A Map to Freedom
In 1839, over two decades before Harriet Tubman’s celebrated career as the “General of the Underground Railroad,” a man named Jacob in Chattanooga, Tennessee started a journey that would help build the network that became a map to freedom for enslaved Americans. Born into slavery, Jacob was owned by James Smith, a cruel farmer withplantations on Moccasin Bend and Walden’s Ridge.
The 1819 Calhoun Treaty between the Cherokee and the United States ceded land north of the Tennessee River and Hiwassee River, including Moccasin Bend, establishing Hamilton County and paving the way for people to acquire land along the Bend. James Smith established his lower farm on the northern neck of Moccasin Bend between present-day Moccasin Bend National Archeological District and Baylor School, worked by eighteen (18) slaves under the cruel eye of the overseer, a man named Welsh.
Jacob was one of fourteen siblings born into slavery to a mother who saw eleven of her children sold, never to be seen again. Though Betsy, his enslaver’s wife, was kind, often protecting them from abuse, Jacob yearned for freedom when a Ross’s Landing storekeeper, abolitionist Albert Leonard from Albany, New York, began teaching him ways that he could make his way to freedom.
In 1787, The Northwest Ordinance was passed prohibiting slavery in the federal Northwest Territory with a southern boundary of the Ohio River, a westward extension of the Mason-Dixon line. Settled by New Englanders and American Revolutionary War veterans with land grants, the 6 states created from it were established as free states, including Ohio (1803), Indiana (1816), Illinois (1818), Michigan (1837), Wisconsin (1848), and Minnesota (1858).
Albert Leonard showed Jacob a map, taught him how to decipher it, and put emphasis on Ohio, Indiana, and Lake Erie, knowing that in those free states Jacob could find colored settlements and sympathetic Quakers who would help guide him on the journey to freedom. A covert and sometimes informal network of routes, safehouses, signals, and signs spread across the country to support enslaved African Americans to gain their freedom. Though the efforts were often spontaneous, an organized network arose, hidden quietly among households, colored settlements, Quaker communities, and other sympathetic Americans, particularly after the enactment of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Nature provided Jacob’s key to his path to freedom as Albert taught him that moss grew on the north side of trees and showed him the North Star, a beacon that would guide him on an epic journey to freedom.
On July 29, 1839, 23-year-old Jacob liberated himself, escaping enslavement with a canoe likely abandoned only eight months earlier by the Cherokee who had been forcibly removed to lands west of the Mississippi, and made his way toward Williams Island. When the dugout canoe failed him, Jacob tied knots in the legs of his pants, using them to stay afloat and reach land. From William’s Island he crossed Walden’s Ridge to the Sequatchie Valley and the north side of the Cumberland Mountains.
Jacob was captured, escaped, and found a horse, using a bridle he fashioned out of his “galluses” and riding fourteen miles. He crossed into Kentucky to the Ohio River, stole a skiff and reached the Indiana shore and his first contact with an abolitionist and guide to the secrets of the underground network already beginning its work to guide people to freedom. After a period of shelter and learning under the tutelage of abolitionists Uncle Charles Lacey, William Finney, and old Uncle Zeke Goins, Jacob resumed his journey, only to be arrested in Jeffersonville, Indiana.
A judge declined to prosecute our hero, even providing men on horseback who whisked him away. Pursued by men intent on capturing Jacob, they were overtaken near Richmond, where Jacob escaped again, running through thickets before an ‘old colored man’ directed him to Milton, in the southeastern corner of Wayne County where Cabin Creek, an underground station had been established.
A Quaker, Nathan Jones, worked alongside the Cabin Creek settlement to arrange wagon trips and notified them when advertisements offered rewards for runaways. Jacob stayed in this settlement for close to a year, learning in the school and working on the farm. When fifteen (15) men came to the farm to ‘recover’ two girls an old lady protected them in a corn crib while her son slipped away to warn the Quakers and Cabin Creek settlers.
As fifty-plus Quakers and friends of the colored girls collected, causing a disturbance, Jacob led the girls away, disguising them in his overcoat and white hat. They escaped on horseback, riding toward Carthage in the southeast part of Ohio. Though twenty-five (25) of the Quakers and Cabin Creek settlers were arrested, only one (1) was issued a fine of $60.
The trio found refuge in Carthage with Mr. Waddles, principal of a high school and station keepers Sam Jones and Brother Lee, a colored Baptist preacher, before Jacob was identified as a known fugitive, and took to the road again, finding his way to the Quakers and a settlement in Battle Creek. After narrowly escaping capture by an imposter abolitionist Jacob traveled by steam car to Royal Oak near Detroit where he was sent by “old John the Baptist” to Detroit by wagon to meet with abolitionists near the waterworks bound for the ‘Little John.’
Crossing in a rowboat with two boys to avoid capture at the docks, Jacob made his way to safety with a negro storekeeper in Windsor, Canada West who provided him with clothes, boots, and supplies, aided him in finding a place to stay and helped him find work, consider his journey, and plan his future.
After about six (6) months Jacob resumed his journey, reaching Fort Malden where he worked in a supply store and learned from its owner, a preacher, before being recruited to service at the Dawn Settlement of Refugee Negroes. Continuing to advance in the network, he served as an agent for the De Puce settlement in Canada four (4) miles east above Detroit, sent to Sandusky, Ohio to manage a critical network collecting and shipping foods admitted into Canada without duty marked as “Fugitive Goods.”
Jacob Smith, a child born to slavery, became Jacob Cummings, a preacher and a hero who helped liberate enslaved Americans, courageously guiding people to the freedom that he was brave enough to chase.
by Jennifer Ley Crutchfield