Black History Month

2.3.00
Whistle stops on the Underground Railroad
Southeast New England sites where runaway slaves were helped to freedom.

``We were the slave capital of early America,'' says Keith Stokes.

Much of that activity was in the funding of slave ships, not in the physical arrival of slaves at the port. However, a number of slaves were shipped to Newport.

``Some of the earliest slaves arrived here,'' says Stokes, who lectures on black history and also is executive director of the Newport Chamber of Commerce. ``We have the earliest account: In 1696, a ship called the Sea Flower brought 19 Africans.''

But Newport also has the distinction of being the home of several stops on the Underground Railroad.

That was the name given the informal network of safe houses and transportation that helped 50,000 slaves escape from the South to the North and into Canada between 1830 and 1860. It was neither underground nor a railroad; the term refers to the swift and secret way in which the slaves escaped.

Newport's Touro Synagogue was a stop along the way.

Touro, renowned today as the oldest synagogue in North America, was dedicated in 1763, but the Revolutionary War destroyed Newport's trade and the city became a garrison town under British occupation. Most of the townspeople left.

By the early 1800s, regular services stopped and the synagogue's doors were closed. There would not be another Jewish congregation there until 1883.

But from the 1830s through the 1850s, the building's Quaker caretaker offered the use of the empty structure to the free Africans living in Newport. The building became an Underground Railroad stop because, as Stokes -- who is also co-chair of the Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue -- says, ``People wouldn't think of checking on an empty, vacant building. And it was conveniently located in the center of the free black community.

Just how large that community was can be learned from the 1770 census, which reported that nearly a third of the Newport population of 9,000, or 2,800, was of African heritage, and most were free. (The Rhode Island legislature outlawed the importation of slaves to the colony in 1774, though censuses still found more than 300 slaves in Newport County alone in 1790.)

At Touro, runaway slaves would stay overnight, or perhaps for several nights, until they could continue their journey northward to Canada.

Over the years, the story has grown that a trap door in the bimah, the platform where the rabbi stands to lead the service, was installed as part of the Underground Railroad.

Not so. The trap door has been there from the building's beginning.

``We feel it was put in by the builders of the synagogue as a symbol of their past persecution,'' says B. Schlessinger Ross, director of The Society of Friends of Touro Synagogue. Similar trap doors have been found in synagogues in Spain and Portugal and, Ross says, perhaps in those countries they were used as a means of escape from the Catholic church's persecution of Jews during the Inquisition.

The door leads to a root cellar, and some of the runaway slaves did stay there. However, many stayed on the synagogue's main floor.

Along Division Street

Directly across from the synagogue's gate is Division Street and the heart of what was then the free African community. This is the starting point for a walk past other sites that were part of Newport's Underground Railroad. Unlike Touro, though, these sites are now private homes and not open to the public.

While only three sites have been documented, it was along Division Street, and others nearby, that runaway slaves were welcomed into homes. Many decided to stay, and melted into the free African community, which Stokes says was quite well-to-do, with most making a middle-class living. This was possible, Stokes says, because Newport ``was a very liberal community. Not perfect, but liberal for that period.''

Thanks to Newport's having turned its back on much of the ``improvements'' of changing times, a walk through its streets is like stepping into the past. If you can ignore the modern paving and the parked cars, you can get a feel for the period.

At 49 Division St. is the former Union Congregational Church, a documented stop on the railroad. Chartered in 1824, it was founded as the African Union Society in 1780. (Stokes's family has been in Newport long enough that his great-great-uncle, Mahlon Van Horne, became pastor of the church in 1869.) The Union Society was the first self-help organization for Africans in America. The building is now a private home.

At 16 Division St. stands the Hopkins House. While this was not a stop on the Underground Railroad, it is connected to the slavery debate: the Rev. Samuel Hopkins of the First Congregational Church was an early abolitionist who spoke out against slavery.

Isaac Rice's haven

In the center of town, you'll find Williams Street across from the Bellevue Avenue block that contains the Newport Tennis Hall of Fame. At 54 Williams St., at the corner of Thomas Street, is the Rice family home, Newport's third documented stop on the Underground Railroad.

The house was built in the mid-1800s by free black Isaac Rice, whom Charles L. Blockson, author of The Hippocrene Guide to The Underground Railroad, calls ``the most prominent African-American in the state of Rhode Island.'' Blockson calls Rice's home ``a haven'' for runaway slaves. Rice was a gardener for Gov. William C. Gibbs and planted trees that still grow in Touro Park.

Rice was born in Providence in 1794, and his family moved to Newport when he was young. His home was visited by Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman. Tubman was a fugitive herself, but returned to the South 19 times to help approximately 300 slaves escape, becoming known as the Railroad's ``conductor.'' Douglass was born a slave and became a noted writer, speaker and leader of the abolitionist movement.

The Williams Street house is still owned by the Rice family.

Touro tours

Touro Synagogue is open for tours Sundays from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. and Monday through Friday at 1 p.m. There are no tours on Saturdays and Jewish holidays. The last tour starts a half hour before closing. The synagogue is at 85 Touro St., Newport. Call 847-4794. The Web site is www.tourosynagogue.org.