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Five Stops

Activity Description:

Review the
UGRR Content Overview
⁠
Then read through the five stops below using the
UGRR Content Overview
⁠
,
UGRR Stories
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,
Timeline
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,
Historical Background
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,
Terminology
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and the other sources on this site.
Organize your tour based on the five stops and main questions in the way that makes the most sense to you.
Review in your groups the stories and questions to become acquainted with the main topics and how they flow together.
Everyone will have an opportunity to share why they organized their tours this way and any learnings, surprises, and other questions they have.

Outline

Ethnobotany Lens- Some plant identification for walking to and along the trail
Common plants to point out along the trail-Many plants also have medicinal purposes, and freedom seekers had extensive knowledge of these natural remedies. Much of this knowledge was passed along from Native Americans who formed relationships with enslaved africans on plantations or in maroon communities. Enslaved Africans also brought extensive ethnobotanical knowledge from their native African lands, much of which translated well into the flora of the southern regions.
Berries including blackberries, gooseberries, serviceberries
Muscadine vines / wild grapes / Scuppernong also by the lake
Vitis rotundifolia, or Muscadine, is a Native American wild grape with origins in southeastern United States. These grapes have a black or deep violet color and they have a spherical shape, thick skin, and are sweet in flavor but the skin may be bitter. Although muscadines are larger than other grapes, they provide less juice. They grow in small clusters on wood grape vines with leaves that are he/ Wilart-shaped with serrated edges, and some people claim the fruit has a recognizable “musky” and fruity aroma.
Muscadine has been cultivated for over 400 years; Native Americans grew Muscadine and had been consuming these grapes as a part of their diet for thousands of years, as archeologists discover. These grapes have also been found in deposits with plant and animal rood remains, which have been assumed to be a part of Native American rituals. Grapes were made into dyes, jams, juice, cakes, and dried and preserved for the winter as part of their diets. Muscadines were also used for medicinal purposes, with its leaves being made into tea that would be consumed post-childbirth, for digestive or kidney illnesses, fertility and reproduction, and other ailments.
Muscadine were grown on plantations as well, being tended by black slaves, and sometimes these grapes were traded between slaves and were a great part of their diets. Muscadine, due to its abundance in nature, was eaten by freedom seekers and it was beneficial to be able to identify this plant when lost in order to have something to satisfy hunger. When freedom seekers were afraid of being caught and remained in areas such as the woods, they relied on berries and grapes to fill their hunger. Muscadines are also known as Scuppernongs; the name coming from the Scuppernong River, Scuppernong Lake, and Scuppernong settlements near the Albermarle Sound in North Carolina. Furthermore, “scuppernong” originates from the Algonquian askuponong, meaning “place of the askupo”, which is the sweet bay tree.
Honey Locust-
It is believed that Indigenous people probably passed on their knowledge of the honey locust tree to enslaved people, but it also seems highly likely that enslaved people came up with their own uses for the honey locust tree.
Honey locust beans
Enslaved people used the seeds of the honey locust tree to brew coffee-like beverages and used the pods as a sweetener. They also brewed honey locust and persimmons together in water to make a beverage that they carried with them to the fields. With their own discoveries and the knowledge passed on to them by Indigenous people, enslaved people had some level of autonomy by instituting cultural practices that included plant use.
Those who lived at Rich Neck also knew the benefits of the honey locust tree. They used the honey locust for dietary and medicinal purposes. It is also possible that the seeds and shells, as well as other waste products from the tree, were used as fuel. The pods were said to bring relief from discomfort. It was said that they had dilatory and narcotic properties. Inhabitants of the plantation used honey locust regularly. It was the only production activity that seemed to hold steady over time. It also seemed to multiply over time.
Hickory and Pecan (Carya spp). (pignut hickory and shagbark hickory)
Carya is a genus of trees including hickory and pecan trees. This genus contains some of the most important plants for the lives of both Native Americans and enslaved people are notable for their incredibly nutritious nuts as well as their incredibly tough wood which made them useful plants for Native Americans and enslaved people. Some examples include Carya Illinoinensis or the pecan, Carya glabra or the pignut hickory, and Carya ovata or the shagbark hickory. They are related to walnuts and as both are part of the Juglandaceae family.
The nuts from this genus are an excellent source of nutrition due to their high content of fat and protein in a single nut. Hickory wood is also notable for its strong wood which has been used for a variety of purposes. Hickory tree wood and bark was used to make “dye, tools, soaps, baskets, food, oil, furniture, ax handles, wagons, and rope” (Heinz History Center). These uses made the Carya genus an incredibly important one that would be used by numerous groups, including Native Americans and enslaved peoples. Native Americans often used hickories as a source of food. The name hickory comes from the Powhatan “pokahichary” which was a drink made from a mixture of hickory nuts and water which the tribe used. It was believed that a goddess served the drink to spirits traveling after death. Native Americans also made oil from hickory nuts which they used both as food and for medicinal purposes. For instance, the Creek used it when making hominy and corn cakes. Native Americans also made tools out of it such as the Ojibwa making bows from Shagbark hickories or the Omaha using it to make snowshoes.
It also had many medicinally uses being used “as abortifacients, analgesics, anthelmintics, antirheumatics, cold remedies, dermatological aids, diaphoretics, diuretics emetics, gast-intestinal aids, gynecological aids, laxatives, liver aids, oral aids and orthopedic aids.” This knowledge about the use of hickory even passed to European settlers who used the wood for making casks and boxes (USDA).
This knowledge and use of hickory was also common among enslaved peoples as well who also made use of the multipurpose trees. Enslaved people made extensive use of pecan and hickory trees as a source of nutrition due to the high amount of protein and fat in even a small handful of nuts. The enslaved even engaged in commercial production of these nuts and were a key part of making that a viable business. An enslaved man named Antoine at the Oak Valley Plantation was the first person to be able to graft Pecan trees and make them viable for commercial use.
Powdered tulip tree bark was used help expel intestinal worms, white pine resin was collected for wound salves, and anise was used for abdominal issues.
Others not on the trail that would have been here at the time- Persimmons, (there are a couple) Paw Paws (lowerlands), Walnut, pokeweed, yellow/curly dock and more.
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Underground Railroad Ethnobotany Project at Guilford College
Ecologies of Resistance
arcg.is
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Ecologies of Resistance: The Underground Railroad Ethnobotany Project - AAIHS
“Gone are the century-old definitions of the Underground Railroad dominated by images of shivering, frightened fugitive slaves. Fading away are the biased images of solitary men, criminalized for escaping slavery, usually on foot, and aided by sympathetic White abolitionists working within a loosely organized network dominated by kindly Quakers.” –Cheryl Janifer LaRoche. The above passage
www.aaihs.org
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Google Doc with some more background and information
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At the Trail Marker: Welcome and
Land Acknowledgement
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Whose land are we on? Land acknowledgement, The Quaker arrival, and GC woods history
Who is telling the story/Who am I telling this story? Who is here with us?
Sacred stories / Heavy truths, take care of yourself / What is the invitation to care for yourself when hearing hard/traumatic/historic stories?
Moment of Silence
At the Bench: Context Setting of the URR
See
Historical Background
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What is the Underground RR? Was the URR an actual Railroad?
Why would you need something like this?
What do we know about the Enslaved and the system of chattel slavery?
What is the historical / economic / political context that the Underground Railroad arose from?
What language do we use when we tell this history, and why?
At the first River Crossing: How did the Underground Railroad Work?
What do we know about how folks navigated the journey? (solicit from group)
Who was chosen as a traveller? How and why?
What tools/strengths/wisdom of the wilderness did freedom seekers bring and need to navigate this path to freedom? (Ethnobotany lens)
What did this journey look like? How did folks navigate, survive, evade capture?
At the second River Crossing: The Quaker and Black Abolitionist Origins of the Underground Railroad
Who was Levi Coffin, and how did he come to this work?
Who are Quakers? What do they believe?
What was the role of the Religious Society of Friends in Abolition?
Whose narratives/stories do we have, and whose are missing? Why?
At the Witness Tree: The Tree as an Alternative Symbol/Monument for Coalition Building
What are the other stories we need to know to understand a fuller picture of this history?
How is this story a part of our justice work today? What can we learn?
What does it mean to risk all to follow a leading?
Why do we call the tree a "Silent Witness"?
Questions

Next:
Study On Your Own
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