William M. Mitchell (circa 1826 to circa 1879) was a free-born Black overseer in North Carolina who, after 12 years managing slaves on a plantation, experienced a religious awakening, condemned slavery, left North Carolina for Ohio, and became a station master and sometimes conductor on the Underground Railroad. He is best known for his book, The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom (1860).
Mitchell's book is the only full-length work published on the Underground Railroad by a participant while slavery was still legal in the United States and actions taken by abolitionists to help free the enslaved, like the Underground Railroad, were illegal. The work was written after Mitchell and his family had moved from Ohio to Toronto, Canada, where slavery was illegal, and so he was safe from reprisals by pro-slavery advocates. It was published in England in 1860 and became a bestseller, especially among abolitionist communities.
The Underground Railroad (circa 1780-1865) – a network of abolitionists and others, Black, Mexican, Native American, and White – was organized to help the enslaved to freedom in Northern free states, Canada, Mexico, or Indian Territory, anywhere beyond the reach of slave-catchers. After the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 was passed by the US Congress, enabling slaveowners to retrieve their 'property' in Northern free states, the reach of slave-catchers was expanded, and so the only places where a former slave could live freely, without fear of being captured and returned to enslavement, was beyond the borders of the United States.
Although Mitchell discusses the Underground Railroad in his work, even explaining the origin of its name as he understood it, he never compromises the organization because there was no way he could have. There was no central office or governing body to the Underground Railroad. It was a loose confederation of like-minded individuals or, sometimes, just sympathetic parties who chose to help a slave rather than contact authorities. Members of the "railroad" often did not even know each other's real names, and those involved with one group (or 'cell') did not necessarily know what another group was doing or where they were even located. Each person only knew their own responsibilities in a given position, which included:
- agents – who alerted the enslaved to the railroad and directed them to a conductor
- conductors – who led the slaves to 'stations' along the railroad and, ultimately, to freedom
- station masters – who ran the safe houses known as 'stations'
- stockholders – who provided financial support for the railroad but did not actively participate
These roles were all fluid. An agent could also be a conductor, or station master, or stockholder. W. M. Mitchell, at various times, took on all four parts, as did many others.
Mitchell, therefore, while discussing the injustice and cruelty of slavery in the United States, and his own participation as both an overseer and an abolitionist, maintains the integrity and secrecy of the organization throughout, which was especially important as the railroad was still running in 1860. It only ended in 1865, with the passage of the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery.
Mitchell's Life & Conversion
William M. Mitchell was born around 1826 in Guilford County, North Carolina, to a Native American mother and a Black father, who both died when he was quite young. Nothing is known of his youth, but at some point, he was bound as an indentured servant to a North Carolina planter for 12 years. As his mother had been a free Native American, Mitchell was born free, and the planter provided him with papers confirming this. Possibly in fear of having these papers revoked – which would have left him open to being taken by slave-catchers when he was off the plantation – or maybe just to carry out his responsibilities as he saw White overseers do – Mitchell took his job seriously, and, in the words of the Reverend W. H. Bonner, in the preface to Mitchell's work, "became inured to the inflicting of the cruelties attendant upon Man-stealing and Slave-driving" (iii).
After 12 years, Mitchell was released from indenture and had experienced a religious conversion. Bonner writes:
It has since been a source of grief to him to recollect the part he took in ordering and superintending the harassing and flogging of men, women, and children; and in separating for life those dearest one to the other, whose ties of kinship man has no power to sever.
(iv)
Mitchell moved to Ross County, Ohio, where, in 1843, he joined a crowd that saved a fugitive slave (a "freedom seeker") from three slave-catchers sent to retrieve him. According to Mitchell, this man, who had escaped from slavery in Maryland, had lived in Ohio "for several years" until his minister turned him in to the authorities for the $100 bounty. Mitchell and the others drove the slave-catchers off and saved the former slave; this act signaled the beginning of his involvement with the Underground Railroad.
Mitchell operated a 'station' in Ohio and also acted as a conductor, leading freedom seekers from Ohio further north. He continued until 1855 when he moved his family to Toronto, Canada. At some point, he had become literate, was ordained a minister – becoming the Reverend W. M. Mitchell – and served as a missionary for the American Baptist Free Mission Society. Once in Toronto, he used his position to shelter newly arriving freedom seekers and find them housing.
He traveled to England in 1859, when he was writing his book, and then went on a tour to support it after its publication in 1860. The work is addressed to an English audience, as Mitchell hoped to garner greater support from English abolitionists in pressuring the United States government to end slavery. British authorities were already sympathetic to the abolitionist cause, as evidenced by many different events, notably their support for the slaves who seized the ship transporting them for sale during the Creole Mutiny/Creole Rebellion of 1841. Mitchell's book sold well in Britain and, later, in North America, though not so well in the Southern states.
The Canadian government, which actively opposed slavery and refused repeated requests from the United States for the return of escaped slaves, supported Mitchell's efforts – both his tours of England and his work in Toronto – and he received further support from US abolitionists – including William Still (1819-1902) of Philadelphia, the "Father of the Underground Railroad."
He is thought to have died of unknown causes in 1879. An 1881 Canadian census lists his wife as a widow. His work remains a classic of 19th-century American history, documenting his experiences with the Underground Railroad and how the United States government consistently upheld the institution of slavery, forcing those who opposed the institution to break the law in the interests of morality and justice.
Text
The following is taken from The Underground Railroad: From Slavery to Freedom (1860) by W. M. Mitchell, republished by Legare Street Press, 2023. This excerpt is the opening of the work, pp. 11-19. Mitchell's reference to "this country" refers to England, where the book was published.
The term "Underground Railroad" is perfectly understood throughout the United States and Canada, but not generally understood in this country; therefore, it requires some explanation. The grandeur of some things consists in their simplicity; at least such is the case with this most wonderful of all constructed roads, which is so admirably adapted to our purpose, and does the salve good service. This road has been in operation a quarter of a century or more. Like many other inventions, it has taken considerable time to acquire its present notoriety, and almost universal celebrity. It had its origin from the inventive powers of a slaveholder, as will appear the following very obvious, yet natural, circumstance.
A slave, in the State of Kentucky, came to the conclusion that he was not a mere thing, as the law termed him, but a man with immortal destinies in common with other men; he walked upright as a man, he reasoned as a man, therefore he saw no just cause why his master should claim a divine right to him, his wife and children, and their labour. This claim gave his master another right, that is, to flog him when he felt disposed.
At all events, he would try the strength of his reasoning powers, as to whether they were sufficient to guide him safe to Canada; if not, he could only return to slavery. He, accordingly, eloped, and his master followed in hot pursuit to the Ohio River, which divides the slave from the free states; here he lost track of his escaped chattel, not knowing, or having the least idea as to, the direction the slave had taken; he, therefore, gave up all hope of his recovery.
Being disappointed, and the loser of a thousand dollars, and having no object on which to vent his dirty spleen, he turned upon the poor Abolitionists and said, "The d-d Abolitionists must have a railroad under the ground by which they run off niggers." The significant term "underground" emanated from this circumstance. Of course, up to the present time, the slaveholders have not succeeded in locating this useful road, which is therefore as much concealed from them as though it was literally under the ground; consequently, it is denominated "underground." And the means by which the slaves still disappear, like the one just alluded to, beyond the probability of recovery, so suddenly, and with such rapid progress, we very appropriately call a railroad! This is the derivation of the term "Underground Railroad."
The reader must now understand that the so-called railroad is a mutual agreement between the friends of the slaves, in the Northern States, to aid fugitives on their way to Canada. They are taken from one friend to another, which is done only by night, until they reach Canada; this is the whole secret of this mysterious phrase. In this way, we convey 1200 slaves annually into Canada. The distance which they are led in a night varies. I have taken them twenty miles in a night, but that is not a usual distance; six to twelve miles is more commonly the length of each journey.
It is supposed by some persons who are not sufficiently acquainted with the policy of the American Government, that the fugitive slaves are safe from the death-like grasp of their masters on their arrival in the free States, but to them there are no free States, and for them there is no safety or freedom within the jurisdiction of the United States' Government; no, not an inch of ground in the land of his birth, on which the slave can claim his title to liberty.
Though there are fugitive slaves even now in the so-called free States, their claimants are ignorant as to their whereabouts; besides, they are protected by public sentiment in their several localities, in opposition to the Fugitive Bill, which is unparalleled in the jurisprudence of nations.
Where individual liberty is only secured by public sentiment, though that sentiment may be, and sometimes is, better than the law, yet freedom under such circumstances is never safe and secure. This sentiment must, when occasion requires, yield to the rigorous demands of the law, however unjust they may be. To ensure the permanent security of human freedom, we must have the sanction of law combined with public sentiment, from which law emanates.
The legislatures of some States, though few, have declared the nefarious Fugitive Bill unconstitutional, and have refused the use of their prisons for the security of the slaves when arrested. This renders it more difficult to capture them but, even with these obstructions, many are captured in those States. In confirmation of the assertion relative to the insecurity of escaped slaves in the free States, I adduce the first part of the sixth section of the Fugitive Bill:
"And be it further enacted, that when a person held to service or labour in any State or territory of the United States has heretofore, or shall hereafter, escape into another state or territory of the United States, the person or persons to whom such service or labour may be due, or his, or her, or their agent or attorney, duly authorized by power of attorney in writing, acknowledged and certified under the seal of some legal office or court of the State or territory in which the same may be executed, may pursue and reclaim such fugitive person, either by procuring a warrant from one of the courts, judges, or commissioners aforesaid, or the proper circuit, district, or county, for the apprehension of such fugitive from service or labour; or by seizing and arresting such fugitive, where the same can be done without process, and by taking and causing such person to be taken forthwith before such court, judge, or commissioner, whose duty it shall be to hear and determine the case of such claimant in a summary manner."
Should the fugitive endeavor to find freedom in the free States, he may be pursued. If he should attempt to evade the States, and go into any territory of the United States, he is still liable to be taken; it therefore follows he is nowhere safe in that Republic. Such fugitive, we see, may be arrested without first obtaining a warrant from the court, judge, or commissioner, without at all overstepping the bounds of legal authority. He is to be taken forthwith before such tribunals as are herein mentioned, giving the criminal no chance whatever to extricate himself.
Still adding insult to injury, his case is to be heard and determined in a "summary manner," that is, without indictment, or even the benefit of a jury in open court, the delivery of the verdict by the judge. These are denied him. But, beyond this mean, unjust, and wicked encroachment on human rights, the criminal is not allowed to raise his voice, even in his own defense, on this trial…
Notwithstanding this prohibition and denial of human rights, I have often heard the judge ask the slave if he owned the claimant as his master and was willing to return with him into slavery. The slave, frightened almost out of his wits, for perhaps he had never before appeared in any court, and to make the matter go as easy as possible with him when he reached his former home, answers in the affirmative. The unjust judge, for such he truly is, takes advantage of this answer and delivers up the slave under the pretense that it is consonant with the desire of the fugitive.
It is considered mean and contemptible for an individual to take advantage of his superiors, but it is infinitely more so to take advantage of the weak and helpless, especially when the answer of the poor fugitive, either in the affirmative or negative, would not affect his condition, it being previously determined with the law, as well as public opinion, by which his id doomed to return into hopeless bondage.
The glowing hope which kindled in his bosom while on his journey to a land of freedom, which also inspired him to press on with vigor, a smile occasionally beaming from his manly countenance at the pleasant thought of soon being free in a country in which he would be recognized as a friend and a brother, all these are blasted; hope no longer invigorates his soul and the pleasant thought of claiming his own right to freedom no longer exists in his palpitating heart.
In the Northern States, the slave has many Christian friends who would, in absence of law, run any risk to rescue him. Many do even now so far disregard the law as to rescue the fugitive…[but] should you even attempt to rescue the fugitive, directly or indirectly, for the said offense you are subject to the penalties [mentioned in the Fugitive Bill]. This law is unparalleled in the history of nations, and especially Christian nations. God has commanded us to assist the poor and needy, the helpless, the outcast, and the downtrodden.
