2006 Mail

Dear friends -- much publications news. Thank you, Christopher Densmore and Sercesh Al-Heter Boxley, George Nagle, and congratulations, Bill Switala!!!

UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN NEW YORK AND NEW JERSEY (from Densmore's UGRR newsletters)

Stackpole Books has just published William J. Switala, The Underground Railroad in New York and New Jersey. This is the third in the series of books, following Switala's earlier books on the Underground Railroad in Pennsylvania (2001) and the Underground Railroad in Delaware, Maryland, and West Virginia (2004), also published by Stackpole. In addition to New York and New Jersey, the author includes a final chapter on destination points in Canada.

For information, see the Stackpole website:
www.stackpolebooks.com/

The essay collection the Afterlife of John Brown, edited by Andrew Taylor and Eldrid Herrington, is being published as an ebook by Palgrave Macmillan beginning today. List scholars contributing to this book include Louis A. DeCaro, Jr., John Stauffer, and Jean Libby.

Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Inc's
Press Release: July 8, 2006

Historic Natchez Mississippi's Forks of Roads Enslavement Markets Preservation Activist Will Travel in Reverse on the Overground Railroad's Natchez Trace Enslavement Trafficking Route to Kentucky

I, Ser Seshs Ab Heter-CM Boxley, Coordinator of the Natchez Mississippi based Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Inc will trace in reverse one of America's long distance internal enslavement trafficking routes used by enslavement dealers and traffickers leading from the upper old and Midwest south to lower the southwest's Forks of Roads enslavement markets at Natchez.

On July 16th I will depart from the historic site of the 2nd largest enslavement market in the deep southwest at Natchez's Forks of Road located at St. Catherine Street and Liberty Road and travel up the Natchez Trace Parkway to Nashville Tennessee and onward to Lexington Kentucky.

The Natchez Trace Parkway transverses the historic Natchez Trace from Natchez to Nashville crossing much of the original Trace that was once used by America's long distance internal enslavement traffickers to force walk thousands of enslaved persons to the Forks of the Roads and other enslavement selling markets in the Deep Southwest.

From the 1830s until the Civil War enslaved people were force brought overland via the Natchez Trace and other land routes from Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Georgia, Kentucky and Tennessee and sold as human chattel commodities at Natchez's Forks of Roads.

Such overland and waterway enslavement trafficking routes I call the Overground Railroad because enslaved people had to first be brought to the Deep Southwest before they could then turn around and runaway or escape slavery on the Underground Railroad.

Two main feeder routes from the eastern seaboard and upper Midwest south connected the Natchez Trace at Nashville. The eastern seaboard routes came through West Virginia at Wheeling via the Cumberland Gap down to Knoxville and onward to the Trace. The upper Midwest south route ran from Maysville Kentucky through Lexington and on down to Nashville and the Trace.

The main waterway enslavement trafficking routes to the deep southwest as well as the Forks of the Roads were the Atlanta Seaboard route from the Chesapeake and Potomac Bays down the Atlanta with stops at Richmond, Norfolk Virginia, Charleston South Carolina, Savannah Georgia, St. Augustine Florida and onward around the tip of Florida to New Orleans. At New Orleans, enslaved persons destined for the Forks of Roads were transshipped by steamboat up to Natchez Under the Hill.

The upper Midwest south waterway route was the Mississippi River as the main water highway fed by enslavement trafficking on its tributaries of the Ohio and Tennessee Rivers. St. Louis Missouri, Louisville Kentucky and Memphis Tennessee were the major enslavement shipping points down the Mississippi River to the Forks of Roads via Natchez Under the Hill and on to New Orleans.

At the Forks of Roads after making a libation offering to the enslaved Ancestors and Foreparents of deep southwest African decent people of today, I will ascend the Natchez Trace Parkway at Natchez destined for Georgetown College, in Georgetown Kentucky near Lexington. I will stop at places along the Trace Parkway to pay homage to Natives Americans for allowing enslaved people to take refuse among them. I also, will make notes of sites and places mentioned in history books about places where enslaved people were seen traveling in "coffles or gangs."

I will stop over at Nashville's main library and research 19th Century newspapers for advertisements of runaway enslaved persons to add to an initial Friends of the Forks National Park Service research project I have been conducting for the past four years, entitled: Proving the Mississippi River a Major Underground Railroad Uhuru (Freedom) Route From Memphis to the Gulf of Mexico.

Just outside of Nashville I will visit the historic home of one of America's biggest enslavement dealers, Isaac Franklin of the enslavement trafficking firm Franklin and Armfield. Franklin and Armfield's upper south original buying market building exists today at 1315 Duke Street in Alexandria, Virginia and is owned by the Urban League of Northern Virginia. Franklin and Armfield's lower south selling market head quarters was at Natchez's Forks of Roads.

From Nashville I will travel northward to Georgetown College Kentucky to take part in a four day planning session designed to create and national "friends" group to support the National Park Service National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Program.

After Georgetown College Kentucky I will travel westward to Louisville Kentucky and visit the main library to research 19th Century newspapers for advertisements of runaway enslaved persons.

Released by: Ser Seshs Ab Heter-CM Boxley, Coordinator, Friends of the Forks of the Roads Society Incorporated

C/O P. O. Box 2188 Natchez Mississippi 39121. [email protected]  |  https://forksyaroads.com/

from George Nagle, editor of Afrolumens:

Dear Ms. Libby,

I'm finally catching up to email after the end of the school year. The recent (May) flurry of email on John Brown, on the anniversary of his birth, fascinated me. I believe it will be of great interest to other scholars in central PA, so I have taken the liberty of reprinting the chain of correspondence on the Afrolumens website. This archiving of letters and opinions always initiates some very good comments, and hopefully will lead many to your work and Allies for Freedom website.

You may access the webpage directly at
www.afrolumens.com/ugrr/libby01.htm 


George Nagle has also included the photograph of Niger Innis and Roy Innis laying the wreath on the grave of John Brown, as well as letters from Corinne Innis at CORE, Louis A. DeCaro, Jr., Bryan Prince, and Jean Libby.

Good communication is coming from this publication. Thank you, George Nagle.

Jean Libby, editor
Allies for Freedom
www.alliesforfreedom.org/

Editor's note:  See our archived correspondence with Jean Libby on the subject of John Brown.