In the chapter set in South Carolina, black dormitory residents who are “owned by the government” are secretly subjected to forced sterilization and are the unknowing subjects of a study in the progression of syphilis. Tubman is probably the most famous leader of the underground railroad. One of its critics was Harriet Tubman, a formerly enslaved woman who escaped before assisting many others. This law stated that northern states had to cooperate with the capture and return of runaways to the South, and it was viciously opposed by abolitionists. In 1850, the year in which the novel is set, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed as part of the Compromise of 1850 between northern “free” states and southern slave-owning states. The novel also makes use of several other key pieces of American history, although not necessarily in a historically accurate way. While the underground railroad was mostly not a literal train network (as it is depicted in the novel), there is evidence of some physical railroad infrastructure being used in order to transport runaways to freedom. The novel takes inspiration from the real-life underground railroad, a system of networks, safe houses, and “station agents,” used to convey runaway slaves to the north.
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