Discovering the Underground Railroad in Indiana
Following the Underground Railroad through Digitized Newspapers and Roadside Markers
This panel will explore how the Indiana Historical Bureau (IHB), a state agency, faces challenges in heritage tourism, as well as public interest, in identifying and commemorating sites associated with Underground Railroad (UGRR) activity. This panel will have two parts. One part will focus on Indiana’s historical roadside marker program. The second part will address finding evidence of Underground Railroad activity through digitized newspaper resources.
Part 1: “Historical Markers and the Underground Railroad” will be a case study on how IHB has dealt with marker applications from the public that seek to identify UGRR sites. In the distant past, IHB has placed UGRR markers that, through subsequent research, proved to be untrue. Around 2000, IHB increased the burden of proof for UGRR markers. If the potential UGRR marker application did not provide strictly defined primary sources, then IHB would deny the application. This presentation is, in part, an effort for IHB to re-evaluate policies, and dialogue with attendees about satisfying the burden of proof for an UGRR site. Is IHB’s extant policy the way to go? Should we admit corroborated reminiscences and post-contemporary evidence (e.g. Wilbur Siebert’s informants) as proof? How much evidence is proof enough that UGRR activity occurred, and merits a historical marker that aims for accuracy?
Part 2: “Following the North Star through Hoosier State Chronicles” will explore how to search for evidence of UGRR activity in the digitized pages of Indiana newspapers. While Indiana joined the Union as a free state in 1816, its connection to slavery continued to be complicated. In order to share this nuanced history, contemporary newspapers provide an excellent resource for scholars as well as the general public. These newspaper accounts shed light on the Hoosier state’s difficult past with that “peculiar institution.” In the digitized pages of historic newspapers, researchers can find court proceedings, fugitive slave ads, and escape narratives. Examples include an 1821 advertisement offering a $100 reward for a slave named “Gordon, belonging to Mrs. Elizabeth Buckner, of Paris, Bourbon county, K[entuck]y.” An account from an 1818 court case in Corydon involving a presumed fugitive slave named “Susan” illustrates both the precarious nature of freedom in Indiana, and that African Americans were seeking liberty across the Ohio River before the phrase “Underground Railroad” entered the American vocabulary. In 1855, a report from west central Indiana told of a presumed fugitive slave who drowned in a river while he attempted to avoid capture. Researchers can recover forgotten evidence like this using the power of digitized technology.
This presentation will share search strategies for finding information in the nearly 1 million pages in Hoosier State Chronicles, as well as the nearly 12 million pages in Chronicling America. Typing “Underground Railroad” in the search bar will seldom help researchers find what they seek. Adjusting search terms, and even searching newspapers in states other than the location in question, sometimes produce exciting finds.
S. Chandler Lighty is Director of the Indiana Historical Bureau, a state agency that manages Indiana’s historical marker program. Over the past twenty years, Lighty has worked as a public historian at the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum in Crawfordsville, IN, the Assistant Director at the Montgomery County Historical Society in Crawfordsville and an Assistant Editor with the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. He earned his M.A. in American History from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Robert Clark is Project Assistant with Hoosier State Chronicles: Indiana’s Digital Historic Newspaper Program, an initiative of the Indiana State Library. He earned his B.A. in History from Indiana University-Kokomo, and his M.A. in Public History from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. His master’s thesis on Robert G. Ingersoll is titled, “Ingersoll, Infidels, and Indianapolis: Freethought and Religion in the Central Midwest.”
This panel will explore how the Indiana Historical Bureau (IHB), a state agency, faces challenges in heritage tourism, as well as public interest, in identifying and commemorating sites associated with Underground Railroad (UGRR) activity. This panel will have two parts. One part will focus on Indiana’s historical roadside marker program. The second part will address finding evidence of Underground Railroad activity through digitized newspaper resources.
Part 1: “Historical Markers and the Underground Railroad” will be a case study on how IHB has dealt with marker applications from the public that seek to identify UGRR sites. In the distant past, IHB has placed UGRR markers that, through subsequent research, proved to be untrue. Around 2000, IHB increased the burden of proof for UGRR markers. If the potential UGRR marker application did not provide strictly defined primary sources, then IHB would deny the application. This presentation is, in part, an effort for IHB to re-evaluate policies, and dialogue with attendees about satisfying the burden of proof for an UGRR site. Is IHB’s extant policy the way to go? Should we admit corroborated reminiscences and post-contemporary evidence (e.g. Wilbur Siebert’s informants) as proof? How much evidence is proof enough that UGRR activity occurred, and merits a historical marker that aims for accuracy?
Part 2: “Following the North Star through Hoosier State Chronicles” will explore how to search for evidence of UGRR activity in the digitized pages of Indiana newspapers. While Indiana joined the Union as a free state in 1816, its connection to slavery continued to be complicated. In order to share this nuanced history, contemporary newspapers provide an excellent resource for scholars as well as the general public. These newspaper accounts shed light on the Hoosier state’s difficult past with that “peculiar institution.” In the digitized pages of historic newspapers, researchers can find court proceedings, fugitive slave ads, and escape narratives. Examples include an 1821 advertisement offering a $100 reward for a slave named “Gordon, belonging to Mrs. Elizabeth Buckner, of Paris, Bourbon county, K[entuck]y.” An account from an 1818 court case in Corydon involving a presumed fugitive slave named “Susan” illustrates both the precarious nature of freedom in Indiana, and that African Americans were seeking liberty across the Ohio River before the phrase “Underground Railroad” entered the American vocabulary. In 1855, a report from west central Indiana told of a presumed fugitive slave who drowned in a river while he attempted to avoid capture. Researchers can recover forgotten evidence like this using the power of digitized technology.
This presentation will share search strategies for finding information in the nearly 1 million pages in Hoosier State Chronicles, as well as the nearly 12 million pages in Chronicling America. Typing “Underground Railroad” in the search bar will seldom help researchers find what they seek. Adjusting search terms, and even searching newspapers in states other than the location in question, sometimes produce exciting finds.
S. Chandler Lighty is Director of the Indiana Historical Bureau, a state agency that manages Indiana’s historical marker program. Over the past twenty years, Lighty has worked as a public historian at the General Lew Wallace Study and Museum in Crawfordsville, IN, the Assistant Director at the Montgomery County Historical Society in Crawfordsville and an Assistant Editor with the Papers of Abraham Lincoln. He earned his M.A. in American History from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Robert Clark is Project Assistant with Hoosier State Chronicles: Indiana’s Digital Historic Newspaper Program, an initiative of the Indiana State Library. He earned his B.A. in History from Indiana University-Kokomo, and his M.A. in Public History from Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis. His master’s thesis on Robert G. Ingersoll is titled, “Ingersoll, Infidels, and Indianapolis: Freethought and Religion in the Central Midwest.”