The Writings of Thomas Smallwood

The Writings of Thomas Smallwood - Paperback

$17.00
$17.00
Skip to product information
The Writings of Thomas Smallwood
  • The Writings of Thomas Smallwood
The Writings of Thomas Smallwood - Paperback

The Writings of Thomas Smallwood - Paperback

by Thomas Smallwood
$17.00
$17.00

Book Overview

A long-forgotten Black abolitionist who liberated captive workers by the wagonload, brilliantly satirized slaveholders, and gave the underground railroad its name.

A Penguin Classic

Thomas Smallwood was a shoemaker by day and an organizer of mass escapes from slavery by night. Twelve years after purchasing his freedom, Smallwood took to the press and, over a sixteen-month stretch starting in 1842, pseudonymously published newspaper dispatches ridiculing and excoriating enslavers by name and offering sobering reflections on the depravity of slavery. With the pen that Smallwood called his "lash," he leveraged mockery to flip the oppressive racial power structure of America. These dispatches, in which Smallwood was the first to use "underground railroad" in print, are the only accounts of escapes to be published in real time, imbuing Smallwood's subversive wit with urgency and defiance. His 1851 memoir is prescient on the United States' tormented entanglement with race.

Penguin Classics is the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world, representing a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.
ISBN9780143138389
Author Thomas Smallwood
PublisherPenguin Classics
GenreBiography, History, and Education
FormatPaperback
PublishedFebruary 2026
LanguageENG- English
Pages208
Weight1.0 lb
Target AudienceAdults
Print SizeStandard Print

Related Subjects

Biography & Autobiography History Nonfiction Social Science

1% fer Each of the Seven Seas

Every purchase sends 7% of our profits to The Ocean Cleanup. No fine print, no opt-in — just how we sail.

Whoever Ye Be, Welcome Aboard

Queer lit, music, art, philosophy, fiction — stories for every kind of soul. Come as ye are, matey.

More by Thomas Smallwood

The Writings of Thomas Smallwood

The Writings of Thomas Smallwood - Paperback

The Writings of Thomas Smallwood - Paperback

By Thomas Smallwood

About Thomas Smallwood

THOMAS SMALLWOOD (1801-1883) was born into slavery near Washington, D.C., purchased his freedom, educated himself and became a shoemaker in the nation's capital. In the early 1840s, he organized an underground railroad operation that freed more than 200 people from slavery in the Washington-Baltimore region, while writing satirical newspaper dispatches about the escapes under a pseudonym. In his newspaper pieces, he gave the underground railroad its name. When the local police caught on, Smallwood made his own daring escape to Toronto, Canada, where he started a business manufacturing saws and published a short memoir in 1851. He never returned to the United States.

You may also like