Underground To Canada

Underground to Canada is a historical fiction YA novel first published by Penguin in 1977. Canadian American author Barbara Smucker tells the story of Julilly, an adolescent girl who is enslaved on a plantation in Virginia. When the plantation owner suddenly sells Julilly to a slaveowner in Mississippi, she is separated from her mother, who urges Julilly to find a way to escape and find freedom in Canada. Julilly’s harrowing ordeal takes the reader on a journey through the Underground Railroad, as she runs from slave hunters and accepts the kindness of the railroad’s cunning “conductors” who help her reach Canada.

This guide is based on the Kindle edition.

Content Warning: The source text and this guide describe enslavement, abuse, and racism.

Plot Summary

In Chapters 1 and 2, Julilly and her mother, Mammy Sally, are enslaved on the Hensen plantation in Virginia. When Mammy Sally hears that the farm is failing and Hensen plans to sell some of the slaves, she tells Julilly that if they are separated, Julilly should try to escape and follow the north star to Canada, where there is no slavery. The following day, Julilly is shocked when the slave trader purchases her, and she is abruptly separated from her mother. The slave trader takes her away from the Hensen plantation along with enslaved men Lester, Adam, and Ben, and a few small children.

In Chapters 3 and 4, Julilly endures the long journey to Mississippi in the slave trader’s wagon, and she tries to take care of the small children with her. She is amazed to see a free Black boy working with a white man, whom the slave traders refer to as a “Quaker Abolitionist.” In Chapters 5 and 6, she arrives at the Riley plantation in Mississippi, where she is forced to live in a dilapidated cabin with other enslaved girls. Julilly quickly befriends Liza, a friendly girl her age who has been disabled from the slave overseer’s abuse.

In Chapters 7 and 8, the girls are intrigued to overhear that a Canadian man named Alexander Ross has arrived to study the local birds, and that he will be assisted by their friends Lester and Adam. Julilly, Liza, and their peers discuss Canada and the possibility of escape and freedom, with Julilly and Liza promising each other that they will run away soon. In Chapter 9 Julilly and Liza meet secretly with Lester, Adam, and Alexander Ross in the woods at night. He reveals that he is there to help them escape from the plantation and provides them with resources and advice on their planned escape.

In Chapter 10, Julilly and her friends finally make their escape late at night walking through the woods to the Mississippi River. In the following two chapters the group evades the slave hunters and their hounds who are tracking them and reach Tennessee. There they meet a Quaker man who explains that Mr. Ross has been imprisoned for helping slaves, and that he will take them to their next safe location. Shortly after they arrive at a barn, the slave hunters catch Adam and Lester when they are fishing in the woods nearby, and a terrified Liza and Julilly quickly gather their things and take off into the woods.

In Chapter 13, Liza and Julilly use the food and compass from the Quaker helper to reach the Appalachian Mountains. They are relieved to meet a kind German Mennonite family who offers them food and a place to sleep. In Chapter 14 they continue their journey through the mountains until they reach the Ohio River and the home of their next helper, a free Black man named Jeb Brown. In Chapter 15, Julilly and Liza hide on Brown’s roof while a local sheriff looking for the girls searches his home. Brown rows them across the Ohio River at night. Once on the other side, the girls hide under blankets In a man’s wagon as he drives them to their next destination: Cincinnati.

In Chapters 16 and 17, Julilly and Liza arrive at Levi and Catherine Coffin’s home in Cincinnati, Ohio. The Coffins quickly hide them inside the master bedroom while a sheriff searches their house. Levi and Catherine agree that the girls should leave quickly, and Catherine gives them new clothes. A driver takes them to the train station and carries them onto the train in sacks, where they remain for the duration of the trip. When they arrive at their destination of Cleveland, Ohio, the girls are delighted to be picked up by Alexander Ross, who was recently released from prison in the South. He informs the girls that their friends, Lester and Adam, escaped the slave hunters and made it to Canada, but Adam died of his injuries. He takes them to Lake Erie and helps them board the ship The Mayflower with the help of the captain, who is another helper on the railroad.

In Chapter 18, the girls lock themselves in their cabin onboard the ship, ready to spend the night inside. However, the captain informs them that the ship will be searched and they must hide in a lifeboat on the deck. From their new hiding place, the girls observe the sheriff and slave hunter board the boat and search inside, finding nothing. Finally, the exhausted girls fall asleep. When they wake up, they are overjoyed to realize they are in Canada and free from enslavement and their life on the run. In the last chapter, Julilly and Liza are taken into St. Catharines, Ontario, where they are reunited with their friend Lester, who now works at a hotel in town. Julilly is shocked and delighted to find that her mother, Mammy Sally, is also there, having escaped from the Riley plantation in Virginia. Though there will be challenges ahead, Julilly is excited for her new life as a free person in Canada with Mammy Sally and Liza.