Status Updates From Flee North: A Forgotten Her...

Stunned at how brazen Smallwood is in describing the routes he took or where the escaped slaves took. So reckless.

Shane is still very obsessed with numerical counts (returning again to Tubman and Still's counts in this chapter), but I can understand his frustration that Smallwood would be erased from history. But Smallwood, by his own account, had only the "warmest" feelings re: Torey, which Shane then second-guesses as playing nice with white people. I get his concern about erasure but I think he's aiming at the wrong targets.

Okay, I think I figured out what's going on (Ch 14): Torey didn't credit Smallwood in one private letter describing the number of people he helped escape slavery, while on his long decline from TB in prison and defending his actions to someone criticizing him as a husband. Then, after his death, other people would also not credit Smallwood while praising Torey, and credited Torey with the term "Underground Railroad".

Torey didn't have to make no mistakes for Shane to not spend so much time framing him as a fuck-up. I feel like Shane wants to build up Smallwood (understandable and good) but is doing so by trying to minimize the role other people played in the network - and even Harriet Tubman! Shane starts the book by talking about how many more people Smallwood saved than Tubman, and I have questions about his 'why' for doing so.

Yeah, so Charles Torey died in prison after being convicted of helping enslaved people escape, and Shane's take is "he made so many mistakes, including not working with other local Black people after Smallwood went to Canada." Idk, Shane, maybe he didn't want to risk involving more people after Smallwood was nearly captured the last time they worked together? This isn't that hard.

I'm also side-eyeing Shane over how little work he put into identifying the work done by Elizabeth Anderson Smallwood in the network. He points out in Chapter 10 that she was basically helping Thomas Smallwood with his operation but then just emoji shrugs and is like "Smallwood didn't write much about her". Okay??? You're a historian??? You dug up the "underground railroad" reference??? Do the work.

Getting there...I'm really side-eyeing Shane's choice here to question Torey's motives at every turn and question whether he secretly was mad at Smallwood for escaping with his family to Canada (with no apparent evidence on this point), especially when Smallwood's own account is to the contrary and Torey was in fact risking his life and liberty to free enslaved people. What gives, Shane? It stands out as *weird*.

As a note to myself, the accounts of Smallwood's articles are good, but I am curious about how Torey and Smallwood 1) worked together from such a distance, 2) what their relationship looked like, and 3) anyone else in their network.

The weirdest part about this book is the sense you get that Shane thinks most white abolitionists were posers fighting slavery for their own cred, like TikTok influencers or something. That said, I'm 40% in and he's hasn't gotten to the formation of the Underground Railroad yet.