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Chapter 5 The Geography of Resistance Harriet Tubman thought of freedom as a distinctive destination with dimension , boundaries, and above all safety. When she crossed that “magic line” dividing“the land of bondage from the land of freedom,”she lamented that no one was there to welcome her.1 At the moment of liberation, Tubman expressed her desolation compounded only by her isolation. On the other hand, Josiah Henson, after escaping slavery in Kentucky with his wife and children, had quite a jubilant reaction.“When I got on to the Canada side, on the morning of the 28th of October, 1830, my first impulse was to throw myself on the ground, and giving way to the riotous exhaultation of my feelings, to execute sundry antics which excited the astonishment of those who were looking on . . . It is not much to be wondered at, that my certainty of being free was not quite a sober one at the first moment.”2 Second only to judicial and constitutional mandates, the landscape was a formidable weapon of oppression against Blacks as well as a site of liberation . This chapter lays out the geography of resistance and the concept of freedom as a place, exploring the connections between freedom and the landscape, and between Black communities and the Underground Railroad. The landscape is an intimate yet underexplored component of the Black experience, where danger lurked and freedom beaconed.Although the land was a site of disorientation, hardship, frostbite, and starvation, it also held crucial pathways out of slavery. Generations of escapees on the Underground Railroad turned to the sheltering anonymity of the land to conceal their journey. Rapport with the land lent Harriet Tubman’s Underground Railroad efforts legendary effectiveness. “Traveling by night, hiding by day, scaling the mountains, fording the rivers, treading the forests, lying concealed as pursuers passed,” turning south though journeying north, Tubman mined 88 part ii. geographies of resistance the landscape, extracting freedom from it as had so many escapees before and after her.3 Those who managed successful escapes and those who aided them needed to overcome physical and psychological boundaries. Broadly defined in cultural landscape terms, the Underground Railroad encompassed not only houses but each route forged by the enslaved, each track to freedom enmeshed in what the National Park Service identifies as a “vast network of paths and roads, through swamps and over mountains, along and across rivers and even by sea.”4 Tree hollows, caves, precipices, and sinkholes, high ground and lookout points, forests, thickets, and southern swamps formed natural barriers that protected freedom seekers from their wouldbe captors. The use of inaccessible land, such as the Great Dismal Swamp, was a hallmark of escape, ensuring success and making the creation of new communities possible. Not only were river crossings, land routes, iron forges and foundries, waterways, and natural and man-made hiding places crucial to success of the movement, knowledge of the heavens also spelled the difference between success and failure. Geese flying north, moss growing thicker on the north side of trees, and the rising and setting sun brought the heavens into the realm of the geography of resistance; a cloudy night could spell as much disaster as a coursing river. The egalitarian heavens shared the North Star—“the bright cynosure”— with all who knew its secrets. Blacksmith J. W. C. Pennington reveals the dilemma of using such a nebulous navigator: “my only guide was the north star, by this I knew my general course northward, but at what point I should strike Pennsylvania, or when and where I should find a friend I knew not.”5 The enduring symbol of the North Star signifies the dual role of the heavens within the Underground Railroad, one earthly, the other spiritual. A star had guided the wise men to the newborn Christ; heaven held inspiration, the prospect of hope and relief from suffering the horrors of slavery. Language associated with the Underground Railroad reflected the religious and spiritual character of the movement. Harriet Tubman triumphed as“the Moses of her people”; the flight out of bondage and Black migration mirrored the exodus from the land of Egypt; the Ohio River transformed into the River Jordan; Canada represented both heaven and the Promised Land; escapees were bound for glory.6 Josiah Henson declared Canada“that haven of promise.” He also recognized salvation in the celestial sphere, declaring, “I knew the North Star—blessed be God for setting it in the heavens! Like the Star of Bethlehem...

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