The Underground Railroad

Chapter 8 Summary

The chapter opens with a runaway bulletin put out by a Benjamin P. Wells, in Murfreesboro, on January 5, 1812. It offers a $30 reward for the return of a lively 18-year-old enslaved girl with a scar on her elbow who will surely attempt to pass as a free person.

The beginning of this chapter describes the life of a Black woman named Bessie, who lives in South Carolina and works for a wealthy family named the Andersons. It is revealed that Bessie is Cora. Cora cares for the Anderson children, Maisie and Raymond, and also performs household duties, including signing for and picking up the Anderson’s groceries.

Cora lives in a dormitory with other Black women. It is not a long walk from the Andersons’ to her home, and she enjoys walking through town and enjoying the activity and commerce of Main Street. She is most impressed, however, by the 12-story Griffin Building, which is one of the country’s tallest buildings. Mr. Anderson works within it at a law firm, and Cora feels lucky and dazzled to have been able to see the building’s gorgeous lobby and novel elevator. She views the building as a testament to her newfound freedom. Cora enjoys walking down the street unimpeded, but she also rushes past the dirty and ominous homes of poorer white people, who tend not to employ black labor and therefore remain mysterious to her.

Cora arrives at the dormitory. It’s a two-story brick building. It’s painted white and is pristine inside. She passes other residents, some of whom are going to watch over children, and others who are returning from work or braiding their hair in the common room. She reaches her room, number 18, and goes in to change before dinner. She puts on the blue dress that she purchased two weeks into her stay in South Carolina. It still exhilarates her.

She then has a supper of roast chicken, carrots, and potatoes, made by Margaret, the cook who lives in dormitory 8. The narrator tells us that there is a social the following night. We also find out that some of the girls have begun frequenting the new saloon. The saloon accepts “scrip” as payment, although it isn’t supposed to. Cora decides to stay in and avoid the place. She then encounters a proctor named Miss Lucy. Miss Lucy is a diligent and demanding instructor with a fundamental kindness. She tells Cora that she would like to speak with her following lessons on Monday. Miss Lucy assures Cora that nothing is wrong, before notably bowing to her, a Black girl, and retreating to her office.

Then, we start to discover more about Cora’s trip to South Carolina. She recalls the long darkness of the tunnel, and the way that she and Caesar held each other during a few moments of terrifying turbulence. She remembers, too, that when she saw Lumbly’s collection of chains, she feared that Fletcher had been conspiring with Terrance all along to ensnare her in a sadistic theatrical ploy.

However, she and Caesar arrived at a station like the one from which they departed. The engineer was a tall man with a crest of white hair on his head and a stoop that came from years of laboring in the field. He was seized by a savage cough while attempting to speak to Cora and Caesar. Then, he curtailed any effusive expressions of thankfulness by stating that feeding the boiler and making sure that passengers reached their destinations was his job. He told Cora and Caesar to wait on the platform for someone to come fetch them.

There was a basket of food awaiting them on the platform as well. Cora and Caesar ate the food eagerly. A 25-year-old white man named Sam, who seemed normal compared to his eccentric Underground Railroad compatriots, then joined them. He welcomed them enthusiastically and gave them more food, which they ate while he described the world above. He assured them that South Carolina is much more enlightened about the advancement of Black people than the rest of the South, and that they would find safety there while the Railroad arranged the next portion of their journey. He also added that, once they see the state, they might even want to stay there. Then, he brought them water and cloth to bathe themselves. Caesar courteously let Cora wash first and joined Sam upstairs to grant her some privacy—although he had seen her naked many times before.

Sam then gave them papers with the names they were to assume—“Bessie” for Cora and “Christian” for Caesar. As runaways, they could not use their real names. Cora then told Sam about the fight that she, Lovey, and Caesar had had with the hog hunters. Sam seemed genuinely concerned by Lovey’s fate and was also unmoved by Cora’s likely murder of the boy. He stated that the story was even more reason for Cora and Caesar to use assumed names.

Caesar points out that the papers state that he and Cora are property of the United States government, and Sam says that that line is a mere technicality. He tells Cora and Caesar that numerous whites and black freemen, as well as an uncertain number of runaway enslaved people, had converged on the state of South Carolina to take advantage of its opportunities. Most of the Black people in the state were purchased by the state from the auction block. Agents attended the large auctions, and most of the enslaved people they purchased came from white families who had given up farming, despite their ancestral legacies. “Bessie Carpenter” and “Christian Markson” had been purchased by the government from a bankruptcy hearing in North Carolina. Although these enslaved people are purchased by the state, in South Carolina, they receive food, occupations, and lodging. They move about as they like to marry and raise families that are not taken away from them. Before leading Cora and Caesar out of the stop, Sam assures them that they will soon see everything for themselves.

Sam lives two miles outside of the town. His parents formerly operated the copper store on Main Street, but Sam has sold the store and is now employed by one of the local saloons, the Drift. This work suits him better than that of his parents, as Sam loves to satisfy his innate curiosity about his fellow human beings, and he enjoys being privy to the town’s secrets, which are easily accessible to him in this occupation. Making his own hours also aids his activities in the Underground Railroad. The station is located in the ground underneath his barn.

Sam leaves Cora and Caesar at the outskirts of town with specific instructions about how to reach the Placement Office and assures them that he will contact them when he has more information. As Cora and Caesar begin taking the road into town, they can hardly believe what is happening. A buggy comes around the bend and they very nearly bolt for the woods, before finding that the buggy’s driver is a Black man who tips his hat at them before going on his way. Cora then makes her back straight and tells herself that she will have to learn how to walk like a freeman. In the ensuing months, she perfects her good posture—although her letters and speech could use more cultivation. Her new bed—the only bed she has ever known—is also the softest she has ever known.

Chapter 9 Summary

Cora begins taking an English class, taught by a Miss Handler, with other Black students. Many of the students are openly frustrated with an older male student named Howard who is struggling with the lesson. Miss Handler patiently and sternly counsels the students to have compassion—as they too were once struggling students at the beginning of their studies. Cora feels chastened by Miss Handler’s words.

Cora recalls that am enslaved man named Jacob had his eyes gouged out for looking at words and feels the gravity of her lessons. She also takes note of the run-down condition of her book—the same primer that children as young as Maisie use to learn their letters. She feels that, in a mirror of how Lovey’s mother is most likely proud of Lovey’s escape, her own mother would be proud of her. 

Cora consulted Miss Lucy during her third week in South Carolina to try to find a record of her mother. She gave Miss Lucy her mother’s name—Mabel Randall—covering for her own assumed name, Carpenter, by saying that it came from her father. Miss Lucy searched her records and came up empty.

Cora then realizes that, after tasting freedom in South Carolina, she hates her mother even more for deserting her, a child, in the hell of enslavement. She resents her mother for never saving her freemen money to free Cora—though Randall would never have allowed it. She also remembers the restless nights she spent in Hob, nursing fantasies of escape that she had to convince were not actually hers to continue living. If Miss Lucy were to find a record of Mabel, Cora feels that she would use the information to find her mother just so she could come and knock her to the ground.

Cora reflects on how she has been adept at keeping up her assumed identity. However, the doctor’s exam that she was subjected to at the beginning of her time in South Carolina did scare her: The doctor’s instruments reminded her of torture devices that Terrance might have used. She remembers bearing a frightening elevator ride to the Griffin Building’s 10th floor, where she and other Black people waited for the doctor to assess them. On the plantation, doctors were only summoned when a valuable enslaved person was near death after folk remedies had failed. When Cora’s name was called, the window in the exam room that granted a luxurious view of the verdant countryside transfixed her.

Dr. Campbell, who questioned her about her general health and her specific African ancestry, quickly roused her from her reverie. She also took a short intelligence test and was asked to strip naked for a physical exam, which left her feeling pained and ashamed. The doctor’s cold manner did not comfort her. He also questioned her about her sexual assault and had the nurse transcribe notes about Cora’s ability to bear children. He then used a particularly frightening tool—a thin spike attached to a cylinder—to draw her blood. He told her he was doing so to study the blood to learn about diseases and how they spread. Cora then added her own cry of pain to the ones she had been hearing from the hall.

On Saturday, Cora finishes her washing and puts on her blue dress for the occasion. She had to use scrip to buy it and reflects on the fact that the prices at stores that sell to Black people are three times as expensive as those that sell to white folks. Some of the other girls went into serious debt and had to rely entirely upon credit from scrip. After the town deducts expenses for food, housing, and dormitory maintenance, there is hardly any money left. Cora assures herself that the dress is a singular indulgence.

Once at the social, Cora sees Caesar and admires the man’s newfound confidence. He gives her a bouquet of flowers. She remembers that he kissed her on the mouth when they arose from the tunnel—a fact that they are now pretending did not happen. She muses that maybe they will address it on the day she decides to kiss him—if it is to come. Caesar openly states that the musicians at the social may be even better than the musicians at Randall. He and Cora, finding a terrible universality in all stories about plantation life, have grown less cautious about mentioning the specifics of their plantation life in the months that have passed since their escape.

The proctors designed socials as a way to ease the trauma of plantation life and promote healthy relationships between Black men and women. Cora and Caesar use them as an occasion to update each other. Caesar has gotten a job assignment at the machine factory outside of town. His schedule there often keeps him from being able to see Cora. He reflects that, in his position on an assembly line, it is notably satisfying to see many distinct machine components coalesce into a whole—unlike the disembodied work at Randall. He also finds the work tedious but not seriously wearing.

Caesar has more opportunity to talk to Sam than Cora does. He tells Cora that another train is due in a few days. However, they both decide that they’d rather defer their exit from South Carolina. Three trains have come and gone since their arrival. Cora suggests staying permanently. Caesar is initially silent as the two enjoy the beautiful night and fine music. He then agrees with Cora.

After the social, Cora witnesses a thin Black woman in her twenties running through the green near the schoolhouse. Distraught, she cries, “My babies! They’re taking away my babies!” (108). Two men restrain the woman in as gentle a manner as they can muster. The bystanders, having witnessed countless similar scenes on plantations, sigh. They chalk up the woman’s hysteria to disorientation and the memory of the great trauma they all have endured. The woman’s screams haunt Cora all night, as they remind her of her own pain.

Chapter 10 Summary

Cora learns from Miss Lucy that she is reassigned a new workplace. Cora feels that she did poorly at her job with the Andersons, but Miss Lucy assures her that it is the opposite: Because she did so well, Miss Lucy wishes to give her a new, special placement.

Cora then asks about the hysterical woman, named Gertrude, that she saw the other day. Miss Lucy assures her that nurses are attending to Gertrude so that she can recover. She also explains that such incidents are why girls with nervous disorders are housed separately, in dormitory 40, away from the others. Cora remarks that 40 is like Hob but does not offer further explanation when Miss Lucy asks for clarification.

Cora feels sad about leaving the Andersons, whose children she likes and who treated her with kindness. Seeing Maisie’s enduring childhood makes her reflect on how black children have their innocence summarily stolen from them at an excruciatingly young age. The girl also makes Cora speculate about what her own children may be like one day.

Cora’s new assignment is at the Museum of Living History. Her job is to rotate between exhibits as an actor. The first room in which she is to perform her job is an exhibit called “Scenes from Darkest Africa,” and she must don a colorful African wrap costume while inside of it. The centerpiece of the exhibit is a hut, into which Cora ducks when she needs respite from the spectators. Three large stuffed black birds hang from the ceiling, and they remind Cora of the vultures that circled dead slaves on the plantation.

In the “Life on the Slave Ship” exhibit, Cora is outfitted as a male sailor. The fictional narrative casts her character as a kind of apprentice on the ship, and the costume makes her look like a street rascal. She poses with a grotesque statue of a sailor.

The “Typical Day on the Plantation” exhibit affords her the opportunity to sit at a spinning wheel and relax her feet. While she sees many factual discrepancies in the exhibits, she is a veritable authority on the inaccuracies of this particular scene. She brings her critique to Mr. Fields, the man in charge of the museum. He tells her that, although he would put a cotton field in the exhibit if space allowed, he must make certain concessions. He defers her improvements to the day when the museum has more resources. Meanwhile, Cora feels inflamed with shame every time she must wear the rough, authentic negro material that the “Typical Day” exhibit necessitates.

Cora is also upset by the way that children hammer disrespectfully on the glass windows of the exhibits, while yelling inaudible things that have the distinct character of rudeness. She and other workers rotate between the exhibits, and they each find small ways to tediously amuse themselves with the exhibit accouterments to pass the time.

The exhibits opened on the same day as the new hospital—the two events being part of a celebration of the town’s achievements. The new mayor won on the progress platform and was eager to provide evidence of his commitment. Meanwhile, the doctors keep as close an eye on the colored population as the proctors do, and Miss Lucy tells Cora that, one day, the data that she and the others provide will make a grand contribution to the white peoples’ comprehension of Black life.

Cora reports to the hospital’s segregated side. She observes that the new hospital is as wide as the Griffin Building is tall. While the Black entrance is on the side, it is just as handsome as the white entrance. She observes a large group of men waiting to be treated for blood trouble—an ailment she had not heard of before her arrival in South Carolina.

This time, she sees a doctor who is nicer than Dr. Campbell, a northerner named Dr. Stevens. She feels like a product being conveyed down a belt during the exam, which is not as thorough as her first. At the end of it, Dr. Stevens tells asks her if she has considered birth control due to her sexual activity. He explains that the state is implementing a big public health program that educates women about having their fallopian tubes tied. Dr. Stevens learned how to perform the procedure from the man who invented it and perfected it using the bodies of the Black wards of the Boston asylum. He was hired to instruct local doctors in the procedure and to offer the “gift” (115) of the surgery to the town’s Black women. He assures Cora that her participation in the program is optional, although it is mandatory for Black women who have already given birth to more than two children, as well as for imbeciles and the mentally unfit. He poses the procedure as an opportunity for Cora to take charge of her own destiny.

After the examination, Cora finds herself very upset. She resents the doctor’s comparison of her rape to the intimacy that passes between romantic partners. His talk of the mandatory surgery for the “mentally unfit” reminds her of the way Hob women had no say in their own lives. She observes that, although Mrs. Anderson also suffers from dark spells that put her in a foul mood, doctors do not approach her with a similar proposition. Amid her cogitations, Cora finds that she has walked to the home of the Andersons, to whom she hadn’t the opportunity to say goodbye. The new girl who answers the door eyes her suspiciously and says that she thought the old girl who had her post was named Bessie when Cora slips up and gives her real name. She covers for herself by saying Cora is her nickname in the dormitory because it was her mother’s name. The girl coldly closes the door on Cora after informing her that Mrs. Anderson is not at home. From that day forward, Cora takes care to use routes that avoid the Anderson house.

Two weeks later, Mr. Fields gives Cora and the other Black people he employs a full tour of the museum. Cora notes that the only actors in the scenes are Black people—the white people in the exhibits are all dummies. The white exhibits have as many factual inaccuracies as the Black ones: There was an enterprising Black boy who gained an apprenticeship on a slave ship, garnering head-pats from his white kidnappers. The spinning wheel was a ludicrous fantasy, but none of the white people wanted the truth.

White people had come to the continent to escape oppressive conditions—but the lofty ideals they espoused applied only to themselves. Cora saw the hypocrisy in their declarations of freedom for all men. The land they claimed had been Indigenous land, secured through bloody massacre. Cora saw only kidnapped bodies working on pillaged land. With the sterilizations, white people had also begun pillaging Black futures. A few nights later, she notices that dormitory 40 has gone dark. She is told that its occupants have been moved to the hospital—“So they can get better” (120).

Chapter 11 Summary

The narrator intimates that, on the night before Ridgeway puts an end to Cora’s sojourn in South Carolina, Cora was dallying on the roof of the Griffin Building. There, she wonders if the Egyptian pharaohs, whom she has learned about from Mrs. Handler, sat atop their pyramids to admire their kingdoms. She feels hope for the town’s success. She wonders if she will occupy a home within it one day, with a family of her own. She also muses that she will visit the North one day.

Cora then heads to Sam’s house, as he has given the signal to have a meeting that night. When she arrives, she notes the clutter and disarray that she missed the first time she was there. Caesar, whom Cora has not seen often, has already arrived. He has brought a wooden bowl of his own craftsmanship for Sam.

Sam asks Cora and Caesar to reevaluate their decision to stay in South Carolina. He has heard a story at a saloon named Red’s, a saloon that he tells Cora and Caesar to avoid. Red’s is the only Black saloon in the area. Bertram, a recent hospital hire that is one of Sam’s regular customers, has informed Sam that he should avoid the prostitutes at Sam’s: Many of them have syphilis, which they caught from the cohort of men supposedly being treated for blood ailments at the hospital. Bertram defended this information by saying that the hospital is undertaking important research. The syphilis experiment is one among many. Bertram also espoused the view that the hospital’s research is yielding important insights into the predisposition for nervous disorders among specific African tribes. He cast an instance of 40 enslaved people hurling themselves from the decks of a slave ship into certain death in the ocean as evidence of a mental deficiency. He promised that the research could help white people to perform “adjustments" and to remove those of ill disposition while protecting white women from Black men.

Dr. Bertram also espoused the belief that emancipation was impossible due to the sheer number of Black people imported into the country. He believes that the strategic sterilization of Black women would allow for the emancipation of enslaved people without the fear of violent revolution, and also that the genocide of the Beninese and Congolese, who had led uprisings in Jamaica, would be beneficial to the preservation of the white social order. He praised the grand scientific enterprise currently happening in South Carolina—“[c]ontrolled sterilization, research into communicable diseases, the perfection of new surgical techniques on the socially unfit” (125)—as one of the most important scientific endeavors in history.

Cora immediately insists that they must tell the men being experimented upon that the truth, and Caesar agrees. Sam, however, is skeptical that the men will believed them over the white doctors. He also points out that, with the town financing everything, there is no higher body to appeal to. Together, they wonder if all who attend to the Black population of South Carolina are acting in service to this grand scheme. Cora remembers the way Miss Lucy stopped her after her visit with Dr. Stevens, asking her if she had considered the birth control program, and if she’d consider speaking to the other Black girls about it. She also thinks of the screaming woman she’d encountered on the green outside the schoolhouse. She realizes that the woman was not lamenting an old plantation injury, but a crime perpetrated against her in South Carolina.

Caesar also remembers being told that he had the nose of a Beninese after being asked to report his ancestry. He says that he must warn a woman named Meg, who is his implied sweetheart. He and Cora avoid each other’s eyes.

The group remains in a state of indecision. For one, these new horrors do not seem to compare to the brutality of the plantation. Also, the Black residents of the town still are, technically, property. Cora and Caesar feel that warning people is the only task they can realistically perform. That night, Cora sleeps fitfully. She thinks about the way whites have tricked the Black population into a false sense of freedom.

The next day, Cora reports to her placement at the museum. After six weeks working there, she has orchestrated a favored rotation order—moving from “Plantation” to “Slave Ship to Darkest Africa.” This succession pleases her: It’s like an undoing of America. However, Cora also yearns to be able to work unmolested and unwatched—the way she could at the Andersons. Instead, she must bear the senseless and greedy stares of the museum visitors.

Cora has begun selecting one museum patron per hour to exact revenge upon with an evil eye. She picks those whom she knows will fold beneath her gaze—not because of their individual sins against her, but because she views these small acts of resistance as little parts of a larger whole. One day, Maisie, who is visiting the museum on a school field trip, is one of Cora’s victims. Maisie does not initially recognize Cora, but once Cora fixes the evil eye upon her, Maisie realizes who she is. This sets Maisie running out of sight. Cora does not know exactly why she acted as she did and feels a bit of guilt about it.

That evening, Cora calls on Miss Lucy. She now views the counsel that the woman gave her in the past as if they were manipulations designed to glean desired behavior from an animal. Cora questions Miss Lucy about the women who formerly lived in dormitory 40, as she has seen new women moving into the building. She asks Miss Lucy if the women who used to live there are still in the hospital, and Miss Lucy bristles. She tells Cora that the women mandatorily relocated to another town. She then tells Cora that she can prove herself a credit to her race if she takes on a leadership role with the other Black girls. Cora tells Miss Lucy that she can make her own decisions. She tells the woman that she thought she was done with receiving orders. Miss Lucy, recoiling at the comparison, tells Cora that, if Cora cannot discern the difference between “good, upstanding people and the mentally disturbed” (131), then she is not the girl she thought she was.

Another proctor named Roberta interrupts the conversation. She tells Miss Lucy that someone is waiting for her, and Lucy grumbles. Lucy assures her colleague that the complete records she has match the ones in the Griffin Building. However, she asserts that, according to the Fugitive Slave Law, she must surrender runaways freely—“not drop everything […] just because some slave catcher thinks he’s onto his bounty” (131). She also states that “we don’t harbor murderers” (131) before sending Cora on her way.

Cora goes to the bunkhouse stairs to collect her thoughts. While she knows that the hunters could be looking for anyone, the detail about a murderer stirs her. She then goes to Caesar’s dormitory. He isn’t there. She takes stock of her situation, knowing that the sketches of her and Caesar on the fliers that Terrance had printed resemble the two of them enough to give a savvy hunter pause. She knows that she will not rest until she has spoken with Caesar and Sam. She feels that doom awaits her around every corner.

She makes her way to the Drift and finds Sam by the outhouse. He tells her that Ridgeway is in town has been discussing Cora and Caesar with the town constable, while he serves two members of Ridgeway’s posse. Sam hands Cora a flier, and the word “murderer” jumps out at her. Sam says that he cannot get away for another hour. He promises to milk the men for as much information as possible and attempt to contact Caesar at the factory. He tells Cora to go to his house and wait in the meantime.

Cora runs to Sam’s cottage as fast as she can. She enters it through the back door and washes his dishes to make use of her nervous energy. When Sam returns, he tells her that the situation is dire. He tells her that one of the bounty hunters—a frightful man wearing a necklace of ears—has told him that the posse knows Cora’s location, and that they know who she is. He says that he has not been able to see Caesar, but that Caesar knows to go to the cottage or the saloon, based on a previously made plan. Sam intends to go back to the Drift to wait for him.

Cora asks Sam if he thinks anyone saw them talking. Sam suggests that she go down onto the platform. They lift the trap door, and she descends. Although Cora has never attended church in South Carolina, and Randall had always forbidden enslaved people from taking up religion (on account of it being a distraction), she wonders if she should now pray. She wonders what chances Caesar has of escape, and eventually falls asleep. An untold amount of time later, she crawls back up the stairs and tries to hear what is going on the other side of the trapdoor. She eats some of the provisions before falling asleep again.

Then, Cora awakens to thunderous noise of men pillaging the house. Cora cowers at their nearness, although she cannot make out their words. She soon smells smoke, realizing the house is on fire.