Minnesota Now and Then: Minnesota's role in the Underground Railroad

CATHY WURZER: Newly uncovered history by a Minnesota historian suggests that the state had a larger role in the underground railroad than previously known. In our Minnesota Now and Then segment today, we're going back to prestatehood in the mid-1850s for this story. Black abolitionist Moses Dickson led countless formerly enslaved people to freedom. There are about 10 years of his life that historians have not been able to place. That's until now.

Historian Karen Sieber has placed Moses in Saint Paul. Karen now has started the Finding Moses initiative to build a comprehensive database of names, places, and resources associated with Moses Dickson and also to better understand the midwest's role in the underground railroad.

Karen's on the line. Wow. I have to give you my tip of the hat. This is an amazing story that you've uncovered, Karen. So I like to think of myself as a Minnesota historian, but I have to say I've never heard of Moses Dickson. Where did you find him?

KAREN SIEBER: Yeah, and many people are not familiar with Moses Dickson's name. I'm a historian of Black history and riots and resistance. And so in my line of work, Moses is actually quite well known. He is thought to be the leader behind a planned but failed national slave revolt in the late 1850s. And he was known to be one of the most major underground railroad leaders of the era. But little has been known about him. And very much of what we do know about him has been self-curated.

And I have been studying Dickson for about seven or eight years. First started looking into a later fraternal organization that he started and a Black hospital that was founded by this organization in Mound Bayou, Mississippi. And later I worked for the Galena Historical Society in Illinois if anyone's been to that area of the Driftless. And Dickson has a connection to Galena as well.

And so I got curious about these missing 10 years in Dickson's life when I was there in Galena, and years later I'm now settled in Minnesota and thought that I would pick up the story again and figure out where we could track him along the river, along these routes that we know that he was active.

CATHY WURZER: Wow. So you found him in Minnesota. And I'm curious as to what-- was he then conducting? Was he helping folks move to freedom here in Minnesota?

KAREN SIEBER: Very much or very little is known about his activities in Minnesota because this is a new discovery. We never knew that he was here before. So what we do know are that in the late 1840s, he started two secret abolitionist organizations, one in Saint Louis, one in Galena, with other Black abolitionists that were then dispersing out to communities across the United States and organizing folks in those areas.

And so we know that from the late 1840s through the 1850s was when this organizing was happening. And so as the story goes, there was over 40,000 people that were supposed to be part of this planned slave revolt.

And so we know that during this time period, this is what he was supposed to be doing. But we also now know that this time period he was in Minnesota. And so if this story about the national slave revolt and his activities in the Underground Railroad are to be agreed upon, that means that all of this was happening while he was stationed here in Minnesota, living here, working here.

We know that the community that he lived with in the Lowertown neighborhood in Saint Paul was also home to other likely Underground Railroad actors. And he was working closely with William Taylor and Joseph Farr, two folks that we think were also actors on the Underground Railroad here.

Dickson was active in a few different areas that we know that the Underground Railroad had active actors in. So he was initially came to town and was active on the river through his work on the steamboats. He later operated Dickson's eating saloon, likely the first Black business in town. But this also would have given him kind of the perfect location right as boats were coming into town.

And then we also know that Black barbers, historically nationwide, were very important in the Underground Railroad network. So we know that Dickson, as well as William Taylor, were both barbers at a few different locations in town like the Winslow House.

And so there's not that smoking gun yet of someone writing a letter that says Moses Dickson helped me to freedom in Saint Paul. But many of the stories that Dickson tells are similar stories to what Farr and others have told about helping people to freedom, such as helping a woman to freedom by cutting off all of her hair and having her dress like a man.

And so right now we're just hoping to better understand what that network of individuals looked like in that Lowertown neighborhood. We know that there's a horse stable of Willoughby's Transportation company that was used. We know that there was a church, a bell tower that was used at the Presbyterian church. And so we're just hoping to better document what that community looked like in territorial Saint Paul.

CATHY WURZER: And then he left, right? Do we know where he-- after he left Saint Paul, where did he go and actually end up his the rest of his life?

KAREN SIEBER: Yeah. By 1860, he's back in St. Louis, where his wife has connections and where he also has connections. And this is where he really just continues to fight for freedom. He recognizes that the freedom that was laid out in the Emancipation Proclamation did not necessarily cover all of their bases.

And so he spent the remainder of his life still fighting for equality in every aspect of Black life. He opened the HBCU Lincoln University. He opened churches and schools for African-Americans throughout the south, many who were bombed by the KKK in response.

He started the Missouri Equal Rights League. He opened Prince Hall masons temples throughout the midwest, including here in Saint Paul. So we know that Dickson returned to Saint Paul in later years and remained connected to town and to some of the folks that we know that he was involved with here.

He was also one of the nation's most important leaders in the exoduster movement. And so as African-Americans were fleeing the south in those years after the Civil War, heading to locations north and west, Dickson and a few others in Saint Louis, which was kind of the central kind of terminal for movement of folks at the time, Dickson was one of the most vocal advocates and leaders for that. He was also a reconstruction politician--

CATHY WURZER: I wish-- we are having-- thank you. I appreciate hearing all of this. He sounds very interesting. I wish I had more time with you here, Karen. Sounds like you have a website, findingmoses.org, that I'll have people check out. It sounds like you've got quite a story to tell. I appreciate your time. Thank you so much. Thank you so much.

KAREN SIEBER: Thank you.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Karen Sieber. She's a local historian behind the Finding Moses Initiative.