• The Violence of the Underground Railroad
• Kellie Carter Jackson (bio)

For many years, the story of the Underground Railroad has been wrapped in a romantic nostalgia of sorts. School children are told about the efforts of Harriet Tubman or other popular narratives of narrow escape such as those included in Frederick Douglass's Narrative (1845) or Harriet Jacobs's Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861). These stories are recounted with moments of heroism and risk, but they never hinge on the absolute violence employed to retrieve fugitives. Robert Churchill's The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America is a welcome addition to abolitionist historiography. His thesis is simple, but potent: The Underground Railroad is a story of violence. Slave catchers trekked into northern and free Black communities to retrieve "stolen property." Their violent confrontations with Black and white residents enraged all those around them. In abolitionist history, violence could serve as the protagonist or, as Churchill argues, "violence is a current that runs through every fugitive account and every Underground activist reminiscence" (p. 3).

Churchill contends that slave catchers who pursued fugitives into the North brought with them "a Southern culture of violence that sanctioned white brutality as a means of enforcing racial hierarchy and Black subordination and upholding masculine honor," but their presence compelled an array of responses in the four distinct regions he examines (p. 5). Divided into three parts, The Underground Railroad and the Geography of Violence in Antebellum America begins with the origins of the Underground Railroad and ends with the start of the Civil War, examining cultures of violence in the slave-holding South, the Borderland, the Contested Region, and the Free Soil Region. In six chapters, Churchill traces the attempts to aid fugitive slaves beginning just before the Underground Railroad was established. He next examines fugitive rescues and responses in Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Kentucky, New Jersey, New York, and New England. He explores Northerners open defiance and resistance to slave catchers and determination to defend Black enclaves [End Page 246] and communities. Churchill's concluding chapters address the evolution of the Underground Railroad as a result of the revamped Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. He offers examples of how resistance to slave catchers became so persistent that returning Black people to the plantation South became nearly impossible in certain regions that included abolitionist strongholds. I was impressed by Churchill's lengthy appendix, which covers nearly seventy years of fugitive slave rescues from 1794–1861, where the majority of the outcomes resulted in freedom. I have no doubt certain scholars and students will find both the book and its appendix useful and instructive.

However, overall, I found Churchill's work fell short of his promising and sophisticated goals. He wants readers to understand the Underground Railroad in the context of "a geography of violence, a shifting landscape in which clashing norms of violence shaped the activities of slave catchers and the fugitives and abolitionists who defied them" (p. 3). I needed the author to flesh out his interesting and provocative ideas more. At times, his connections felt fragmented and unclear. For example, Churchill mentions notable fugitive cases such as Margaret Garner, The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue, the Jerry Rescue or the taking of Anthony Burns in Boston. These are well known and consequential fugitive slave cases, but they are not granted sufficient context for the gravity or impact they have in the movement. He moves from incident to incident and altercations to confrontations, but he does not dwell long enough on any episode to give readers the depth of what resistance, violence, and rescue truly meant and what they accomplished for the movement and the eventual demise of slavery. In his text, Black people are acting and moving, but seldom given voice or the volume their contributions deserve.

I anticipated his work would expand upon the brilliance of the late historian Stephanie Camp. Her work on a "geography of containment" in Closer to Freedom: Enslaved Women and...

• 地下铁路的暴力
• 凯莉·卡特·杰克逊（生物）

多年来，地下铁路的故事一直被各种浪漫的怀旧情绪所包裹。学校的孩子们被告知 Harriet Tubman 的努力或其他流行的侥幸逃脱叙事，例如包括在 Frederick Douglass 的叙事（1845）或 Harriet Jacobs 的奴隶女孩生活中的事件（1861）中的那些。这些故事讲述了英雄主义和冒险的时刻，但它们从不依赖于用于追回逃犯的绝对暴力。罗伯特丘吉尔的地下铁路和美国内战前的暴力地理是废奴史学的一个受欢迎的补充。他的论点很简单，但很有说服力：地下铁路是一个暴力故事。奴隶捕手跋涉到北部和自由黑人社区，以取回“被盗财产”。他们与黑人和白人居民的暴力对抗激怒了周围的所有人。在废奴主义的历史中，暴力可以作为主角，或者，正如丘吉尔所说，“暴力是一种流淌在每一个逃亡者的叙述和每一个地下活动家的回忆中的潮流”（第 3 页）。

丘吉尔争辩说，追捕逃犯到北方的奴隶捕手带来了“南方的暴力文化，这种文化认可白人的暴行，以此作为加强种族等级制度和黑人从属地位并维护男性荣誉的手段”，但他们的存在迫使美国政府做出一系列回应。他检查了四个不同的区域（第 5 页）。分为三个部分，地下铁路和美国内战前的暴力地理从地下铁路的起源开始，以内战的开始结束，考察了奴隶制南部、边疆、争夺地区和自由土壤地区的暴力文化。在六章中，丘吉尔追溯了在地下铁路建立之前开始的帮助逃亡奴隶的尝试。接下来，他研究了伊利诺伊州、印第安纳州、俄亥俄州、宾夕法尼亚州、肯塔基州、新泽西州、纽约州和新英格兰的逃犯救援和应对措施。他探索了北方人对奴隶捕手的公开蔑视和抵抗以及保卫黑人飞地的决心[End Page 246]和社区。丘吉尔的最后几章讲述了由于 1850 年修订的逃亡奴隶法而导致地下铁路的演变。他举例说明了对奴隶捕手的抵抗如何变得如此顽固，以至于在某些地区几乎不可能将黑人送回南部种植园，其中包括废奴主义者的据点。丘吉尔冗长的附录给我留下了深刻的印象，其中涵盖了从 1794 年到 1861 年间近 70 年的逃亡奴隶营救，其中大部分结果都带来了自由。毫无疑问，某些学者和学生会发现这本书及其附录都很有用和有启发性。

然而，总的来说，我发现丘吉尔的工作没有达到他充满希望和复杂的目标。他希望读者在“暴力的地理环境，不断变化的景观中理解地下铁路，其中冲突的暴力规范塑造了奴隶捕手以及反抗他们的逃犯和废奴主义者的活动”（第 3 页）。我需要作者更多地充实他的有趣和挑衅性的想法。有时，他的联系感觉支离破碎和不清楚。例如，丘吉尔提到了著名的逃犯案件，例如玛格丽特·加纳 (Margaret Garner)、奥伯林-惠灵顿营救 (The Oberlin-Wellington Rescue)、杰瑞营救 (Jerry Rescue) 或波士顿逮捕安东尼·伯恩斯 (Anthony Burns)。这些都是众所周知的、后果严重的逃亡奴隶案件，但没有足够的背景说明它们在运动中的严重性或影响。他从一个事件到另一个事件，从争吵到对抗，但他没有在任何情节上停留足够长的时间来让读者深入了解抵抗、暴力和救援的真正含义以及他们为运动和奴隶制的最终灭亡所取得的成就。在他的文字中，黑人正在表演和感动，但很少给出他们的贡献应有的声音或音量。

我预计他的工作会扩展已故历史学家斯蒂芬妮·坎普的才华。她在《接近自由：被奴役的妇女和...