, despite its critical role in American history, historians have attempted so few chronicles of it. Bordewich, author of My Mother's Ghost (2000) and Killing the White Man's Indian (1997), was undeterred by the challenge. If he can't rescue all names from anonymity, he succeeds in laying bare the heroic spirit of the escapees' struggle. He also breaks "the hard sheen of myth" and shows how some of the movement's white leaders embraced racial equality. Critics applaud the thrilling depictions of escapes and the furtive strategies in use along the railroad. Even more, they appreciate how he places the railroad in context as the fountainhead for the abolitionist movement and, further down the road, the civil rights movement.
This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.
February 11, 2024
Reviewed on my blog for Black History Month.
What a great book! I started out with a library copy and ended up purchasing my own so that I could mark it up and use it for future reference. If you are interested in the Underground Railroad beyond the vague mention that it received in high school history, pick up this book. I was constantly amazed by the testimonies and statistics compiled. It's one of those books that make you realize just how much you don't know.
Some of these facts seemed obvious after reading them, such as the fact that 80% of freedom seekers to the north came from border states. The enslaved in the deep south had little hope and were unlikely to possess any knowledge of where to go if they could escape and travel the many miles to a free state. It's sad and awful and I had never thought about it, but it also makes sense. It added a dimension to the terrible fear of being sold to the deep south.
There's a lot of information here and a lot of people to keep track of, which seems to frustrate some readers, but this book is worth the effort. It tells the story of the Underground Railroad in a comprehensive way, going into great detail about freedom seekers and those who helped them where such historical information is available while stripping away any romantic ideas readers may have of how easy or common escape really was. It was humbling to read about so many people - men and women, black and white - who sacrificed so much to stand up to the horrific slaveholding power.
The testimonies are stirring enough to make one wonder, "Would I have the courage to do the same?" I see this book becoming a much-used resource in my research library.
What a great book! I started out with a library copy and ended up purchasing my own so that I could mark it up and use it for future reference. If you are interested in the Underground Railroad beyond the vague mention that it received in high school history, pick up this book. I was constantly amazed by the testimonies and statistics compiled. It's one of those books that make you realize just how much you don't know.
Some of these facts seemed obvious after reading them, such as the fact that 80% of freedom seekers to the north came from border states. The enslaved in the deep south had little hope and were unlikely to possess any knowledge of where to go if they could escape and travel the many miles to a free state. It's sad and awful and I had never thought about it, but it also makes sense. It added a dimension to the terrible fear of being sold to the deep south.
There's a lot of information here and a lot of people to keep track of, which seems to frustrate some readers, but this book is worth the effort. It tells the story of the Underground Railroad in a comprehensive way, going into great detail about freedom seekers and those who helped them where such historical information is available while stripping away any romantic ideas readers may have of how easy or common escape really was. It was humbling to read about so many people - men and women, black and white - who sacrificed so much to stand up to the horrific slaveholding power.
The testimonies are stirring enough to make one wonder, "Would I have the courage to do the same?" I see this book becoming a much-used resource in my research library.
February 23, 2022
Definitely an Epic Story! Well researched and well written history all about underground railroad from the early beginnings and until it dismantled with the start of the Civil War. This wasn't a fast read by any means, took me almost an entire month, but it was fascinating and gripping at moments.
Interesting fact: the underground railroad predates railroads in the country. Once the railroad (steel and metal kind) became something used as transportation the language became tied to the movement of helping people escape and find their way to freedom, often in Canada.
I'm so glad I read this book as my understanding was vague before, knowing the general gist of this transformative movement along with a few of the key people. The book covers many of the people who were significant in helping develop networks to help people find freedom and yet are lesser known. This was an excellent book to learn about this awful time in American history.
Interesting fact: the underground railroad predates railroads in the country. Once the railroad (steel and metal kind) became something used as transportation the language became tied to the movement of helping people escape and find their way to freedom, often in Canada.
I'm so glad I read this book as my understanding was vague before, knowing the general gist of this transformative movement along with a few of the key people. The book covers many of the people who were significant in helping develop networks to help people find freedom and yet are lesser known. This was an excellent book to learn about this awful time in American history.
December 8, 2012
Great book. Meticulously researched from original sources. Quoting from newspapers, letters and other documents you really get the feel for what people were thinking and experiencing during the time. Besides the sweep of the story of the system to conduct runaway slaves from the south to the northern states or Canada you learn detailed snippets of history:
-In NC I believe a white man bought a slave and set him free and then bought the slaves son and gave the son to the father so that the father would have the required $250 (the son being valued at $400) to keep his freedom. A law required free blacks to have $250 in property or they could be re-enslaved.
-A prominent Methodist minister, a member of the underground, was brought before a grand jury in Ohio by a southern slave holder for helping escaped slaves. When asked if he helped slaves he responded to the jury (many of whom were quiet abolitionist) "I have helped some people who said they were slaves but since a black person's testimony in inadmissible in a trial of a white man I couldn't really say." The jury found in his favor.
- In a letter to a former slave who had escaped to the north 20 years previously his previous owners widow tells the slaves that his escaping and the stealing of one of her horses cost tremendous financial hardship for her resulting in her having to sell the fugitive's brother and sister and sell some land. She requests that he pay her $1000 so that she can buyback the land. Otherwise she said she would sell him and assured him that times would change and he would be enslaved again.
I did not realize the central roll that the abolitionist movement and the UG Railroad had in turning the live and let live attitude of many in the north to fervent, vehement anti-slavery.
Uncle Tom's cabin, based on real-life stories, was widely read in the north, banned in the south, and was responsible for wakening many northerners about the horrors of slavery. Lincoln thanked HBS for turning the North against slavery.
The fugitive slave act around 1850 required that federal troops help in the capture and returning of slaves to their southern masters masters and required citizens to help in those recaptures with penalties fines and even jail if they did not assist. This brought home to many the horribleness of returning fugitive slaves to slavery
Jefferson Davis was the United States Secretary of War!
I know it may seem silly to many but the depictions of the vast, almost empty wilderness that the slaves in the early 1800's on the UG railroad had to travel through in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, NC etc made me realize that the slaves not only worked on plantations, they cleared virgin forests and swamps etc to make all that cropland. I know Duh! They then built the the lovely plantations that we can now go visit on home tours in the south. 60% of US exports in the 1850's was cotton. Slaves built much of this country. When you pass a field in the south today growing something you like to eat realize the debt we all have to African men and women.
-In NC I believe a white man bought a slave and set him free and then bought the slaves son and gave the son to the father so that the father would have the required $250 (the son being valued at $400) to keep his freedom. A law required free blacks to have $250 in property or they could be re-enslaved.
-A prominent Methodist minister, a member of the underground, was brought before a grand jury in Ohio by a southern slave holder for helping escaped slaves. When asked if he helped slaves he responded to the jury (many of whom were quiet abolitionist) "I have helped some people who said they were slaves but since a black person's testimony in inadmissible in a trial of a white man I couldn't really say." The jury found in his favor.
- In a letter to a former slave who had escaped to the north 20 years previously his previous owners widow tells the slaves that his escaping and the stealing of one of her horses cost tremendous financial hardship for her resulting in her having to sell the fugitive's brother and sister and sell some land. She requests that he pay her $1000 so that she can buyback the land. Otherwise she said she would sell him and assured him that times would change and he would be enslaved again.
I did not realize the central roll that the abolitionist movement and the UG Railroad had in turning the live and let live attitude of many in the north to fervent, vehement anti-slavery.
Uncle Tom's cabin, based on real-life stories, was widely read in the north, banned in the south, and was responsible for wakening many northerners about the horrors of slavery. Lincoln thanked HBS for turning the North against slavery.
The fugitive slave act around 1850 required that federal troops help in the capture and returning of slaves to their southern masters masters and required citizens to help in those recaptures with penalties fines and even jail if they did not assist. This brought home to many the horribleness of returning fugitive slaves to slavery
Jefferson Davis was the United States Secretary of War!
I know it may seem silly to many but the depictions of the vast, almost empty wilderness that the slaves in the early 1800's on the UG railroad had to travel through in Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, NC etc made me realize that the slaves not only worked on plantations, they cleared virgin forests and swamps etc to make all that cropland. I know Duh! They then built the the lovely plantations that we can now go visit on home tours in the south. 60% of US exports in the 1850's was cotton. Slaves built much of this country. When you pass a field in the south today growing something you like to eat realize the debt we all have to African men and women.
February 6, 2017
A primary source for Colson Whitehead's visionary novel, The Underground Railroad, Bound for Canaan tells the even more gripping story of the US' original civil disobedience movement. Bordewich's carefully-sourced history breathes new life into the men and women who risked their own lives, freedoms, and more to defy US chattel slavery. He revives the names of forgotten abolitionists who dismantled the institution where they could, aided runaways, opened secret routes out of slave states and refuges across the Northeast. The author vividly and movingly recreates the escalating violence produced by federal Fugitive Slave Laws passed to appease slaves owners, and the valiant self-defense efforts of runaway communities from Pennsylvania to the Canadian border. Harriet Tubman emerges from this account as a unique inspiration: daring, determined, defiant, ingenious, and armed, she returns again and again behind enemy lines to free family and friends. And all them, let's be clear, were outlaws: rebels against a White Republic whose wealth--North and South-- derived fundamentally from slave labor. We should all know this history.
August 14, 2012
I thought this book was fabulous. It was meticulously researched and the stories of both known and unknown participants were told in a very compelling way. Some of the reviews I saw saw here complained about the stories starting off and then being picked up later. I loved that about this book, because instead of profiling each of the participants separately,like a series of unrelated short stories within the book, they were weaved together in a chronological order. We got to see the whole picture. While this was happening over here, that was going on over there. We got to see it all. I borrowed it from the library, but I plan to buy a copy because it was the most complete book on the UGRR that I have read.
January 28, 2022
I promised myself I would be intentional about educating myself more on slavery, the underground railroad, and America's foundation this year. This book really helped give me a solid foundation to understand the underground railroad. There are so many people history has forgotten or written out of exitsence. This book gave life to many people I wish schools would talk more about. Overall this was at times a very dry read, but very educational nonetheless.
April 11, 2019
This could have been a great book if the author had used better editing skills. So much repetition that the book was actually boring in places. I got to page 200 and almost gave up. Instead I slogged through it. It does contain a lot of information and most of it was very engaging. However, as is the case with many nonfiction books, too much material can be a bad thing.
September 25, 2017
This was an excellent, detailed read that seeks to document carefully the Underground Railroad from its humble beginnings to its final days as the Civil War begins.
I was not up enough on African American history to recognize many of the characters (of course I had John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass -- the ones everyone knew), so at times I did get a bit lost in the many names. (My fault). It was a compelling read that discussed not only how the railroad worked, the successes and the failures of the railroad and also the different leaning views within the abolition movement, and differing views amongst the people in the slaveholding South. (It never occurred to me till I read this book that there really was no railroad per se -- of the physical kind with tracks and steam engines -- when the underground railroad started).
I appreciated this story, not only because its documentary style detail was fantastic and added much historical detail to my understanding of the years leading up to the civil war, but also because the compelling stories, one by one, helped me sympathize with the desperate plight of so many, helped me see the impossible choices many of them made (between family and freedom). The book also documented the legal issues surrounding the Fugitive Slave Act and its effect on the northern states.
When it came to Uncle Tom's Cabin, I knew it was invective and I knew it was carefully crafted to stir the hearts of whites in the north, but I did not notice (in my reading of it years ago) that it is mostly white men who are the heroes and blacks more so the passive recipients of their charity. Nor did I know that the book was disliked by Harriet Tubman and other blacks then, already.
A worthy read -- an education in more detailed history of the fugitive slaves in the early to mid 1800s. An indictment of America's Original Sin: Slavery, of how it is woven into the Constitution with the 3/5 population rule and an indictment of the necessary power given to the Southern states so they would join the Union.
One last thing I had always wondered had to do with the motivation of the abolitionists. I don't discount that some people were in the movement for ideological reasons. Many blacks were in the movement because they got out and they wanted to help their own loved ones, dear friends, and frankly just fellow sufferers get out. But I did not understand till I read this that a large part of the Northern motivation (or at least some of the motivation) had to do with labor and labor costs. With the influx of so many Europeans to the United States, Europeans who needed jobs and who needed to be paid a decent wage, with slavery spreading to the west through Kansas, white men could not compete, could not get jobs, if slavery were allowed, since slavery was a lot cheaper to run, once the slaves were owned. That last one helped me understand how some, or rather larger numbers of people got on board, since it seems to me that men do not as a majority tend to fight any system that they exist in on purely ideological or religions grounds. There is usually some monetary reasons for their behavior if they decide to do so.
I was not up enough on African American history to recognize many of the characters (of course I had John Brown, Harriet Tubman, Beecher Stowe, Frederick Douglass -- the ones everyone knew), so at times I did get a bit lost in the many names. (My fault). It was a compelling read that discussed not only how the railroad worked, the successes and the failures of the railroad and also the different leaning views within the abolition movement, and differing views amongst the people in the slaveholding South. (It never occurred to me till I read this book that there really was no railroad per se -- of the physical kind with tracks and steam engines -- when the underground railroad started).
I appreciated this story, not only because its documentary style detail was fantastic and added much historical detail to my understanding of the years leading up to the civil war, but also because the compelling stories, one by one, helped me sympathize with the desperate plight of so many, helped me see the impossible choices many of them made (between family and freedom). The book also documented the legal issues surrounding the Fugitive Slave Act and its effect on the northern states.
When it came to Uncle Tom's Cabin, I knew it was invective and I knew it was carefully crafted to stir the hearts of whites in the north, but I did not notice (in my reading of it years ago) that it is mostly white men who are the heroes and blacks more so the passive recipients of their charity. Nor did I know that the book was disliked by Harriet Tubman and other blacks then, already.
A worthy read -- an education in more detailed history of the fugitive slaves in the early to mid 1800s. An indictment of America's Original Sin: Slavery, of how it is woven into the Constitution with the 3/5 population rule and an indictment of the necessary power given to the Southern states so they would join the Union.
One last thing I had always wondered had to do with the motivation of the abolitionists. I don't discount that some people were in the movement for ideological reasons. Many blacks were in the movement because they got out and they wanted to help their own loved ones, dear friends, and frankly just fellow sufferers get out. But I did not understand till I read this that a large part of the Northern motivation (or at least some of the motivation) had to do with labor and labor costs. With the influx of so many Europeans to the United States, Europeans who needed jobs and who needed to be paid a decent wage, with slavery spreading to the west through Kansas, white men could not compete, could not get jobs, if slavery were allowed, since slavery was a lot cheaper to run, once the slaves were owned. That last one helped me understand how some, or rather larger numbers of people got on board, since it seems to me that men do not as a majority tend to fight any system that they exist in on purely ideological or religions grounds. There is usually some monetary reasons for their behavior if they decide to do so.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
April 24, 2021
A book that needed writing. The Underground Railroad is a huge concept that should have more written about it than anyone can read. Certainly there should be more books written about it than one can comfortably read in a lifetime.
Not the same as a collection of the (nebulous) years it existed, nor the same as the (nebulous) people involved in transporting the (nebulous) people it transported, the underground railroad is nevertheless a pretty well defined concept. Well, so is pi.
Bordewich defines it well.
Also, Josiah Henson High would make a great name for a high school in Montgomery County, Maryland.
Not the same as a collection of the (nebulous) years it existed, nor the same as the (nebulous) people involved in transporting the (nebulous) people it transported, the underground railroad is nevertheless a pretty well defined concept. Well, so is pi.
Bordewich defines it well.
Also, Josiah Henson High would make a great name for a high school in Montgomery County, Maryland.
August 8, 2023
A remarkably well-written, well-researched history of the Underground Railroad. I found it to be fascinating, awe-inspiring, and convicting. A powerful testimony to the power of morally driven conscientious bravery--a story that should be told again and again to remind us that some good persons can make a huge difference.
March 21, 2019
Highly recommend for those seeking a deeper and more nuanced understanding of the Underground Railroad and the characters involved with it.
November 15, 2025
A powerful, moving, important and enlightening book about one of the darkest chapters in American history. Sadly, this is the kind of book people want to ban in certain areas. I highly recommend this book to everyone who wants to understand all of American history, not just the "land of the free, home of the brave" parts.
January 16, 2016
In his intro the author states: I have tried to show how the underground came into being, how it operated, and more than anything else, what kinds of people--black and white, men and women--made it work [...] and show that the Underground Railroad was more than a picturesque legend, but a movement with far-reaching political and moral consequences that changed the relations between the races in ways more radical than any that had been seen since the American Revolution, or would be seen again until the second half of the twentieth century. I say, he succeeded. This is a good read that at times strays to giving individual personalities and stories a burden of details and info that slows its narrative to an extent. Otherwise, broadly but carefully illuminates the factual and historical sense of what the jumble of neighbors, faraway towns, the Canadian border and swamplands right at the line dividing the North from South all came to represent and the part they played in the abolitionist movement, reasons why people felt compelled to get involved with the underground, how they found it, stumbled across it, were led to safety by its way. As a further, more abstract note, I would also say this is one of the few instances in human history where so determinedly doing "God's Will" and what is right by that at all costs as according to religious zeal and belief, despite what might be personally held doubts and prejudices, was truly a just act and continued to be justified as not only righteous, but humane.
April 25, 2022
I have never read any significant history of the Underground Railroad, in fact it seems that they are in short supply. However, this book has received such positive reviews I thought I must read it. When both the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post consider this a must read history, I thought that it must be worth an investment of my time. This very detailed history was told through the personal stories of both fugitive slaves and conductors on the Railroad. I found it a compelling story about an amazing part of American History as some risked life, property, and reputations to overcome the horrors and injustices of slavery in America.
July 21, 2019
Bound for Canaan: The Epic Story of the Underground Railroad, America's First Civil Rights Movement by Fergus M. Bordewich is what the title claims to be an epic story about the darkest chapters of American history and the people who risked everything to right that wrong. The civil war brought to a climax the country's bitter division. But the beginnings of slavery's denouement can be traced to a courageous band of ordinary Americans, black and white, slave and free, who joined forces to create what would come to be known as the Underground Railroad, a movement that occupies as romantic a place in the nation's imagination. “Slave holders sought to impress their slaves with a belief in the boundlessness of slave territory,” Frederick Douglass wrote, and, given the reach of fugitive slave laws, “the real distance was great enough.” Frederick Douglass was the most famous slave to find his way to freedom using the Underground Railroad but thousands and thousands of others did as well. Bordewich lays out the history of the network going from the beginnings of slavery in America to the development of the nation's first civil rights movement. A truly inspiring book.
October 27, 2015
It's a moving history of the resistance towards institutionalized slavery in America. To consider the amount of illegal activity against slavery, activity that today we see as the moral answer to that evil (a generally accepted evil both north and south), might give us pause. But it was the willingness of so many to work fervently against that evil, at great personal risk, some of whom doing so for decades without remedy in sight, that opened up our language of freedom, not just based on race, but on gender and, to some extent, economics.
The story of the underground railroad was clouded by the storm of racism following the civil war generation. It applies today for everyone who wants to make positive cultural change in America.
The story of the underground railroad was clouded by the storm of racism following the civil war generation. It applies today for everyone who wants to make positive cultural change in America.
December 26, 2022
As I travel through history chronologically, the story about the Underground Railroad seemed pertinent to understanding the politics of the 1800s, the Civil War, the south and slavery...so I picked up this book because I have enjoyed other books by Fergus Bordewich.
For whatever reason, I couldn't get interested in this book. I started reading it January 2022...and finally gave up on in December 2022 having read only about 150+ pages.
Perhaps it was all the people that were detailed. Perhaps it was all the trials and tribulations of all the people that were detailed. Perhaps it was simply all the details.
For whatever reason, I couldn't get interested in this book. I started reading it January 2022...and finally gave up on in December 2022 having read only about 150+ pages.
Perhaps it was all the people that were detailed. Perhaps it was all the trials and tribulations of all the people that were detailed. Perhaps it was simply all the details.
June 29, 2008
I read this book when I realized most of my understanding of the Underground Railroad centers around Harriet Tubman. This book does a good job of showing the range of people, black and white, involved in beating this horrible aspect of American history. Where the books fails is in organization -- names and stories disappear and then are picked up much later, making it hard to follow. At times I had no idea of the context of the stories about people because it bounced around so much. But overall it was still helpful.
November 25, 2010
A well-written, extraordinarily thoughtful account of the Underground Railroad. It covers the famous luminaries such as Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass and introduces readers to previously obscure figures such as James Rankin, Josiah Henson, Levi Coffin, and many others. Bordewich excels at putting the Railroad in context and demonstrating how it worked within other antebellum movements such as the nascent women's suffrage movement, Quaker philosophy, John Brown's raid on Harper's Ferry, the Fugitive Slave Law and the writing of "Uncle Tom's Cabin."
November 4, 2021
A Gripping Tale
Every good thing I'd heard about this book that came so highly recommended was amply justified. Historical figures I'd always admired, it turns out, had their flaws. The descriptions and explanations I found in this book helped me grasp the confluence of civil disobedience into which the abolitionist movement—and by association, the underground itself—morphed. I never would have thought I'd be so anxious to know what happened next to people I knew going in were long dead. No wading thru called for here!
Every good thing I'd heard about this book that came so highly recommended was amply justified. Historical figures I'd always admired, it turns out, had their flaws. The descriptions and explanations I found in this book helped me grasp the confluence of civil disobedience into which the abolitionist movement—and by association, the underground itself—morphed. I never would have thought I'd be so anxious to know what happened next to people I knew going in were long dead. No wading thru called for here!
June 25, 2021
Interesting mini-biographies and overviews of the people that spent their lives helping to rescue slaves from slavery. Would have appreciated more stories of the escaped people themselves (though some of the prominent characters in running the UR were escaped slaves themselves.)
Worth a read!
Worth a read!
April 24, 2021
Good historical storytelling. But man ... so many names, so many facts. Hard to remember it all.
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