History Alive! The Underground Railroad in Winsconsin. Teachers section

"Quotation marks" show words actually spoken by someone. The quotes on these pages were said or written by people who lived during the time of slavery. Are you interested in Harriet Tubman's words? In the thoughts of a former slave who reached freedom in Canada? In the memories of a kidnapped African boy? Read on!

Harriet Tubman couldn’t read or write, yet two books were written about her during her lifetime and hundreds since then!

Two of her most famous sayings were: "Lord, you have been with me through six troubles. Be with me in the seventh." And "I never run my train off the track and I never lost a passenger."

In one of the books written during her lifetime, Harriet told about her feelings as she crossed the border between Maryland (where she was a slave) and free Pennsylvania.
Harriet Tubman said, "I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person now I was free. There was such a glory through the trees and over the fields, and I felt like I was in heaven."

Anonymous Quote – some historians think perhaps Harriet Tubman said this.

"Home. Home is where freedom is. The house can be ever so nice, with a soft bed, fine food, and fire in the fireplace, but is ain’t home if it ain’t where freedom is. I live where the fire is out, where the bed is hard and the bread is scarce, and maybe you work and maybe you eat and maybe you don’t….but freedom is there. Do you want to go? I know you do. Freedom is where I’m going. Come with me! Through swamps, through mire, past paddy roses (patrollers, slave catchers) with blood hounds and dogs. Past danger, past even death. Freedom is there. Come with me!"

Dr. Edward Galusha Dyer, Burlington, Wisconsin: an abolitionist

" Can liberty and slavery long dwell together? Which side shall we be on? Surely we shall be for liberty."

Mr. Lyman Goodnow, Waukesha, Wisconsin. An abolitionist

"In those days…we were all friends – all willing to help one another…We were very radical, however, in our views of right and wrong…. We opposed bad men everywhere, supported all fugitive slaves who came to us, and worked like beavers for the right."

Olaudah Equiano, an Ibo from Nigeria, was just 11 years old when he was kidnapped into slavery. He was taken to America and sold. His master, a Quaker, allowed him to buy his freedom in 1766. Olaudah spent his life working against slavery, but he never saw his family again.

" One day, when all our people were gone out to their works as usual, and only I and my dear sister were left to mind the house, two men and a woman got over our walls, and in a moment seized us both; and, without giving us time to cry out, or make resistance, they stopped our mouths, and ran off with us into the nearest wood. Here they tied our hands, and continued to carry us as far as they could, till night came on…"

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass escaped from slavery by dressing as a sailor. Using the "free papers" borrowed from a sailor friend, Frederick boarded a train for New York. On the train, he saw people who knew him – but, because of the sailor outfit, they didn’t recognize him. In one terrible moment, he saw a German blacksmith staring at him….the man’s eyes met his. He was recognized! But the blacksmith didn’t say a word!

When he got to New York, Frederick Douglass wrote:
{H}ere I am, in the great city of New York, safe and sound, without loss of blood or bone…A free state around me, and a free earth under my feet! What a moment was this to me! A whole year was pressed into a single day. A new World burst upon my agitated vision.

Source: Frederick Douglass, My Bondage and My Freedom (New York, 1855); Frederick Holland, Frederick Douglass (New York, 1895).

William Henry Bradley: who reached freedom in Canada

"Steam engines don’t work harder than a man’s heart and veins when he starts from his master and fears being overtaken…
If a man could make slaves of mud or block and have them work for him, it would still be wrong. All men came of the hand of the almighty; every man ought to have life and his own method of pursuing happiness."

Thomas Garrett: abolitionist

Thomas Garrett was caught helping runaway slaves. He was fined so much money that he had to sell his land, farm, and, finally, even his house.

He said to the judge who fined him:
"I used to worry about how I would care for my wife and children. You have relieved me of that worry. I tell you, any of you, if you know any man in need of help, send him to Thomas Garrett!"

George Sublett: Racine Wisconsin

" I was born a slave. But…I could not resign my right to life… I could not silence the whisperings of self-respect or the enchanting voice which was ever telling me of Freedom…I saw free-swimming fish and the singing bird freely moving; and the smallest insects possessing a power of freedom denied to me….In growing manhood I felt my strength….and my longings for a better life."

Caroline Quarles: written in Canada in 1880, 38 years after she took her own freedom by running away.

" I have a good living…but by working very hard. I am not very happy… Perhaps if I had stayed [in slavery] until I came of age…I have heard from St. Louis several times since I came away ….from my cousin.” Caroline wrote that her sister, mother, and old Mistress were all dead. She never saw her family again. Perhaps that is why she wrote, "I am not very happy."

Anna Harris: interviewed in Virginia in 1937. She was 91 years old

"No white man ever been in my house. Don’t allow it. They sold my sister Kate. I saw it with these here eyes. Sold here in 1860 and I aint seen nor heard of her since. Folks say white folks is all right these days. Maybe they is, maybe they isn’t. But I can’t stand to see ‘em. Not on my place."

Quotes