Africans from many nations prior to America’s colonial and Caribbean human trafficking, sailed the oceans and the seas. They charted the stars. I cannot imagine anyone entailed in the institution of the colonial and U.S., enslavement system needing to rely on a quilt to give them direction and guidance. On the surface, it is a fantastical tale. Harriet Tubman had a network of over 1200 contacts in which the Underground Railroad depended on. Many in the chain of workers had no knowledge of one another. If one attempted escape at night, how would one read the quilt? By candle? By lantern? Fredrick Douglass wrote passes for himself and other enslaved persons. When the informer in their midst told. They ate the passes with shared biscuits, thus there was no evidence of the passes written by Douglass.
Women throughout history knit and crafted messages and codes into items like scarves, shawls, blankets and market bags. Others put stories and clues in embroidered samplers, still others in planted gardens. The list goes on.
To assume this same kind of creativity and cunning was never a piece of the quilting legacy is much harder to believe than that it was.
And that Douglas would be read in on the many ways enslaved and free women communicated safety, hope and help is entirely possible: Different worlds, spheres of knowledge and influence, well, different ways of communicating and passing down historical truth.
Does it hurt anyone, or history, to believe there were and are coded quilts in the world?
Carolyn Gibbs https://yaledailynews.com/blog/2007/02/01/prof-debunks-douglass-myth/
Africans from many nations prior to America’s colonial and Caribbean human trafficking, sailed the oceans and the seas. They charted the stars. I cannot imagine anyone entailed in the institution of the colonial and U.S., enslavement system needing to rely on a quilt to give them direction and guidance. On the surface, it is a fantastical tale. Harriet Tubman had a network of over 1200 contacts in which the Underground Railroad depended on. Many in the chain of workers had no knowledge of one another. If one attempted escape at night, how would one read the quilt? By candle? By lantern? Fredrick Douglass wrote passes for himself and other enslaved persons. When the informer in their midst told. They ate the passes with shared biscuits, thus there was no evidence of the passes written by Douglass.
https://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/douglas01.asp
True history wasn’t taught when I was in school. We know better now and must spread the word. ❤️
Women throughout history knit and crafted messages and codes into items like scarves, shawls, blankets and market bags. Others put stories and clues in embroidered samplers, still others in planted gardens. The list goes on.
To assume this same kind of creativity and cunning was never a piece of the quilting legacy is much harder to believe than that it was.
And that Douglas would be read in on the many ways enslaved and free women communicated safety, hope and help is entirely possible: Different worlds, spheres of knowledge and influence, well, different ways of communicating and passing down historical truth.
Does it hurt anyone, or history, to believe there were and are coded quilts in the world?
I’m gonna say, no.
https://folklife.si.edu/magazine/underground-railroad-quilt-codes