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These fictionalized voices–honed after careful study of the classic slave narratives and the history of the underground railroad–permit us to imagine the thoughts and experiences of freedom seekers on their paths to liberation.

As a prerequisite for writing these fictional narratives, the students read, studied, discussed, and wrote about works such as, Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave (1845); The History of Mary Prince, a West Indian Slave (1831), related by herself; Solomon Northup, Twelve Years a Slave (1853); Harriet Jacobs, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861); Kate Clifford Larson, Bound for the Promised Land (2003); and Eric Foner, Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad (2015).

Actual testimonies of freedom seekers are exceptionally rare. The activities of the Underground Railroad constituted civil disobedience that was undertaken in the most clandestine ways possible, and especially after the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which made helping freedom seekers to avoid recapture a punishable federal crime. Given the need to protect the identities of those who passed through or assisted others on the underground railroad, it is no surprise that narratives that attempt to describe the experience of being on the underground railroad are primarily fictional.

In keeping with the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the authors of these brief narratives have employed aliases to protect their identities.

Anonymous Student #2 Response

I have done creative writing in the past, but this was a uniquely challenging assignment in that it required a degree of empathy and reflection that other writing projects have not required of me. Producing a short piece of historical fiction was a new experience for me, and required me to ground stylistic/creative elements in a foundation of historical accuracy.

Anonymous Student #2 Response

The safehouse featured in my story was the object of compelling accounts of the Underground Railroad, and I incorporated this oral tradition into my own story, in part to highlight the enduring influence of these oral histories on our understanding of the Underground Railroad. Gable’s work also describes how the house’s purported hiding space would have offered little insulation or comfort to freedom seekers, and I incorporated this into my story as well.

Anonymous Student #2 Response

I drew on the texts we had read during the seminar to craft a believable situation. We read several slave narratives, including Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, The History of Mary Prince, A West Indian Slave, and Harriet Jacobs’ Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, and these afforded me an invaluable glimpse into the inner life of these individuals, the horrors of slavery and the experience of slave women. They helped me better appreciate the headspace of a young freedom seeker as well as the challenges she might face and the memories she would contend with. Eric Foner’s Gateway to Freedom painted a detailed portrait of the anti-slavery movement and the Underground Railroad in NYS, and was exceedingly helpful for understanding the logistics of the Underground Railroad.

Anonymous Student #2 Response

This assignment was a very effective exercise in “historical empathy,” and tested my assimilation and internalization of the course materials. It was both a challenge and an honor to write a story from the point of view of a young freedom seeker. The physical and emotional toll of being a fugitive was a focus of my story, and it required that I think critically in order to understand her thought processes and sensory experiences.

Anonymous Student #2 Response

Learning in detail about how the Underground Railroad operated was especially illuminating for me. It was a vast network to which a diverse group of people contributed, sometimes spontaneously, and ordinary citizens played as crucial a role (if not more so) in its everyday functioning as figureheads of the antislavery movement such as Lewis Tappan or William Lloyd Garrison. David Ruggles, one of the founders of the New York Vigilance Committee and its leader in the 1830’s, referred to the work of helping fugitives as “practical abolition.” Escaping along the Underground Railroad required enormous courage and I had the opportunity to explore the attendant challenges and sacrifices (leaving family behind) through my story.

Anonymous Student #2 Response

I am honored to go to school in a region with such a rich history of progressive thought. The antislavery movement, Seneca Falls, the Great Awakening, and other reform movements of the nineteenth century were centered here, and Cornell was founded out of that same spirit of progressivism and reform. We tend to think of Ithaca as a sleepy town and Cornell as a rural university, but at its founding it was at the heart of this relevant and dynamic region and exemplified the important conversations taking place there.