- As a technological marvel, the Erie Canal is revolutionary.

It's also incredibly integral to Black life.

(gentle music) Slavery in New York State really begins in the 1700s, and a little bit earlier than that.

It is a institution that links New York before it's a state when it's a colony into what becomes the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

(gentle music) - The Abolitionist movement itself begins in the hearts of people who are enslaved.

It didn't start in the 1800s or the 1700s.

This started in 1619 when the first enslaved people were brought to the shores of Jamestown, Virginia, because resistance is a form of abolition and people of African descent resisted slavery in many different forms since it actually occurred on this land prior to the establishment of this country in 1776.

(gentle music) - After the American Revolution, there is this debate over how you will meet the cornerstone ideal of what the revolution argued, which was about freedom.

And so, what begins to happen really in the 1780s is discussions in the State Legislature about how to abolish slavery and what that would look like.

And it starts really slowly.

It takes about four decades to actually get to the point where, within New York State, slavery is abolished entirely.

(gentle music) The Erie Canal is being constructed.

It will be complete two years before the immediate emancipation in New York State goes into place, which is in 1827.

And so, you have two things colliding.

You have immediate emancipation coming while the Erie Canal's being built, but you also then have this transportation system that is offering a new way to be able to construct an Underground Railroad.

(gentle music) - When we talk about the Underground Railroad, we're talking about a network of freedom, and people literally sacrificing their lives to build relationships and establish trust with people in order to create that network of freedom.

(gentle music) Even though it's called a railroad, it wasn't underground, but it was also intermodal.

So it wasn't just a railroad.

A railroad is just symbolic to a means of transportation.

But people were utilizing railroads, but they were also utilizing canals.

They were also walking along routes to seek freedom.

And then you think about towpaths that are on the sides of the Erie Canal, people were utilizing those as well.

- The completion of the Erie Canal really changes the economic layout of the United States.

You see African Americans who are free, who move into those areas to work on the locks.

And so that's where you start to see some of them becoming proprietors or coachmen and barbers.

(gentle music) - As these new communities form on the banks of the Canal, you've got thousands of people traveling along its banks, communicating with one another, learning from one another, and it starts out, you have what's called the Second Great Awakening really takes hold here along the Canal.

This is a Religious Revival movement rejecting in a lot of ways traditional Calvinist notions of predestination and embracing a more perfectionist doctrine, one that says, "You yourself have a moral responsibility to improve yourself in society."

So a lot of reform movements will also spring out from Canal communities and this new religious awakening.

Notably, the Abolition Movement, the Temperance Movement, and the Women's Rights Movement.

Here in Syracuse, there are a number of Abolitionist demonstrations.

You have people like Jermain Wesley Loguen live here in Syracuse, who helps thousands of freedom seekers reach Canada.

And also out in Rochester, you have famously Frederick Douglass and Susan B Anthony living out there.

So these two bastions of kind of these reform movements as well.

- In 1834, slavery is abolished throughout the British Empire, which means Canada being a part of that abolishes slavery.

Many people begin to make it across the Canadian side and settle there.

So, Canada became what is known as Canaan Land or the Free Land because once people made it across to the Canadian side, there was a sense of freedom that they were able to experience that they were not fully able to experience even here in New York state.

(gentle music) - There are a lot of Jim Crow laws that are put into place in New York State before the Civil War.

So travelers, even if they're legally free or if they're enslaved, are dealing with transportation segregation in some sense along the Erie Canal.

- You think about the gradual abolition of slavery in 1827, just because that gradually became a policy within the State, it did not mean that everyone that lived in the State agreed with that policy.

And then when you get to 1850, and you have Millard Fillmore passing The Fugitive Slave Act, it put people who were living here free, at risk, not only because of that federal policy, but because it deputized everyday American citizens to participate in the capture of everyday people.

Many people didn't feel safe in America anymore, and it created an exodus of people escaping to get across to the Canadian side.

And in order to do that, you travel along the Canals, right?

And then the Canal, the Erie Canal's connected to Lake Erie.

You have people who are crossing the Niagara River as well as Lake Ontario.

And in order to get to freedom, you have to pass through places that are border towns like Buffalo, New York, like Niagara Falls, Youngstown, Lewiston.

All of these areas have rich history, not only in the form of abolition, but also in helping freedom seekers get across to the Canadian side.

(water whooshing) Niagara Falls, there weren't a bunch of safe houses or people hiding out.

You're literally standing at the border of freedom where you can see Canada for the first time often in your life.

Thankfully, there were people who were here that helped facilitate that freedom.

And in many cases, you had people of African descent who are not only living here free, but maybe Canadian citizens who are working on the American side in the hospitality industry that are instrumental in helping people get across to Canada.

Harriet Tubman, she actually took people from one place to the next, and made many journeys back and forth from the Canadian side, back across to America in order to facilitate freedom.

Reverend Thomas James, he was born in Canajoharie, and he lived his life as a young man that was enslaved when the Canal was first being constructed.

He actually followed the path of the Canal all the way to Lockport, New York.

The Canal eventually connects to Lake Erie, so he departed from that particular path, made it to the Niagara River, and crossed over on the Canadian side, and then he made it back over to the American side eventually and settled in Lockport, New York.

- The Canal in reality was a much more diverse space than it is often portrayed as.

However, that history is largely unacknowledged in a lot of cases, so we are trying to incorporate that into a lot of different programming here at the museum, for instance, we have several different walking tours that we have introduced, notably our Pathways of Resistance Tour, which focuses on Black history along the Canal with a special focus on the Abolition Movement and the Underground Railroad.

But it actually takes the story all the way up to today and our future infrastructure.

(gentle music) - I think we're in a time period right now where the contributions of all of us are not equally considered, and that's what makes this country rich and what it ultimately is.

And I think that when we're able to look into our past and to see the contributions of our ancestors, we can see a similar story that we all have freedom seekers, and that is a universal story, whether we are people of African descent, whether our ancestors came from Ireland or Italy, or whether we are Indigenous to this land, these are common stories that we all share.

And I think that that gives us the ability to see common humanity of all of us.

(gentle music)