AUSTIN (Nexstar) — The story of the Underground Railroad is largely taught in American history as a northern route that slaves used to escape and find their freedom, but a new exhibit at a University of Texas museum is highlighting the untold stories of slaves paths to freedom to Mexico.
Silvia Hector Webber’s family gave up over 800 acres of land in exchange for freedom for her and her children, her emancipation papers show. Webber’s story is the centerpiece of UT-Austin’s Briscoe Center for American History’ s newest exhibit called Freedom Papers: Evidence of Emancipation .
The display showcases a variety of documents to convey what it took for enslaved people, primarily women and children, to be freed before the Emancipation Proclamation.
“This provides us with real primary source evidence of the experience that people went through trying to gain their freedom and trying to exist in a world where they were born without human rights,” said Sarah Sonner, the center’s associate director for curation. “It lets us form a personal connection to lives that happened before the Civil War.”