Virtual Talk: “South to Freedom” with Alice Baumgartner

Not everyone knows the Underground Railroad ran in two directions.  While the North was salvation for many US slaves before the Civil War, thousands of people went south. Mexico had abolished slavery in 1837, making it the Promised Land for thousands. Some escaped with help from free blacks, ship captains, Mexicans, Germans, gamblers, preachers, mail riders and other “lurking scoundrels.” Others escaped by their own ingenuity, with stolen rifles, forged slave passes, and in one instance, a wig made from horsehair and pitch. Southerners hoped that annexing Texas and invading Mexico in the 1840s would stop runaways and secure slavery’s future. Instead, the seizure of Alta California and Nuevo México upset the delicate political balance between free and slave states and set the international stage for the United State’s Civil War.

Tickets: $10 nonmembers/ $5 members
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