All of these negroes were the descendants of the slaves of an earlier period, long since freed, who had lived for many generations on terms of equality and industrial exchange among gentle, high-born people. Harriet had known and met them on terms of mutual respect. It would have been inconceivable to her to enter into relations as owner and slave with that companionable “Dine” or that soft-voiced, ladylike Zillah. As a result of her experience, she approached the slave question not as a mere theorist. It is evident that it cannot with truth be said that her study of it dated from the time of her settlement in Cincinnati; but it is certain that when she did come to live in Ohio, further opportunities were given her to know the conditions in her own country in regard to this matter. In New England she had been in a land of theories of human freedom; now she was to come into contact with facts; she was to have her heart bleed for the human misery and oppression which she saw. The Belle Rivière was the dividing line between slave country and free country, Kentucky on the south being a slave state and Ohio on the north being ardently anti-slavery. And after the movement for freeing the slaves began, there was formed an “underground railroad”--that is, a series of farmhouses and homes that served as stations, at convenient distances from each other, where friendly people lived with whom the escaping slaves could find shelter, from Cincinnati all across the state to Canada. By this means any fugitive could be taken by night on horseback or in a covered wagon from station to station, until he passed beyond the Canadian boundaries where he was under the protection of the British power. It is evident that there was at that time scarcely a spot in the United States where the excitement and irritation of the slavery agitation ran so high. People in Cincinnati had “property” (consisting of slaves) over the line in Kentucky and people in Kentucky were seeking their “property” that was running off to Ohio. Negroes were negotiable currency; they were collateral security on half the contracts that were at that time being made between the thriving men of Cincinnati and the planters of the adjoining slave states. It was natural that when the structure of business included this kind of property and no one was willing to open the case of the rightfulness of keeping possession in that form at all, the excitement of the discussion should rise to a great pitch. It did reach such a height at last that there were mobs in the streets and danger to the lives of all about the city and the region.