The Underground Railroad (14 page)

“How could the law be on their side?” I asked. “It's not right to own other people.”

“The law of the day was that if a slave ran away and he or she was caught and if the slave owner could prove that the slave was his or her property—the slave had to be handed over to the owner,” the professor answered. “But the people who lived in the area would have none of it.”

A big smile crossed Professor Tuesday's face. “The sheriff, Mr. Barak Mead, served legal papers on several of the Kentuckians, accusing them of kidnapping the African-Americans. He arrested four of the raiders for trespassing on Josiah Osborn's property. One of the men was also charged for hitting someone during the ruckus.”

Mr. Adams stood up and delivered a flurry of sign language to the professor.

“I'm getting to that. I'm getting to that,” the professor said to his nephew. Then he turned to the rest of us. “Mr. Adams wants to know how the trial ended.”

“Me, too,” I said.

“The fugitive slaves were released,” answered the professor.

We all whooped and hollered for joy.

“They were all taken to a house south of Cassopolis. In a manner of a few days, Zachariah Shugart helped them escape to Canada.”

“Wow!” I said. “What a great story!”

Professor Tuesday shut down his computer and looked at Tamika and me.

“What did everyone learn about the Underground Railroad from this adventure?”

Mr. Adams used sign language to talk to the professor. I couldn't understand everything he said. But he quickly brought up the letter ‘A' to his chest with his left hand. I think that means danger.

“That's right,” said Professor Tuesday to his nephew. “Fugitive slaves, and the people who protected them, often faced danger. In the case of the Kentucky raid, there was at least one man with a gun. Some of the other raiders were willing to use force, and several of the fugitives fought back.”

Miss Pepper raised her hand, like she was a student in school. “Professor, I learned how the Quakers were strong in their beliefs against slavery.”

“That's true in many cases,” the professor replied. “However, not everyone involved in helping slaves was a Quaker. Others of various faiths or no faith at all participated in helping slaves to escape. In fact,” he added, “you might be interested in knowing that religion had a very interesting role when it came to slavery. One of the Kentucky raiders was actually a Baptist minister.”

“No way,” Tamika said. “My whole family is Baptist.”

“Sadly, it's true,” answered the professor. “There were lots of people who were very strong in their religious beliefs but were also slave owners. Many in the southern states believed that slavery was perfectly fine because it is mentioned in the Bible.”

“That's hard to imagine,” Mr. Spinner said.

“I was surprised to see how those people fought against the raiders,” I said. “That took a lot of courage.”

“I don't think I could do that,” Tamika said softly.

“Don't be so quick to say that,” her mother said. “If you were in that situation, I think you'd be surprised how much courage you'd have.”

“I think it's sad,” I said.

“How so?” asked Miss Pepper.

“It's sad that these people were so close to Canada, after running so far, and they were almost captured and taken back.

“Indeed,” said the professor, “a runaway wasn't completely safe anywhere in the United States in those times. One of the few places they were safe was Canada.”

“I'm glad that the fugitives who were originally captured in the Kentucky raid made it to Canada safely,” Mrs. Jones said.

“Well,” replied the professor as he scratched his beard, “The raid had some bad outcomes, too.”

“Like what?” I asked.

“The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was a direct result of many failed raids to capture runaways. The law made it illegal for anyone to help escaped slaves, no matter where they were in the United States. Interestingly enough, the state of Michigan passed a law in 1855 that made it illegal for state and local officials to help slave catchers.

“That was good,” I said.

Professor Tuesday started picking up his laptop and the Tuesday Teleporter. “If you want to come back next week, we'll visit a famous incident that happened in Marshall, Michigan. Then we'll see how many of the fugitive slaves in Michigan made it to Canada through Detroit.”

“We'll be here,” Mr. Spinner said.

“Will it be scary?” Tamika asked as she let out a big yawn.

T
he following week, Tamika was acting funny at school. After school on Friday, I asked her if something was wrong.

“I've been having dreams again,” she said. “But I don't want you to tell anyone.”

“Are they nightmares?” I asked.

“Not exactly,” she answered, “but they seem real.”

“Like how?” I asked.

“Remember the trail that Professor Tuesday showed us,” she began, “you know, the one by Sturgis?”

“I remember, but we didn't see any runaways on that trail,” I answered.

“Right,” answered Tamika. “in my dreams I see that trail. Except, this time there is a family running to escape. There's a father, a mother, and two children— a girl and a boy. They are running toward Dr. Thomas' house in Schoolcraft.”

“That doesn't seem too scary,” I answered.

“That's just it,” Tamika replied. “It isn't all that scary. But there's something really weird about the dream.”

“Like what?” I asked.

Tamika swallowed hard as she continued. “The little girl in my dream … looks exactly like me.”

I put my arm around my friend. “I'll admit, that is a little weird. But it's just a dream.”

“I guess,” Tamika said. “Well, I've got to go home now. Maybe we'll talk to Professor Tuesday about it next Tuesday night.”

Over the weekend, I did some research on Marshall, Michigan just for fun. My parents and I have a favorite restaurant in Marshall, so I wanted to learn all I could about the town's history. That's how I first learned about the Crosswhites.

Tuesday night came quickly, and before I knew it, we were all in the conference room near the professor's office once again. Like always, Mr. Spinner told another one of his bad jokes. Nobody laughed; a few of us groaned. This time, Professor Tuesday had one for him.

“Mr. Spinner,” the professor began, “why do hummingbirds hum?”

Mr. Spinner had a confused look on his face. “I don't know.”

A big smile crossed the professor's face as he answered. “Hummingbirds hum because they don't know the words.”

We all laughed. Mr. Spinner wrote down the joke so he wouldn't forget it.

Professor Tuesday settled down to business. “Does anyone have a question about last week?”

When no one said anything, I raised my hand.

“Professor, you told us that we were going to Marshall and Detroit this week,” I said. “I did some research on Marshall. Are we going to the Crosswhite place?”

The professor's face brightened. “You did do some research. Wonderful! Wonderful!” Professor Tuesday clapped his hands twice in excitement. “We are going to visit the Crosswhite place, and you, Jesse, are going to help tell the story. Now everyone settle in for an exciting night.”

I was very proud that I did the research on my own without being asked. I could tell that Miss Pepper was proud, too.

Professor Tuesday had everything ready to go. There was a tangle of different colored wires running back and forth across the table between his laptop and his teleporter mechanism. Mr. Adams already had the Critter Cam set up. He even had the batteries charged. This was going to be fun.

Before the professor fired up the teleporter, he told us that we were going to Marshall, Michigan, on an early morning in 1847. Then he took two fingers and pressed down on the ENTER key of his laptop and lights started spinning around the room. It used to give me an upset stomach, but now it doesn't bother me a bit. Watching the green teleporter cloud forming is always an amazing sight.

The professor nodded at his nephew, and Mr. Adams drove the Critter Cam through the cloud and into the total darkness. Professor Tuesday switched on the night vision and the screen on his laptop glowed a bright green. As the night vision adjusted, we could see a small house across from a meadow.

“Jesse,” the professor said, “can you tell everyone where we are?”

“I think we are outside the city of Marshall, Michigan, at the house of Mr. Adam Crosswhite and his family,” I answered. “They are runaway slaves. He lives here with his wife and four children.”

“Excellent! Excellent!” said the professor. “Do you know how he came to live in Marshall?”

I was stumped. “Ah, no, I don't.”

“That's alright,” said the professor. “The Crosswhites were the property of Francis Giltner, who had a plantation in Kentucky. It so happened that Adam Crosswhite, the father, found out that his children were going to be sold. Mr. and Mrs. Crosswhite couldn't bear the thought of losing their children, so they took them and headed north. When they got to Marshall, they thought they were far enough from Kentucky and safe.”

“Just like those other fugitives near Cassopolis,” Mr. Spinner said.

“Exactly! Exactly!” said the professor. He turned to me. “Jesse, is there anything else you can add.”

“Sure,” I said, “the Crosswhite family arranged a signal with their neighbors to alert them if there was trouble.”

Suddenly, the sound of a gunshot came through the speaker. We all let out a scream.

“Was somebody shot?” Tamika whispered.

“No,” I answered, “a gunshot was the signal. The Crosswhites were telling their neighbors that they were in trouble.”

Professor Tuesday told Mr. Adams to move the Critter Cam toward the house. There we saw four white men at the front door. Before long, several other people started gathering around the house.

“What's going on?” Mrs. Jones asked.

“Four men from Kentucky are at the door of the Crosswhite house,” I answered. “They plan to take them all back to slavery at a southern plantation. The Crosswhites are terrified. But their neighbors won't let the Kentuckians have their way.”

We watched as the crowd got noisier and noisier.

“What about these people? Are they going to fight?” Mr. Spinner asked.

“No,” I answered, “the local sheriff will come out and arrest the slave catchers. But before leaving, the slave catchers will ask for the names of all the people in the crowd. The Crosswhites will escape and run to Canada where they can't be captured again.”

“That's like what we saw last week,” Tamika said.

“What makes this a little different,” I added, “is that the people from Kentucky will go to court in Detroit and sue many of the people in Marshall who helped with the escape. In the end, several of the locals will be fined, but they all gladly paid their fines because the family had escaped and were free.”

“Not every fugitive slave who made it to Michigan escaped to Canada or lived free,” the professor noted. “As more and more slaves began to run away, slave holders started to take action. They sent spies, like those who came to Michigan before the Kentucky raid, and even hired men who were professional slave hunters.”

Professor Tuesday drummed a pencil on the tabletop. “Some of these slave catchers were well paid and very good at their jobs. I read an interview of Perry Sanford, a slave who escaped from Kentucky with eleven others. One member of the group, a man named Henry Buckner, was captured just north of Cass County.”

“What happened to Mr. Buckner?” I asked.

The slave catchers gave him a brutal whipping each morning for three days,” answered the professor grimly. “Then they tied a bell around his neck so they'd always know where he was.”

“That's terrible,” Tamika said, turning her head away.

“Henry Buckner wouldn't be a slave for long,” the professor added. “About a year and a half after he was captured, he ran away again. This time he made it to safety.”

“Whew,” Tamika said.

“Now,” the professor said, “I think we should visit Midnight.”

“Midnight isn't a place, it's a time,” Tamika noted.

“You'll see what I mean,” answered Professor Tuesday with a smile. “You'll see what I mean.”

“
M
idnight,” the professor said, “was a code word for the city of Detroit, one of the last stops along the western route of the Underground Railroad. Tonight, I would like to make several short visits to look at stops that runaway slaves made along the way to Midnight.”

The professor fiddled with his Tuesday Teleporter and once again input data. When he was finally done, he turned to everyone in the conference room and spoke. “I wanted you to see a few more people and places that were important along the route to freedom in Canada,” he said. When he was sure that Mr. Adams was ready with the Critter Cam, the professor hit the ENTER key on his laptop and the Tuesday Teleporter lit up like a video game.

Mr. Adams moved the Critter Cam into the green cloud, and the professor flicked on the night vision device. Greenish images formed on the big flat screen TV in front of us. The images showed a man ushering two people into a home. The people looked to be runaway slaves. They were dressed in tattered clothing and looked frightened and exhausted.

“The Underground Railroad conductor you are looking at,” the professor said, pointing at the man ushering the two people, “is Judge Norman Geddes.”

“Was he a real judge or was that just a nickname?” I asked.