Celebrating Black History: The Underground Railroad in St. Louis and Vicinity

As people migrated west across the American colonies and the newly formed states, they brought the institution of slavery with them. New England and the mid-Atlantic had tolerated slavery, and when the French founded St. Louis, they, too, had enslaved Africans and Native Americans with them. By the time of the Civil War, Missouri was home to both enslavers and those who opposed them. Although Missouri achieved statehood as a slave state in what was called the Missouri Compromise, there was a deep divide in the state over slave ownership. Because of that, when the network of safe houses leading to freedom that we know as the Underground Railroad developed across the country, Missouri, and the St. Louis area, became important in the movement to both free those who were enslaved and, at the same time, to capture those who tried to escape and return them to their enslavers. Let us tell you more . . .