Customer Reviews

His Promised Land: The Autobiography of John P. Parker, Former Slave and Conductor on the Underground Railroad

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John Parker's autobiography is an engrossing and often surprising account of the activities of the Underground Railroad. Parker was born and lived as a slave until buying his freedom and moving to Ripley, Ohio. There he joined forces with Rev. John Rankin in helping slaves cross the Ohio River and escape to Canada. His account is lucid, swift-moving, rambunctious, and highly literate. He describes the Ohio River Valley as "the Borderland," comparing it to the lawless, violent Scots/English border. The border, constantly raided by Abolitionists helping steal men, women, and children out of slavery and patrolled by slave-owning vigilantes intent on catching them, simmers in as treacherous a state of unrest and violence as any "Wild West" town at its worst. Parker never walks the streets of Ripley without a pistol, knife, and black jack in his belt. He never admits to working for the Underground Railroad, especially after passage of the Fugitive Slave Law in 1850, but pretty much everyone in the region knows that he does, putting his life in constant danger.

Parker's account abounds in hair-breadth escapes, heart-rending failures, and startling heroics. He also reveals aspects of the Underground Railroad that one never suspects but which seem inevitable after he describes them, such as the competition that developed between John Rankin's Ripley, Ohio branch of the Railroad and Levi Coffin's Cincinnati group. Parker insists that Coffin was merely the better publicist, not the better rescuer of the two. It's also clear that for Parker rescuing slaves was not merely a fierce moral imperative but also an activity touched with excitement, zest--even, strange as this sounds, fun. There is an element of sport to his activities, despite their grim, life and death seriousness. Parker is obviously bold, intelligent, crafty--good at what he does--and he relishes the hard-won triumphs of courage and guile that allow him to free his fellow slaves.

It's hard to say what place &qu! ot;His Promised Land" will take in American literature. It will not, I don't think, replace Frederick Douglass's "Narrative of an American Slave" as the country's premier account of the experience of slavery. It's not as powerful, relentless, or literarily self-conscious an account as Douglass's great work. But it may prove to be, for the Underground Railroad, what Sam Watkins's "Co. Aytch" is for the Civil War: perhaps the most engaging, colorful, and moving account by an 'ordinary extraordinary' man in one of this country's most agonizing and dramatic conflicts.

I ordered this book after seeing an interesting reference to it in an article in Smithsonian Magazine. I am so very glad I did.It is an amazing book, a very rare combination of thought provoking historical narrative, and Indiana Jones-ish excitement. I only wish it had been ten times as long-I would have devoured it. If I hadn't read the preface, which gives the background, I would have thought it was fiction, and pretty darn nail biting fiction at that.
I have given quite a bit of thought to this book, wondering what I would have done, given the same situation, and concluded that you can only hope you would be strong enough to rise to the circumstances, but fear is a powerful deterrent.I am giving my copy to the history department chair at my daughters' high school, and will ask them to consider making it a part of the curriculum.

I brought this book some time ago and just got around to reading it. Well, let me tell you that I can kick myself for not reading it sooner. You will get through this book so fast your head would spin because it is so interesting you will not want to put it down. John P. Parker, my hero.

This is an African-American voice from the era of Huckleberry Finn, but don't expect him to sound anything like Jim. Or like the distinguished Frederick Douglass, either. John P. Parker's voice is plain, proud, and very angry -- not without humor in its dry understatement. Caught trying to escape, he is captured by three scary flatboat-men: "Tom was a bully, a river bully with a reputation for cruelty and meanness, which he no doubt enjoyed. He was red-headed and red-bearded. Neither seemed to have known the touch of a comb for some time. I knew his type as soon as I saw him." He describes Tom's companions like this: "Bill was a fat blubbery body, slow of thought, and slower in action. Joe was short, thin, with a monkey face, and about as much intelligence. These were my judges."

The reviewer above is quite right to compare his bold escapes and adventures to Indiana Jones's. What a movie this would make! And it should be made available in affordable paperback editions so high school students can read about this African-American hero. Self-educated and literate, articulate, unapologetic and brave beyond measure, Parker's story has a remarkably happy ending. How unusual is THAT for a slave narrative? "His Promised Land" is a very important literary discovery, and a ripping good read.

This book is a series of adventures by John Parker that were dictated to a young reporter who turned it into a manuscript. It has wonderful action and gives a realistic understanding of what a conductor on the Underground Railroad had to experience to assist freedom seekers to the north. He was a real American hero. Check out our project on John Parker at [...]

This book is based on reporter Frank Gregg's interview with John Parker in Ripley Ohio. Despite the many things that are repulsive to us in this book, the book is really about the triumph of one man, John Parker "How I hated slavery as it fettered me". Parker, even as a slave, rebels against the cruel practices and himself had to flee after beating a white woman that was whipping a slave. Gregg's `He was a mulatto with a white man's brain and imagination." shows the climate of even a sympathetic reporter. My own adopted state of Kentucky, is not shown to be in good light from 1845 to 1865, as the Borderland on the Ohio River, is inhabitant by those who hunt runaway slaves and hunt those, like Parker, who help runaway slaves. Parker is rightfully proud of Ripley as the origin of the Underground Railroad, and proud of his work as a conductor and the stories of aiding runaways are nothing short of heroic and exuberance. "As my mission was a dangerous one, I put a pair of pistols in my pockets and a knife in my belt, ready for emergencies." Parker's "day job" included inventing with patents for a tobacco press, sugar mill and soil pulverizer. As a further incentive to purchase this book, proceeds benefit the John P. Parker historical society which has preserved Parker's house in Ripley Ohio. Well worth a trip!.

If you are at all interested in the Underground Railroad or are looking for a book full of excitement, this is the one for you. It's a fairly quick read, but explores the heights and depths of the human spirit. I would highly recommend this book. After finishing this book, I was reminded that altough we all face adversities, we all can achieve. John Parker proved that.

My daughter needed this book for research of slavery. It was great for her and she learned alot!