The Winds of Freedom: How Vermont's Northeast Kingdom Approached Abolition

In this presidential election season, I think it's been clear that the effects of the American Civil War continue to affect beliefs around the country. President Lincoln's long approach to the abolition of human enslavement in America gave us a fundamental piece of today's view of human citizenship in our nation. At the same time, the long delay in getting there, with some 250 or more years of enslavement behind that, contributes to an awareness that we are not always as "good" or principled as we ought to be. And now we have a nation divided on what goodness and principle mean.

In the 1990s, when I began writing my historic novels, I came face to face with prevailing myths in Vermont history that dismayed me. Many of them revolved around the Underground Railroad, one of the heroic efforts in America in the early to mid 1800s. What we know today, historically, is that the Underground Railroad in Vermont might as well have been called the Aboveground Railroad -- because in the theme noted now at Rokeby in North Ferrisburgh, Vermont, if you were Black and reached Vermont in the 1850s (or had lived here for many years already, like the Mero family of Coventry), you were "Free and Safe." No need for hiding places.

But many people couldn't process that idea when I talked about it. So, based on my personal connection with historic fiction, I opted to write about the 1850s here through the voices and experiences of local people, hoping that readers could internalize that experience and reshape their own vision of what happened.

That led to THE LONG SHADOW, book 1 in the Winds of Freedom series, set in North Upton (aka North Danville) in 1850, from the points of view of teenagers enmeshed in adventures there. At the moment, the printed version is out of stock, but you can get the ebook here. Also ask Kim at Green Mountain Books to watch for a gently used copy for you!

More about that story later this week ... and then about books 2 and 3.

If you'd like to hear how the abolitionists of St. Johnsbury, Vermont, and the surrounding towns saw their world in the 1850s and how they entered the movement toward abolition, here's my talk recorded at the St. Johnsbury Athenaeum. I hope you find some fascinating discoveries when you listen/watch it.