The Underground Railroad in Toni Morrison's Novel Beloved
Courtesy of New York Public Library
Toni Morrison’s novel Beloved provides a piece of the puzzle that is the history of the Underground Railroad. Stamps is the character in the novel who secretly worked as an agent on the Underground Railroad transporting runaways like Sethe on his boat across the Ohio River between the slave state of Kentucky to the free state of Ohio hidden underneath a cargo of vegetables and pigs. What runaways ate depended on the resources of agents like Stamp. During Sethe’s journey to freedom agents offered her fried eel, water, and baked sweet potatoes. A young female agent on the other side of the river in Ohio named Ella saw a secret signal indicating someone had recently arrived; it was Sethe. Ella knelt and emptied a sack before Sethe, which contained a wool blanket, cotton cloth, two baked sweet potatoes and a pair of men’s shoes. Most runaways would not have made it to freedom without the support of courageous agents like Stamps and Ella. Access to transportation, lodging, and food proved critical to one’s safe passage to freedom.
