Correcting Some UGRR Myths

  Summing Up

 Where To Look for Evidence of Underground Railroad Activity

  Buffalo Sites in Order by Address
 Recent Claims We've Heard That Just Aren't True
  Required Reading
  A Note About Using This Page

"Such fictions rely for their plausibility on the premise that the operations of the Underground Railroad were so secret that the truth is essentially unknowable. In fact, there is abundant documentation of the underground’s activities..."
  --Fergus M. Bordewich, "History's Tangled Threads."  New York Times, Feb. 2, 2007

By Cynthia Van Ness, MLS

I created this page because I noticed, just as night follows day, that any identification of a pre-Civil War building is inevitably accompanied by an Underground Railroad claim, which in turn is unsupported by any evidence.  

Unfortunately, we suffer from a supply and demand problem.  Demand for authentic Underground Railroad sites exceeds the supply, which inevitably results in spurious attributions.  Everyone longs  to claim the moral high ground for a favorite old building.   Unfortunately, my research into period and  primary sources has not yet turned up any concealment narratives for Buffalo.  It appears that there just weren't many hiding places here.  There are two good reasons for this.

One reason is that many African-Americans who escaped from slavery found enough safety and opportunity in Buffalo to live openly, hold jobs, and own property without having to be concealed or flee to Canada. Examples include:

• William Wells Brown (1816-1884)
• Daniel Davis
• Walter Hawkins (1809-1894)
• Henry Moxley (1808-1878)
• Jack Ray (dates unknown, servant of the Pratt family)
• Henry Thomas (1817-?)
• Humphrey Tolliver (ca. 1810-1881)

Keep in mind that New York State abolished slavery in 1827, which resulted an environment of relative freedom and safety. In 1843, Buffalo hosted the National Negro Convention.  By 1855, five years into the Fugitive Slave Act, there is evidence that Buffalo didn't enforce it.  This is not to argue that Buffalo was a racial paradise, as Daniel Davis found out, but it was still a big improvement over living in bondage. This begs the question of whether every address ever associated with a formerly enslaved person should be considered part of the Underground Railroad.

Historian Frank H. Severance (1856-1931) supplies the other reason.  Severance was the first to write about the Underground Railroad on the Niagara Frontier.  In 1903, he noted the paucity of sites in Buffalo:

"...comparatively little seems to have been gathered up regarding Buffalo's stations and workers.  The Buffalo of ante-bellum days was not a large place, and many personally escorted refugees were taken directly from country stations to the river ferries, without having to be hid in the city."   (Severance, Old Trails on the Niagara Frontier, p. 195, emphasis added)  

Today, my guess is that maybe 1% of Buffalo's urban fabric predates the Civil War, meaning that out of any 100 houses and buildings, only one dates from before 1865.  This is a generous estimate; perhaps only one in 200 or 500 Buffalo buildings is from before the Civil War.  If we have demolished 99% of our pre-Civil War architecture, then we must conclude that we have demolished 99% of our Underground Railroad sites.  My findings bear this out.

Modern claims about UGRR sites must be approached with skepticism.  If those who were present  at the time left no record of a site that has been uncovered after 150 years of research, we must ask: how can the average layperson today "know" that a previously undocumented site was on the Underground Railroad? These claims are never attributed to eyewitnesses, such as "My great-grandma was there and she told my mom who told me."

Certainly, oral legend may be all that survives from people who couldn't read and write.  If so, how come there are no surviving legends that confirm the addresses found (below) in period sources?  At least some of them must have been known to those who were active in the cause but not necessarily literate.

Even when a story's provenance can be established, genealogists and historians know that myths can be handed down through generations just as easily as facts, if not more so.  This is why we look for documentary evidence to substantiate or disprove legends.

It is interesting to note how many tales first appear in print in the 1920s and 1930s, after virtually all eyewitnesses were deceased and UGRR efforts began to be considered romantic and laudable.

We must also note a puzzling absence in the popular folklore.  For anyone trying to evade capture, the knowledge of which houses to avoid was as critical as which houses to approach.  If the level of danger was so high that even in Buffalo, everyone escaping from slavery needed to be concealed at all times, why are there are no legends of unsafe houses?  If the climate was that hostile or dangerous, doesn't that imply that most buildings were owned by people who opposed freedom for African-Americans or were likely to betray fugitives to the authorities?   Meaning that, statistically speaking, most  buildings that survive from this era were owed by enemies, not friends, of escaping slaves?

Also missing from UGRR folklore in Buffalo is the reality that African-Americans, disproportionate to their numbers in the larger community, provided most of the assistance to fugitives:

"Perhaps the most tenacious Underground Railroad myth of all was the monochromatic narrative of high-minded white people condescending to assist confused and terrified blacks. Only recently have African Americans begun to be restored to their rightful place at the center of the story, both as fugitives who liberated themselves by fleeing bondage, and as organizers and leaders of the Underground Railroad itself. During the long night of Jim Crow politics, this truth was actively suppressed, or at least aggressively forgotten."   
--Fergus Bordewich, The Underground Railroad: Myth and Reality.  New York Times, June 27, 2005 [emphasis added].

"The colored people of Buffalo are noted for their promptness in giving aid to the fugitive slave."   
--William Wells Brown.  Narrative of William Wells Brown, an American slave: Written by himself.  London: Charles Gilpin, 1850, p. 112 [emphasis added].

My findings bear this out.  Pine Street, a small African-American neighborhood in the ante-bellum period, is linked to at least two UGRR sites in Buffalo.  

"Giving aid to the fugitive slave" does not automatically mean providing concealment.  It could also have meant providing food, drink, clothing, cash, a warm fireplace, a bath, a bed, a doctor, a lawyer, a horse, a train ticket, a rowboat, advice and directions, or an escort to the Black Rock Ferry.