Eric Foner's Gateway To Freedom: The Hidden History Of The Underground Railroad

Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad by Eric Foner. Eric Foner is the DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University, Along with that he was a Historian and an Author. The main thesis of the book is the Underground Railroad and the complexity of being a fugitive slave and abolitionist movements.According to Foner, “This book is a study of fugitive slaves and the underground railroad in New York City.” (Foner, 7)

New York was always uncertain about how the usage of slavery, “contrast to southern slavery, theirs had been a mild and relatively benevolent institution” (Foner, 29). In New York their institution was kindhearted unlike in the south. They treated the slaves as humans, and not property.

Foner utilizes primary sources from the writings and memoirs of actual fugitive slaves in the 1800’s. Application of the quotes were substantial, when talking about a certain figure he would insert something about them or a quote to support his

Even if you manages to escape you had a high chance of getting caught and brought back. There are certain individual who helped fugitive slaves escape through New York City into Canada, such as Sydney Howard Gay and David Ruggles. “David Ruggles… the only officer of the underground railroad he encountered during his escape” (Foner, 6). He was an editor of the National Anti-slavery Standard He also held great importance in the operation of the underground railroad. There were three to four thousand fugitive slaves, and the numbers may be exaggerated. There is no exact number of how many there were but Sydney Gay kept record of all the ones he guided. It was chaotic before the compromise, because everyone was in on it and New York was doubting. According to Foner, “There followed a series of sadistic public executions, with some conspirators burned to death or broken on the wheel”(Foner,