Underground To Canada

The author uses chains to represent the cruelty and violence of slave owners and the whole system of slavery. Barbara Smucker repeatedly refers to chains in the story, emphasizing the suffering and indignity they caused to enslaved people. For instance, Lester, Ben, and Adam are attached to the slave trader’s wagon with “torturing chains,” which force them to run behind the wagon and create wounds on their legs (28). Smucker compares this chain to a “silver snake” to further associate it with evil and the Edenic motif.

Later, when Adam and Lester are recaptured, Julilly is haunted by the “clanking” chains that signal their return to captivity and enslavement (82). Ultimately, Adam’s experience of being chained kills him through blood poisoning. By making chains responsible for Adam’s death, Smucker connects their violence and cruelty with its terrible consequences for enslaved people. Alexander Ross blames the chains for Adam’s death: “‘It was the chains.’ His voice was husky. ‘They were too tight and cut through the flesh. When we filed them off, there was blood poisoning’” (123). The human-made chains, described as snakes, represent the violence and dehumanization of chattel slavery and introduce evil into the natural world.