the patriotic union of kurdistan which has its base and was headed by the president of iraq. that balance has shifted over time. but also a new party change. and they fare very well there is political pluralism and iraqi kurdistan there is also still opposition and systems of nepotism. two sets of security forces two groups of this paragraph so kurdistan democratization

is still a work in progress. the the fact that the kgb has essentially consolidated governance under his control has been a positive contributor to stability but there is an ongoing for kurds to articulate there desires for rights power-sharing plan to be reflected in the laws and the quality of the political leadership. more work to be done. >> done. >> i think we have time for one more question. [inaudible question] >> the role they have had. >> if you could please comment and the role that exxon has said?

>> exxon is one of the number of large international oil companies that have signed exploration and e signed exploration and production agreements with the kurdistan regional government. they did that under threat in baghdad. and they have been steadfast in taken a different approach. rather than provide royalties and revenue-sharing agreements they are allowing joint ownership which makes companies like exxon stakeholders peace and prosperity. exxon has played a pivotal role. that phone call was received

from exxon and other major us oil companies. so energy development is pivotal to iraqi kurdistan viability. but it can be the sole source of income as they need to diversify they're economy. any the banking sector be involved in regional trade. >> that seems like a good place to leave us. once again you have given us a comprehensive suite of the kurdish issue as well as the politics of the entire region. the book is the kurdish bring new map of the middle east. join me in thanking him for his insight today. [applause]

>> every weekend book tv offers programming focused on nonfiction authors and books. keep watching for more. >> and now afterwords on book tv. pulitzer prize-winning historian examines the efforts of free blacks and white abolitionists to secure freedom for fugitive slaves during the mid-19th century. he speaks the chair of the history department at howard university.

>> many of them are award winners including the fiery trial, abraham lincoln and american slavery which one of pulitzer prize in 2011. thank you for joining us. >> thank you for having me. >> gay way to freedom, hidden history of the underground railroad. how did you arrive at this subject in title? >> guest: welcome of the title is meant to reflect -- the book centers on new york city, although it deals with a lot of other places. i kind of gave way. they were then very quickly sent to upstate new york eventually to canada and could achieve freedom. new york was kind of a pivotal turning.in their journey from slavery to freedom.

i got interested in the subject completely accidentally. a a few years ago a student of mine who was working on a senior thesis of columbia about sidney howard day for an abolitionist journalist was interested in his journalistic career. @was interested in his journalistic career. said to me, in the papers which we have at our library there is a document that fugitive slaves. you might find it interesting. our file thataway. i asked this box that had that -- i never heard of this document. but basically for two years 1855 from 1856 1855 from 1856 a journalist and also an activist in the underground railroad record of recorded the experiences of over 200 men, women and children for fugitive slaves on their way to freedom. being a journalist to interview benedict other stories, who on the why they escape how they escaped.

and even how much money you spent like on train tickets. this is a remarkable document. i decided to try to track down the leads in the record and see if i could paint a picture of the underground railroad is a came to new york city. the book began with a document. usually you start with a historical question and then try to find the sources that can answer. piece together a narrative history. >> what was the underground railroad? how many people actually take advantage? 's. >> right. right. well, everyone interested in american history is probably heard the term. it's widely known.

it is easy to say what it was not. it was not a highly organized regularize system with set routes and stations and station masters. it was much more loosely organized and that. the underground railroad was a group of local networks abolitionists activists. some in the south mostly north of the mason-dixon line rural areas of cities like philadelphia, new york syracuse, boston. they communicated with each other and were dedicated to helping fugitive slaves. the 1st thing was the slaves running away but then they would make contact with other agents of the

underground railroad people who weren't agents but might know. i know there's a guy of the road may help not. it is a loose network. it rises and falls over time. the philadelphia committee when out of existence. one shouldn't take the railroad metaphor literally. how many escaped? nobody knows. so much of this is in secret maybe a thousand slaves year that i've slavery to the north in canada in the 30 years before the civil war. there were 4 million slaves in 1860. this is not destroying the institution of slavery. it's something i think we can look back on.

>> a close eye public institution. what do you mean by that? >> well, in no way maybe as a reviewer pointed out recently the subtitle by book the hidden history might be slightly misleading i i was trying to say the new york part of this is unknown. but. but yes. the people involved in the underground railroad were abolitionists and involved in the abolitionist movement on the one hand they are engaged in secret and illegal really activities and sheltering and assisting escaped slaves. slaves. on the other hand, there going to public meetings for publishing in his paper competition in the legislatures of the states. in some cases they are actually holding bake sales affairs bazaars to raise money to help fugitive slaves. and when you get up to

upstate new york like syracuse the underground railroad is completely open. the key activists they are advertised in the newspapers on the head of the underground railroad. anyone knows anything about the fugitive slave, send them to me. he had fundraising parties at his house. the authorities were anti- slavery. so so depending on where you were it was more less secret and more or less open. in new york in new york it was pretty secret because new york was a place with close ties to the south a lot of public officials who were happy to help apprehend fugitive slaves. so it wasn't as public as syracuse or albany or places like that. >> let's talk about that for a minute. this process and sentiment in new york. slavery ends in new york in 1827. but there is strong sentiment in favor of the south for a long time after that. why is that? what is it -- what is this

connection new york? >> this is something not emphasized. i'm a new yorker as you well know. we don't emphasize this. we pride ourselves being a bastion of liberalism, tolerance, multicultural city. it wasn't it wasn't like that in the 1st part of the 19th century. first of all slavery was a vigorous presence in new york in the colonial era and lasted as you said down to 1827. even after that they were slaves on the streets of new york. southerners were allowed to bring slaves along with them for up to nine months until 1841. this 20 years before the civil war and there were still slaves visible on the streets of new york. the the key thing is new york was economically tied to the slave south. new york merchants control the cotton trade, new york bankers finance the expansion of slavery in the south.

new york shipbuilders build the ships. insurance companies. the bows review. actually published in new york city said new york city depends on slavery as much a strauss and thus. the economy of the city was very closely tied to that of the south which led to ramifications. business interests wanted to appease the south. politicians were pro- southern in their attitudes on the sectional conflict. the abolitionist movement was quite small and weak compared to other places. on places. on the other hand, new york at a vigorous free black committee. people who are willing to take to the streets to protest the apprehension of fugitive slaves. so in a sense new york is a little epitome of the sectional conflict, a house

divided just like the nation itself. >> your.is well taken that there is a a vibrant free black community in new york. they are very much involved in supporting these fugitives who are arriving. but free black people have a prominent role to play in the underground railroad and what happens to people who are fugitives when they arrive in new york. why have we not like very much about that? >> that is absolutely right and i do try to emphasize that my book. these vigilance committees, philadelphia, new york boston will which were what they called themselves for migrants, groups trying to help fugitive slaves were almost entirely black pics of the one in boston. they were created by free blacks. the one in new york city created by david rivals but there were white

abolitionists involved. these were interracial organizations. much of the money came from whites. most free black people would rather poor. limited economic opportunities. money was raised among them, but in new york when they needed money they went to lewis to pan, a well-to-do merchant who was a dedicated abolitionist and contribute a lot of money jared smith a wealthy upstate abolitionist. so whites were contributing money and taking part in activities, most of the activity is by free blacks. many are totally anonymous or unknown. black dockworkers for example. fugitives who came in hidden on ships. dockworkers ships. dockworkers would notify local abolitionists activists. okay. blacks who work at the railroad depots, blacks who worked in hotels as cooks or

domestic workers. if a southerner came to the hotel, as they frequently did with the slave they would say look, you can become free if you want. so they are activity was very important. why don't we hear more about it? after the civil war the white abolitionists wrote their own histories. they wrote their memoirs wrote about the underground railroad. even though there's a lot of valuable information, they tended to make this a kind of white enterprise in giving assistance to sort of help us by people. the heroes with a white abolitionists. many were heroes. the story was skewed in the reminiscences of the late 19 century. it has taken a a long time for scholars to put the free black communities back at the center of assistance to fugitive slaves. >> indeed. you mentioned a that by 1830 there is the presence of

militant abolitionism and accompanying that is a greater increase in life from slavery. white on both happening at this particular time in american history. >> there have been anti- slavery sentiment in new york, the new york society was created in 1785 or 1786 to push for abolition in new york but those groups were very moderate compared to what came later. they did very important things, set up the african free school to educate black children. but they work but they were uppercrust types committee on slaves even as they were campaigning for the abolition of slavery and certainly did not violate the law. they tried to help fugitive slaves legally.

the new generation of abolitionists that comes about in the late 1820s, 1830s arises partly out of the evangelical movement, the religious revivals which inspire some white and blacks to think they can rid society's of the senate slavery. partly because of the opposition of the colonization movement. 1817. they mobilize against it. so by the 1830s you have these two groups to come together, evangelical whites and militant blacks to form a much more radical movement. it's against the law.

this is the law of god not the wild men. and. and i think more slaves to start escaping because of there analysis there are people like to assist them. there were no organizations to help them. most of them. most of the slaves who tried to escape probably get recaptured. now you have groups be informed who are publicly saying we're going to help fugitive slaves player news of that percolates back into the south and inspires more people to try to escape. >> i think the main.is that running away as broader implications than just what that individual act would seem to suggest. the actions of fugitives and their allies forced on the

center stage explosive questions about the balance between federal and state authority the extent to which the laws of slave states extended into the north and the relationship of the federal government to slavery. can you talk a bit about this? especially the issue of rendition became a source of debate from the very beginning of the nation's founding. >> absolutely. this is debated at the constitutional convention. it does not mention the word slave or slavery. persons held the labor escaping from one state to another must be returned. like many parts of the constitution a little vague they're. what happens? it doesn't say that. a fugitive slave law was passed. but that also was very weak and basically put the onus

on the owner. without wasn't that easy to do often although they're certainly were owners and agencies. there were people who resisted the. in 1850 the federal government passes a new law which makes it a federal responsibility. the federal government will now send marshals in the northern states to grab fugitives. it sets up a whole new position office, the federal commissioner who will hear these cases. even says the army can be used. this this was a very strict law, very draconian strict punishments to people who helped or even to people who refused to help the government and capturing the and it led to a lot of opposition in the north on

the basis for it is ironic a states rights. the south amending federal action to overturn local procedures the local loss in the north. probably the most vigorous expansion of federal power over the states and the whole time before the civil war. as of this is part of the one up to the civil war, the sectional controversy of the.i wanted to make is that without slaves running away none of this would've happened. it is the initiative of slave resistance in the 1st place that triggers the sectional conflict over fugitive slaves. even though people did not run away thinking of going to become an issue in a national political debate their axes did help to force the sectional conflict onto the agenda of national politics.

>> and it is worth noting as well that that fugitive slave act of 1850 was probably the most un-american of laws because it didn't give the person who was being accused of having been a fugitive any right to testify in court and it actually paid the commissioner more money to release the person to the would-be owner or the subjected owner than to actually release the person. it is very un-american in that regard. >> you're absolutely right. the fusion could not testify in his own behalf. basically it basically it was almost -- it was just a property operation. the owner would the owner would turn up with a detailed description and say okay, here is proof that i own. this guy escaped. here is proof found him. i purchased them. here is the deed. and that's it. it was like finding a peace of furniture. it was a property operation. so the property doesn't have the right to testify in that

case. no trial by jury, no local authorities involved. as you say this was many people who were not abolitionists have all found this and outrageous violation of civil liberties in the united states and therefore that is why it heightened sexual tension. far outside of far outside of the abolitionist movement many northerners thought this was an unjust judicial procedure. >> and of course the war comes. pres. lincoln makes president lincoln makes it very clear that the south has nothing to fear in terms of him attacking a domestic the domestic institutions including slavery. in his 1st inaugural address he is very clear that he is going to enforce all the laws. and so he had been very clear before he was sworn in that he would not compromise on the expansion of slavery

into the territory. territory. but in terms of the fugitive slave act he was willing to actually ensure that that act was enforced as long as people who were truly free were not caught up in it. we cannot be certain. >> that's exactly right. as you well know he was not an abolitionist and never claimed to be. before the war he said he was strongly opposed to the western expansion of slavery but never called for a violation of the fugitive slave law. lincoln was a lawyer men who believed in the rule of law. in. the famous letter in 1855 to his friend lincoln said about fugitives i hate to see them hunted down but i bite my lip and keep silent. why did he keep silent? this was in the constitution, it was federal law.

he he did not -- he said i don't believe in a higher law. i don't believe that you can abide by the moral law rather than the actual law on the books. and in the secession crisis he said i don't care what we do about fugitive slaves. i'm willing to give them concessions on that. although he although he said to my would like the fugitive slave law to be amended so that every person could not be caught up. given the way the fugitive slave law operated free people could easily be grabbed and brought before a commission. you know he can't even testify on his own behalf. so they did so they did enforce the fugitive slave law at the beginning of the war. from the very from the very beginning they ran away to the union army in maryland. the army the army says them back to their owners early on. that pretty quickly that pretty quickly that begins to fall apart. by the end of 1861 the army

is no longer in most cases sending fugitives back. lincoln back. lincoln himself is saying if they get to our lives they are free. and not going to turn them back into slavery. this is a sign how the war itself very quickly begins to destabilize the institution of slavery. >> you introduced very courageous and sometimes quite colorful historical figures such as sidney howard again the editor of the national antislavery standard for william still was a freeborn black man people coming in philadelphia and you himself actually kept a record of some of the people were providing interesting details of their lives. lives. then they're were the jays william j and john j the 2nd very much involved in working with the fugitives sometimes actually defending them are representing the legally. i was most intrigued however

by the polling. tell us a little bit about that particular figure and how instrumentally was to the fugitives arriving in new york. >> certainly one of the most important figures. i studied the 19th century. i'd heard of william j, john j i knew about william still. when i started looking through this document napoleon took them to the station voice and napoleon. who is this the bullying. well, eventually it turns out a black man born in new york in 1800 which meant the law had been passed in 1799 for gradual emancipation. he was born, not as they've exactly but had to serve an apprenticeship of like 21 years to his owner until he

became fully free and did that. in the 1820s it finally becomes free. but basically by the 1840s napoleon's working in the office of sidney howard date for what they call the anti- slavery office where this newspapers published. his main job is to go and help fugitive slaves. he slaves. he scours the dark sky out there looking for those hidden on boats. when he when he sends people by train from philadelphia to new york louis napoleon goes and meets the met the train depot and brings them to gaze office. and they are sent to upstate new york and canada. the interesting thing -- and lewis goes to court to get bits of habeas corpus for people who are brought to my slaves are brought to the state trying to get the free what is interesting, he is illiterate. there are papers of his marked with an ax. he signs his name with the the next. yet he is an activist very courageous and he even

takes part in legal cases. cases. so these are remarkable guy. i know nothing about them until i discovered him in the manuscript. you mentioned john j the second. in one case napoleon the women were napoleon had gotten this writ of habeas corpus to jeffrey some slaves brought into the state by virginian, the lawyer for the virginians says in the case, is this louis napoleon the emperor of france? and john j you was representing the slaves says no. he's a much better man. ..

what being countered along the way and what they actually received in terms of assistance once they arrived in new york. i'm thinking of people like laden taxi matthews, william jordan. those folks whose names we have never heard before. but they have really interesting stories. >> guest: these are all names in the record of fugitives slaves who came through new york and wrote down their experiences and of course they have been lost to history up to this point. unlike harriet tubman who is

pretty well-known of course. you know the thing that struck me the most in reading through this document is the incredible variety of ways in which people escaped, reasons for their escape, how they escaped. some escaped on foot which is sort of the traditional idea. they hid during the day and went through the woods at night but actually most didn't escape that way. many escaped on boats. there were ship captains in virginia who were willing to hide fugitives on their boats heading north for a fee. the slaves had to pay the money to do that. some of them escaped on trains. frederick douglass of course did that in 1838. if you could get the free papers in the free black person you could get on a training go to the north and that was a lot easier than doing it through the woods. some of them stole or appropriated the horse-drawn carriages of their owners and fled from maryland to

pennsylvania. many of them escaped in groups. that was another thing that really surprised me. groups of relatives, sometimes women with small children. it's very difficult to do that of course. and they were helped by all sorts of people. below the mason-dixon line they were generally helped

but after 1850 day went to canada because of the fugitive slave law. he would not go anywhere in the united states. as a commentary in our history that these were people, we often think of people immigrating to the united states to seek freedom but here were people who had to flee the united states for another country to enjoy liberty. >> host: indeed. you are right and not just fugitives from slavery either but free black people who were leaving the united states in going to canada because they don't feel safe anymore in the

north and certainly they don't feel safe if they are in the south. they don't even feel safe if they are in places like philadelphia and new york either. >> guest: well you are right. once the fugitive slave laws passed first of all it was retroactive so you could escape 30 years before you raised a family, lived a perfectly law-abiding life in new york and you are now liable to be grabbed and sent back to slavery. moreover because of the way the law operated which we discussed it was hard to prove you weren't the slave of the guy who claimed you were his slave, you know so yes in the 18 50's, the 18 50's is the only decade i believe where the black population of new york city actually declined. several thousand black people free or fugitive left for canada canada. some of them went to england to avoid the danger posed by the fugitive slave law so it

affected the whole black community not just fugitive slaves. >> host: you mentioned the fact that women are sometimes fleeing as well. often with children in tow and it's a story that we don't hear very much about. it is very difficult for women to do that but women in the north are very much involved in helping these fugitives when they arrived in the cities as well. can you tell us about what they are doing? >> guest: black and white women, as i said in southern pennsylvania you have these quaker families including women one of them who i wrote about colorful interesting person grace anna lewis wrote in a memoir how come a part of a quaker rural family. she wrote about how she and other women have a sewing circle where they just made clothing for fugitives because fugitives were wearing rags basically when i escaped or slave clothing and they look like slaves. she'd said we didn't want them

to look like they were slaves as we were sending them off so we made this clothing for them. in new york and other cities women held these anti-slavery bazaars or affairs were they sold things and sometimes the money would go to help fugitive slaves. bake sales to help help fugitives in new york able women of -- holding these piers to raise money to help the fugitives. so it was both inter-racial and male and female working to assist fugitive slaves in the northern states. >> host: i'm always struck by the fact that abolitionists are anti-slavery but many of them are also anti-black. how do you explain this? >> guest: racism as you know of course was deeply embedded in northern as well a southern society in the 19th century and this is something that i

often find difficult to explain or students say difficult to understand. how can you be anti-slavery and racist at the same time? first time? first of all there were plenty of reasons to oppose slavery that had nothing to do with race. you can think it's an economic drag on the country. you can think that you know it gives itself too much political power and they block laws that northerners want. you can think as many people did that you don't want slavery going into the western territories because you don't like black people. people who want to settle in kansas or places like that, they don't want blacks around and they don't want slaves are freed blacks around so they oppose the expansion of slavery on that ground. there's a whole range of reasons why people are critical of slavery and even the same person can be contradictory. lewis cap and who i mentioned definitely in abolitionists, no question about it he would not

hired black people to work in his business. he had a big mercantile firm. he would not have black clerks working there and he said the reason is why people are not going to come into a shop that they see black people working there so i'm not hiring any blacks. on the other hand he said blacks in his home in brooklyn heights and he gave them a lot of money to the antislavery movement. even his almighty can see these contradictions which only proves that people and history are complicated. >> host: absolutely. despite this anti-black sentiment throughout the north, you have some of the states passing personal liberty laws. what was the reaction of southerners to this? >> guest: personal liberty laws which many northern states passed try to set up procedures either to just make it more fair so they'd say okay and accuse

fugitive has to have a trial by jury or they actually try to impede fugitives by saying no public official can help, no sheriff can arrest of fugitive. the public jails cannot be used to house a fugitive. southerners were very put off and alarmed by these laws because they seem to be a direct violation of the constitutional obligation of the north to return fugitive slaves. so they would say if they are going to pass laws taking away that constitutional right that we have how can we trust that they will not violate other constitutional rights that slave owners have? these laws became another part of the conflict and you get this ironic situation where northern states are calling for nullification of the federal fugitive slave law whereas southerners calvin we associate with the doctrine of nullification.

>> host: absolutely. when the war is over and there are no more fugitives to assist these agents of the underground railroad and members of the vigilance committees rechannel their efforts so to speak and they try to ensure equality for the newly emancipated. given the role why especially given the role of african-americans, the role that african-americans have played in the union, why was it so difficult for these people to convince white americans that african-americans were entitled to more than just freedom, that they were entitled to equality as well? >> guest: well you know lydia maria child the great abolitionist in the first woman to enter the political newspaper, she was the editor of the anti-slavery standard before sidney howard k. took over that post, she said right at the end of the civil war something to

the effect that she said the problem is that slavery was abolished because of a miserable military necessity not amoral reawakening. the abolitionist movement had called on people north and south to have this moral transformation to understand and admit that slavery was a sin in the crime and then once they acknowledge that they would abolish slavery but that is not how slavery got abolished. slavery was abolished as a war measure. that is what the emancipation proclamation was. many people came to support the abolition of slavery because they felt it was necessary to defeat the south but that of course doesn't carry with it a commitment to equality. now i should know an immediate aftermath of the civil war as a southern states passed measures trying to almost put blacks back into slavery the so-called black codes and things like that many

northerners were outraged even if they weren't egalitarians. they said these guys are trying to undo the civil war. we abolish slavery folks and these rebels won't accept that. so they are for a time they supported measures to protect the basic rights of the former slaves. the civil rights act of 1866 the 14th amendment eventually giving blacks the right to vote in the south which launches radical reconstruction. does a pretty widespread support in the north for complicated reasons but then that wanes. by 1870 racism is reasserting itself and the commitment to black equality not just in the south of course but in the north is weathering and that is the story eventually abandoning of reconstruction. >> host: and why does that happen by 1876 or 1877? certainly racism was always there but why by this time does the north just throw up its

hands and say enough already we are not going to do anything else to help these people. >> guest: as you know i wrote a 600 page book about this and sought to summarize it but you know i think racism as you know has a history. it's not constant over time. think racism did wane a bit at the end of the civil war partly because the service of black soldiers, 200,000 black soldiers fought in some of them died to save the nation i think that convince many northerners that they deserve basic citizenship rights. but by the 1870s you know people want normalcy. they don't want a constant crisis. after a war there's a desire to return back to normal. by the 1870s also the country enters a severe economic depression which ships public sentiment in the north away from southern issues to economic questions of unemployment and that sort of thing. so i think the commitment wanes.

it's a complicated story. racism has a lot to do it but obviously, so does the rise of social darwinism among intellectuals and others. the idea that really you can't do much to change the hierarchy of the world. the people at the top are the fittest, the survival of the fittest set to take those at the bottom, blacks and try to uplift them as sort of begins nature. it's like trying to save a species which is going to be doomed because of the evolutionary conflict or something like that. so all these become grounds for people saying well we tried we did our best. black people now have rights and there's nothing more we can do. it's up to black people themselves to forge their way into society. so you know the desired to intervene, to help them is pretty much gone by the end of the 1870s. >> host: you are very familiar

with the post-emancipation era and reconstruction so i feel comfortable asking you this question even though this is not really a focus of your book. given all that could have been done in the post-emancipation era and was not done or ended up failing even though there were efforts, what do you see as the greatest failure of the post-emancipation era? and i know as historians we are not supposed to be involved in what is but it's always fun to do that anyway, so let's do that. what is the greatest failure? >> guest: you know to me the greatest failure is a simple thing, which is the commitment to enforcing the law. the south and african-americans are going to have plenty of problems after the war.

there's no way you're going to have utopia right away. the south was devastated. the cotton economy, the price of cotton was falling throughout this. period. african-americans came out of slavery with nothing in terms of money, physical possessions. there were those who think well if they had distributed land 40 acres and a mule that would have given them an economic -- economic foundation. obviously it's better to have bland and not to have landed you are an agricultural society but that would have been a panacea either. white farmers were in dire straits due on their own land. it to me the failure which could've been avoided, think it's possible to imagine the scenarios where this didn't happen is simply the enforcement of the law. the federal government saying look we have passed these laws and change the constitution to create equality before the law for all people regardless of race and now we are going to enforce this.

they enforced it for a wild but then the commitment wanes and it took almost another 100 years as you know and tell what we call the second reconstruction of the 1960s when again the federal government finally stepped in. they had a mass movement forcing them to do it of course but finally the federal government stepped in to enforce the laws the courts, the army, the national guard and once that happens then things changed. then people understand they have to abide by what the law is. the white people in the south didn't understand that by the 1870s. >> host: and so no redistribution of land. it would have made much difference. >> guest: it would have been better -- i don't think it was the full solution, that's all. it's much better to have bland but the plight of the small farmer was very desperate throughout the south and throughout the world in the last

quarter of the 19th century. many whites who owned land lost their land in the next 20 years. that's why you have the populist movement in the 1890s to land in and of itself was not enough. >> host: yeah come in my own research i found in my research is primarily in virginia and that's very different from mississippi or alabama. >> guest: virginia is a very different situation. i'm talking about the cotton south. >> host: in other areas there was a possibility that people would have at least been economically independent. they may have been very poor but they wouldn't have had to rely on. people who had enslaved them. just go right. as you know in virginia a considerable number of african-americans did acquire land but they still lost the right to vote. >> host: and they lost the land too overtime. >> guest: eventually they lost the land. >> host: exactly. in terms of your review of

sidney howard of records of fugitives arriving in new york what's most surprised you about that collection? >> guest: you know what most surprised me was the incredible resourcefulness of these people people who planned for years how they were going to escape or on the other hand people who just sees an opportunity that happened to come upon them. okay there's a boat and i've heard their captains willing to take us and i'm going right now. it's his variety and we are talking mostly about people from the upper south. you couldn't get from alabama up to the north. that was too far so most of these people are from maryland district of columbia or virginia. where slavery is a little different from the deep south although it still slavery obviously and it's just a variety of experiences. no two escapes are the same no two personal experiences are the same.

the one thing that is constant here is the desire for freedom. when he asked people why he escaped some gave specific reasons, my master treated me so brutally, whipped and beaten etc.. often they said my wife was just just sold or i was afraid i was going to be sold. i heard my master was going to lose money and had to sell the slaves. many just that i was tired of being a slave. i want to be free you know so it's this kaleidoscope of experiences and impressions that really struck me. by the way let me say the record of fugitives is now on line. we have digitized at columbia university with a transcript. anyone who wants to portrait and i recommended to anyone interested in our history go to the web site. you can google record of fugitives and you will find a link to it. it's been put up there by the library system and you can read through it. it's fascinating stuff.

>> host: i know you are familiar with the williams still collection. williams still who was in philadelphia and recorded information from fugitives arriving there as well. how did the two records compare or do they at all? >> guest: by the way williams still is on line in the pennsylvania historical society. still cap these records not all of them have survived i think but very similar to sydney howard gay's but was not a journalist and still you don't get their rich stories that sydney howard gay reported because as i say he's a journalist and he's writing as if he is writing newspaper articles here. but what's important is you can use the two together to link up these stories. over half of the people who pass through new york city came from were sent by william still from philadelphia.

so still talks about their experiences, sydney howard gay talks about their experiences, still gives more information about how they got out of the south because he's closer to the south, sydney howard gay gives information about how they got to new york and where he sent them from new york. also you can use them to see if these stories are consistent. where the slaves just making everything up? but they told still in what they told sydney howard gay were quite consistent and you can use that information to track who were their owners. when i first started looking into it i said i these people -- but here's a guy who said i escape from colonel hollingsworth's plantation and beyond 50 slaves. all right let's go to the census and find colonel hollingsworth and there he is in exactly the right county with his 50 slaves so you begin to find the stories are quite reliable when you can check them against other sources from the time.

also you can then with still's information and information of sydney howard gay you can go backback to the "baltimore sun" and find fugitive slave ads were the owner will put an ad in the newspaper, so-and-so has escaped, reward runaway, $100 for the person who will get him. it's a funny phrase. whoever can get him and bring back gets a hundred dollars. that's a good illustration of who owned them and their physical description. so you put the evidence together and you get a conference a picture. >> host: do we have in a sense how successful these people were who did escape to the north? other than someone like frederick douglass of course. >> guest: you know the problem is most of them just disappear from the records. some of them pop up in the canadian census. in 1861 there is a census in canada and the number of these fugitives are living there. they are purported in ontario

near toronto. there were these black settlements are free and slave fugitives. we know for some of them what they were doing, their job and if they were married and had children. most of them disappeared and we cannot track them down. some of the most famous once again, henry box brown who escape byte shipping in a crate. we know his life story. we know frederick douglass. some of them like harry jacobs who pops up in these records tubman but most of them we really know little about what happened after they manage to get to freedom. >> host: it's extraordinary too how willing people were to go to great lengths for freedom. they are walking great distances, men and women. >> guest: some of them did. >> host: if i have to walk more than a few blocks i'm getting into my car to do it

that these folks are walking sometimes 200 miles. so it's just extraordinary. these are extraordinary stories that you have in this body. what would you like the reader to take from this? >> guest: well thank you by the way. this book is a little different. i've written a lot of books but this one is different because i did want to humanize it not that the others were automatons but with these individual stories of unknown people which can be gleaned from the documents that we have put together here and i just wanted people to get a sense of what it was like to escape and some of the dangers they felt being chased by dogs and going through freezing weather and walking hundreds of miles are being betrayed by someone. some of them are actually arrested and escaped from jail and continued on their way. so you know i think it's just

the stories of slaves, ordinary people we know very little about other than how they escape and why they escaped but i also would like people to take away admiration for the people working on the underground railroad. we have gone through a fairly tense period of race relations in this country in the last few months because of something as events that have taken place in ferguson and statin island new york and this is an example of black and white people working together. it's an inter-racial movement of people working together for a just cause and that is i think part of our history. we can look back on it with great pride. >> host: there is a series that is airing this week titled book of and of course it's about those african-americans who is evacuated in new york with the british at the end of the american revolution so they are

talking about an earlier fugitive population. have you had an opportunity to see any of the excerpts? >> guest: i don't watch tv very much. i shouldn't say this because we are on tv. i have heard about it and i hope it will be repeated or maybe i can stream it on line. people have told me about it. of course it is new york city. during the revolution new york was occupied by the british. the british offered freedom to every -- and a slave of a patriot to got to their lines and several thousand slaves got to new york city in order to gain their freedom and when the war was over george washington came up to new york to negotiate the british surrender and evacuation of new york. he said we would like all those slaves back and general clinton and the british commander said unfortunately i can't give you the slaves back because we -- he

would be dishonorable. we promise these people their freedom. it would be dishonorable to them to turn them back into slavery. clinton was not an abolitionist. slavery was thriving in the british empire at that time in the west indies. he wasn't trying to abolish slavery but he said we have promised freedom and the king keeps his promises. somewhere above 3000 slaves left with the british including a couple of george washington's own slaves who said to clinton by the way i would like you to keep an eye out for a couple of my slaves. they scattered all over the place. some of them ended up in canada and some of them ended up in britain and some of them ended up in sierra leone. some of them were sold back into slavery by the british said they had their own very interesting stories. the fact that 3000 or so african-americans gain their liberty through the british not to the americans, is another sign of the contradiction in

american history right from the birth of our public. >> host: absolutely. the book is titled "gateway to freedom" the hidden history of the underground railroad. professor eric foner thank you for joining us today. >> guest: thank you so much for having me. >> that was "after words" booktv's signature program à la toppers of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policymakers and others familiar with their material. "after words" airs every weekend on booktv at 10:00 p.m. on saturday, 12 and 9:00 p.m. on sunday 10:12 a.m. on monday and you can also watch "after words" on line. go to booktv.org and click on "after words" in the booktv series and topics list on the upper right side of the page. >> naaqs booktv present coverage of the national book critics circle awards. the presentation