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Located at the bustling nexus of America’s first railroad and a busy Chesapeake waterfront, the enslaved in Central Maryland had opportunities to find freedom. Freedom seekers escaped to the North on foot, hid and blended into the free Black population on crowded streets, alleys and wharves, or found freedom by riding the rails or sailing away. Railroads, waterways and roads provided pathways to freedom for those living in Maryland and for those fleeing bondage from[...]

When Harriet Tubman set foot on the fields and marshes surrounding the Chesapeake Bay and worked its waterways, America was a different place. Woodlands were expansive, wilderness seemed endless, and she, like many other African Americans, was held in the bonds of slavery, surviving while wresting an existence from the land. As she stood on the Chesapeake’s shores, worked its docks and shipyards, and peered across its vast open waters, what did she think and[...]