(pensive music) - [Narrator] While many people learn about the Underground Railroad in school, it's essential to recognize there is a deeper understanding to be gained, particularly when viewed in the context of migration.

Between the late 18th century and the outbreak of the American Civil War in 1861, an estimated 30,000, to potentially as many as 100 thousand individuals and families secured their freedom through the clandestine network that would become known as the Underground Railroad.

The exact number of people who found freedom through the system is challenging to pinpoint, due to its secretive nature.

The Underground Railroad comprised a network of routes, safe houses, and compassionate abolitionist sympathizers dedicated to aiding enslaved individuals in escaping from the oppressive conditions of Southern slavery, with destinations often including free states in the North, or even Canada.

The decade preceding the Civil War marked the height of Underground Railroad activities, symbolizing a period of remarkable activism, and courageous efforts to assist those seeking liberation.

- It becomes very intense, especially after 1850, which was the passage of the Fugitive Slave Law that made assisting people who were escaping a federal crime by which you could be thrown into jail for six months or you could be fined $1,000.

Those days, it was about 25,000.

So those are some of the facts.

The difficulty of people who decided to escape, imagine growing up on a plantation, you're being told that escape is, you know, going to meet punishment in some way, physical punishment, thinking of the ways in which the dogs the slave catches, and how that would loom large, right?

In the mind of a child, for example, right?

Or you're being told by plantation owners, by slave owners, "No, you head north, you're going to be destitute.

They're going to resell you," and there were a lot of, you know, lies that were passed on about what would happen going north, and so there were lots of things to dissuade you.

You're putting yourself in the hands of complete strangers.

You're going to places that you have no idea what the names are.

These are acts of courage.

So that even though we think of the Underground Railroad as resistance, and we think of people running away, the language that we use is one of fugitives, right?

We don't say refugees, right?

We say fugitives, and usually, the term is a fugitive of labor, right?

That's how the South used it, because these people "stole themselves away," right?

- [Narrator] Thousands of men, women, and children took incredible risks by fleeing for freedom through the Underground Railroad.

It also came with the constant threat of capture and severe punishment, however, the allure of finding freedom outweighed the thought of a life lived in bondage.

- For all intents and purposes, freedom seekers escaping to the North were refugees, and so that line would be the Mason-Dixon Line, right?

That would be crossed.

It's not an international border, but it's one once you cross the border and you're in the northern sort of states, the northern states had personal freedom laws, so that for example, it would mean that you would have a right to a jury, which the Fugitive Slave Law did not give you, you could speak in your own defense, which the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 forbade.

So that there were certain rights that you had here, but when the Fugitive Slave Law became instituted and became law, it did away with those rights in the North, so that it was possible to cross the border, that the slave owners, slave catchers could cross the border and reclaim their so-called property.

- [Narrator] Individuals who aided freedom seekers along the Underground Railroad were integral members of a larger movement.

Some were ardent abolitionists or free Blacks who risked punishment to provide shelter, guidance, and support to those seeking liberation.

Their efforts not only defined the oppressive system of the time, but also contributed significantly to the momentum of a broader movement toward equality and justice.

- [Dr. Aching] The most important region of abolitionism is the Boston area, and second to that in the eastern United States is central and western New York.

So the further north you got, to Albany, Syracuse, and toward the Finger Lakes, the safer you would feel, because they were more abolitionists.

And so that puts the Finger Lakes into that area in very special ways as well, because stage coaches, walking trains, ferries, right?

And especially with the Erie Canal as well, you know, all of that became, these are the different methods of escape, you know, that could be used.

- [Narrator] Churches, particularly Black churches, played a significant role in aiding the Underground Railroad.

They acted as crucial hubs within the larger network of abolitionist efforts, offering aid and sanctuary to those seeking liberation from slavery.

- Having the St. James AME Zion Church here as sort of a landmark, and the Underground Railroad station for Ithaca, and this community is very important.

It's a church that belongs to a denomination that was understood as the Freedom Church during the 19th century, and so it's also one of the oldest, still active AME Zion churches in the world.

Knowing that Frederick Douglas had spoken here, knowing that Harriet Tubman was seen here, and to understand that the community around the church was supportive, they were part of the intelligence network, right?

Of who was coming in and so on, but this would be the sort of nucleus of intelligence about the Underground, how to use this Underground Railroad in our region.

We are excavating here, because there's a memory among some of perhaps the older members of the congregation of a hiding place here at the church.

So we listen.

It's very important for us that it's understood that because the congregation said this is where it took place, more or less, that we followed through on that.

What the excavation has done, it's become community archeology in which people are stopping in, people are coming and telling a story.

It's about the neighborhood.

The fact that young people are seeing history and science come together in very interesting ways, you know, that's also important.

Today we can speak of refugees, and that comes with refugees may have certain rights, depending on the country, right?

But in that particular moment, somebody coming to the North, what rights do they have?

It really depended on the community, the acceptance of the community.

So I think we have to think of a sort of a long definition that includes both the freedom from oppression and the freedom to do once you've gained or moved away from that oppression.

(bright music)