The Underground Railroad

Chapter 7 Summary

This chapter introduces us to the character of Arnold Ridgeway, the infamous slave catcher. Ridgeway is the son of a blacksmith. From a young age, Ridgeway viewed his father’s work, with its transfixing molten iron, as “a window into the primitive energies of the world” (75). Ridgeway had a drinking partner named Tom Bird, who was a “half-breed” (75). When encouraged by inebriation, Tom would often speak of the Great Spirit that dwelled in all living things. These ideas reminded Ridgeway of his feelings about iron—the “liquid fire” of the earth that could be shaped and wrought into all manner of useful objects: “nails, horseshoes, plows, knives, guns. Chains” (75). While a young Ridgeway watched his father expertly manipulate the molten iron, his father assured him that he, too, would one day find his spirit.

At 14, and with a strapping body that betrayed none of the confusion within it, Ridgeway took up with the patrollers. At the time, the cotton trade was inflating the number of slaves in the country, while the slave revolts in the West Indies were worrying local planters. The number of patrollers, therefore, was also rising—and Ridgeway quickly found his place among their ranks.