Charleston’s Old Slave Mart, which is widely believed to be the only existing slave auction site left in the state, was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1973 and has operated as the Old Slave Mart Museum since 2007. Charleston, South Carolina was one of the largest hubs of the early American slave trade, which involved kidnapping, buying, and selling both Black and Indigenous people. South Carolina’s history is inextricably linked to the history of slavery in the United States. The slave patrol system eventually led to the post-Civil War development of the Ku Klux Klan - who appear in The Underground Railroad as the night riders Cora encounters in North Carolina - and to the formation of police departments throughout the country.
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In addition, the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 not only forced free states to comply with the work of people like Ridgeway, but it also paid commissioners $10 for every Black person they allowed to be forced into slavery, regardless of whether or not that person was born into bondage. That system included organized and armed nightly patrols, as well as legal obligations for white civilians to detain and report any unknown Black person they saw. In reality, mercenary slave catchers like Ridgeway were part of a larger system designed to police Black people, both free and enslaved, in the antebellum United States. He’s introduced shortly after Cora and Caesar begin to make their way north, and captures Cora several times over the course of the novel, stopping only when she leaves him to die on an Underground Railroad platform in Indiana.
Ridgeway was unable to find Cora’s mother, Mabel, after she fled from Randall, and he treats his mission to recover Cora as a way to make up for his past failings. The slave catcher hired to bring Cora back to the Randall plantation plays a major role in The Underground Railroad. And for its conductors and passengers, Whitehead’s Railroad is just as dangerous for Cora and her friends as the real-life routes were for enslaved people and those who helped them escape. Like the real abolitionist network, The Underground Railroad’s eponymous railway operates in secret - away from the watchful eyes of slave catchers. Whitehead’s novel plays with this timeline, turning the real-life Underground Railroad into a literal subway system with routes that connect the southernmost U.S. Underground Railroad stopped working in secret, and began operating instead as part of the Union war effort. The world’s first subway system, London’s Metropolitan Railway, opened its gates in 1863 - the same year the U.S. The Railroad’s conductors would hide Black fugitives in “stations” - homes, churches, and businesses - and covertly transport them to the next station as time and safety allowed. It’s common knowledge that the real-life Underground Railroad was a network of white and BIPOC abolitionists - some of whom had been previously enslaved themselves - who worked to smuggle runaways from Southern plantations to free states, the Caribbean, Mexico, and Canada. Here’s what you need to know about fact and fiction in The Underground Railroad: The Underground Railroad
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The limited series stars Thuso Mbedu ( Side Dish) as Cora, Aaron Pierre ( Krypton) as Caesar, Joel Edgerton ( The King) as Ridgeway, William Jackson Harper ( The Good Place) as Royal, and Zsane Jhe ( Watchmen) as Lovey.
But only one person stays with her for the entire length of her flight: the slave catcher, Ridgeway, who remains on her heels every step of the way.ĭirected by Moonlight writer-director Barry Jenkins, Prime Video’s The Underground Railroad is streaming now. Cora is accompanied by a number of compatriots - including Lovey, Caesar, and Royal - as she travels from Georgia through South Carolina, North Carolina, Tennessee, Indiana, and beyond. The Underground Railroad follows Cora, a woman born into slavery on a Georgia plantation, as she undertakes an epic journey across the United States in search of her freedom. Major spoilers for The Underground Railroad follow. What makes the novel so compelling is its inventive take on the antebellum American South - but Whitehead’s magical realism may spur some readers (and now, viewers) to wonder how much of The Underground Railroad is based on real history. Colson Whitehead’s The Underground Railroad has been adapted into an Amazon Prime Video limited series, and we couldn’t be more thrilled. The winner of the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction is streaming now on a screen near you.
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