The use of quilt codes as secret symbols for escaped slaves on the Underground Railroad is a popular but potentially inaccurate myth. While some quilting patterns may have been used as signals, others were not invented until after the Civil War. The tradition is based largely on the recollections of a slave’s daughter and has been popularized by Oprah Winfrey and others.
In 2007, an image on a statue’s pedestal of famous black statesman and abolitionist Frederick Douglass sparked a controversy over the historical accuracy of the event depicted. The image of a slave quilt was meant to honor the bravery of the “conductors” along the Underground Railroad, a grassroots effort to help southern slaves escape to the free northern states or Canada. Over the years, along with historical facts, a kind of noble mythology has arisen surrounding the underground railway. One possible apocryphal story involves the use of quilt codes, secret symbols said to be sewn into quilts and displayed outside sympathetic houses as signals for slaves to escape.
The history of the quilt codes is believed to have been revealed through interviews with former slaves or their descendants during the 1930s. According to these accounts, either slaves employed as housekeepers or sympathetic white abolitionists would sew different quilt codes into their quilts and hang them outside, ostensibly to air them out. Slave owners may not have noticed the meaning of the designs, but slaves planning an escape via the Underground Railroad were said to know the quilt codes by heart. Many of the designs were brought from Africa, so even the least educated slave could decipher the meaning of the quilt codes with little confusion.
Presumably, some quilt codes would appear in a specific order to allow the slaves enough time to prepare for escape. The first quilt codes, called the “Monkey Key,” told slaves it was time to gather their tools needed for survival. The second of these quilt codes would be a “Wagon Wheel,” telling slaves to pack as if preparing for a carriage ride. From then on, quilt codes were often changed to provide specific information that runaway slaves would need to know along the way. A drawing called “Bear’s Paw,” for example, was supposedly a reminder to follow the same path a bear would follow to find food and water in the mountains.
Other quilt codes, such as “Papillon” or “Britches” would tell escaped slaves to dress more formally or put on a crossdress. An indented design called “The Drunkard’s Path” suggested that a slave must move in unpredictable directions to fend off local bounty hunters. If an escaped slave needed to find a safe home for food or shelter, some quilted codes like “Log Cabin” or “Shoo-fly” were said to designate sympathetic members of the Underground Railroad or free blacks familiar with the system. Other quilt codes remind escaped slaves which direction to follow, as in the case of “Flying Geese” or “Stars”.
While the story of the quilt codes seems to fit the known historical facts of the Underground Railroad, there are some inherent problems. Some of the quilting patterns assigned to quilting codes weren’t invented until after the Civil War years, most notably “Papillon,” which doesn’t appear in quilting journals until the 1950s. Other quilting patterns like “Flying Geese” or “Monkey Wrench” don’t seem to be particularly useful as shorthand, as migrating geese rarely fly at night and the tool known as a wrench wasn’t invented until the 1850s. While it is very plausible sympathetic “conductors” of the Underground Railroad may have hung quilts or other banners as secret symbols, it would be impractical to have 17 different quilts containing all the purported quilt codes in one house.
The tradition of quilt codes is believed to be based largely on the recollections of a slave’s daughter, who told the story to a children’s book author. The story of the quilt codes was further popularized through the efforts of influential black television host Oprah Winfrey and others to research stories, true or apocryphal, surrounding the abolition movement and the Underground Railroad. The history of the quilt codes provides a satisfying sidebar to a very important historical and social event, even if the details prove to be more apocryphal than historically accurate.
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