On December 15, Dr. Gerard Aching, Professor at Cornell University and Director of the Underground Railroad Research Project in Ithaca, New York, will give a talk on the history of the Underground Railroad and the work of archaeologists and historians to locate evidence and tell the story of enslaved people fleeing slave states in the XNUMXth century in search of freedom.

The Underground Railroad was a clandestine support network for so-called runaway slaves who fled slavery in the southern United States in the 1861th century until the beginning of the American Civil War in 1850. The clandestine activities of both the travelers as network operators was reinforced by the use of railway terms as a secret code to convey information about travel, modes of transport, safe houses, hideouts and mainly nocturnal movements of those seeking freedom in the north of the country and in Canada. Escapes to the north increased from XNUMX when the Fugitive Slave Law was approved, a federal law that prohibited all aid to fugitives with significant penalties. However, the same law radicalized free African-American religious congregations, abolitionists, Quakers, and other citizens to commit civil disobedience by continuing to aid fugitives.

The underground railroad underground also presents several challenges and opportunities for the contemporary investigator. In his talk, Dr. Gerard Aching will discuss the difficulties he and his research team faced when approaching an Underground Railroad hub station in Ithaca, New York from archeology on the one hand and from science on the other. fiction writing.

Gerard Aching is a tenured professor in the departments of Romance Studies and Africana at Cornell University in the United States.

This talk in Spanish will be open to the public. At the end of the act a Spanish wine will be served.

The International Institute is pleased to welcome back Cornell University humanities professor Dr Gerard Aching for a public talk about the Underground Railroad Research Project He directs in Ithaca, New York. Dr. Aching will explain how the Underground Railroad functioned in the United States and the work he and his students have undertaken in telling the stories of freedom seekers.

The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes and safe houses, most active in the 19^th century, to enable enslaved African Americans to escape from slave states into free states or beyond. The Underground Railroad has been the subject of countless books, films, and dramatizations. Due to the clandestine nature of the network, little material or documentary evidence of its workings or its freedom seekers was left behind. However, important work is being done to uncover material remains and reconstruct narratives so that we might have a better understanding of this hidden history in the US.

Dr. Aching will recount his own involvement in the archaeological excavation near Ithaca in upstate New York. This site has brought together archaeologists, historians, writers, students and the local community, all in the pursuit of deeper understanding of the past.

Dr. Aching is WEB DuBois Professor in the Humanities at Cornell University. There he is Professor of Africana and Romance Studies at the College of Arts & Sciences, specializing in 19^th– and 20^th-century literature, intellectual history, and slave narratives. He is the author of several books, including Freedom from Liberation: Slavery, Sentiment, and Literature in Cuba, and The Politics of Spanish American Modernism: By Exquisite Design.

Dr. Aching's talk, which is free and open to the public, will be in Spanish.

A reception will be held at the end of the event.