Freedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman
54 pages • 1-hour read
Dorothy SterlingFreedom Train: The Story of Harriet Tubman
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Index of Terms
Abolitionist
Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of racism.
“Abolition” means ending something, usually by making a rule or law. An “abolitionist” is someone who wants to make this happen. This term is often used to refer to people who were against slavery and wanted to bring an end to it. In the United States, slavery was legal from before the nation’s founding until the passage of the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution in 1865. Even in colonial days, abolitionists argued against slavery, believing it to be cruel and inhumane. Some early abolitionists were enslaved Black people who led revolts or who otherwise self-emancipated. Other early abolitionists were white evangelical Christians and Quakers who had religious beliefs against slavery. Abolitionists spoke out in public and worked to get laws passed to limit slavery. They succeeded in making it illegal to import more enslaved people to the United States in 1808 and worked to gradually make slavery illegal in the Northern states. Partially because they felt threatened by the work of abolitionists, 11 Southern states tried to leave the United States and form their own country in 1861. This was the cause of the US Civil War and eventually brought about the end of slavery in the United States. In Freedom Train, many prominent abolitionists are mentioned: Sterling mentions Thomas Garrett, William Still, Frederick Douglass, John Brown, and others.
Grapevine Telegraph
“Grapevine telegraph” is a term that arose in the 19th century to describe informal networks of Black and Indigenous people who passed information and messages over great distances by word of mouth. Historically, this means of communication was necessary for people whose freedom of movement was curtailed and who had limited opportunities to learn to read and write. Through the grapevine telegraph, enslaved Black people could hear about other Black people who were fighting for freedom and learn more about how to do it themselves. The term “grapevine” is now in common use for any word-of-mouth network for passing information, and the expression “heard it through the grapevine” is often used to describe information learned through gossiping. This particular phrase was made famous by the popular song “Heard It Through the Grapevine,” recorded by Gladys Knight in 1967 and by Marvin Gaye in 1968. In Freedom Train, Cudjoe is the person who gathers and disseminates information as a part of this network on the farm where Harriet is enslaved.
Moses
Moses is a Biblical figure who, according to the beliefs of Abrahamic faiths, led the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. There is no historical or archeological evidence that Moses was a real person or that anyone led a mass exodus of enslaved Hebrew people out of Egypt, but this story is foundational to many Abrahamic beliefs and is treated as a historical event by many people within these faiths. Moses is a figure who appears, both symbolically and literally, throughout Western art: Moses and Moses figures are found in music, visual art, and literature. A “Moses figure” is someone being metaphorically compared to Moses—a leader whose determination results in the liberation of their people from some form of oppression. In Freedom Train, Harriet first compares herself to Moses in Chapter 8, when she is speaking to William Still about her dream of liberating Southern Black people from enslavement. Most biographers believe that the nickname “Moses” was actually given to Harriet by abolitionist William Lloyd Garrison. Certainly, it is a nickname that stuck—today, Harriet is frequently referred to as “the Moses of her people.”
North Star
The “north star” is a colloquial name for Polaris, a particularly bright star that, because of its location just a degree off of the North Pole, is often used for navigation. For much of human history, the north star has been used to guide travelers—for this reason, “north star” has become an idiom used to refer to an object, idea, or person that stays steadily in place and serves as a reference point or guide. During the era in which slavery was legal in the United States, enslaved people did not have access to maps, compasses, or other means of navigating, so the north star became an important guide for those escaping to freedom. For this reason, the north star became a symbol of education and the hope for liberation within Black culture. Famously, Frederick Douglass’s mid-19th-century abolitionist newspaper was called The North Star. In Freedom Train, the north star is used as a symbol of this kind; for instance, in Chapter 2, Harriet lies in the pigsty, gazing at this star and dreaming of freedom in the North.
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