Grapevine Dispatch [pb]
The Voice of Antislavery Messages
By Caroline R. Miller [Kentucky]
Safe houses, trustworthy individuals, pathways, abandoned shelters, and unattended skiffs- these were crucial pieces of information that were spread, through word or song, from plantation to plantation, by way of the "grapevine." Throughout the Borderlands, this communication would help those who were enslaved to find freedom, by way of the Underground Railroad. The conductors and abolitionists on both sides of the Ohio River- consisting of enslaved individuals, free men of color, white and black residents, religious men, and other sympathetic citizens- were likely to suffer bodily infliction, imprisonment, and monetary loss for aiding these fugitives in their flight from slavery and quest for freedom. Caroline Miller skillfully relates their stories through interviews, newspaper accounts, court cases, government records, and other published and unpublished accounts, so that these times, and these people are not forgotten. 353 pages
2011
