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1、 A gentle breeze swept the Canadian plains as I stepped outside the small two-story house. 我步出这幢两层小屋，加拿大平原上轻风微拂。 Alongside me was a slender woman in a black dress, my guide back to a time when the surrounding settlement in Dresden, Ontario, was home to a hero in American history. 我身边是一位苗条的黑衣女子，把我带回到
2、过去的向导。那时，安大略省得雷斯顿这一带 住着美国历史上的一位英雄。 As we walked toward a plain gray church, Barbara Carter spoke proudly of her great-great- grandfather, Josiah Henson. 我们前往一座普普通通的灰色教堂，芭芭拉卡特自豪地谈论着其高祖乔赛亚亨森。 “He was confident that the Creator intended all men to be created equal. “他坚信上帝要所有人生来平等。 And he never gave up
3、struggling for that freedom.“ 他从来没有停止过争取这一自由权利的奋斗。 ” 2 Carters devotion to her ancestor is about more than personal pride: it is about family honor. 卡特对其先辈的忠诚不仅仅关乎一己之骄傲，而关乎家族荣誉。 For Josiah Henson has lived on through the character in American fiction that he helped inspire: 因为乔赛亚亨森至今仍为人所知是由于他所激发的创作灵
4、感使得一个美国小说人物问世：Uncle Tom, the long-suffering slave in Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin. Ironically, that character has come to symbolize everything Henson was not. 汤姆叔叔，哈丽特比彻斯陀的小说汤姆叔叔的小屋中那个逆来顺受的黑奴。具有 讽刺意味的是，这一人物所象征的一切在亨森身上一点都找不到。 A racial sellout unwilling to stand up for himself? 一个不愿奋起力争、背叛种
5、族的黑人？ Carter gets angry at the thought. 卡特对此颇为愤慨。 “Josiah Henson was a man of principle,“ she said firmly. “乔赛亚亨森是个有原则的人， ”她肯定地说。 4 Yet this stop was only part of a much larger mission for me. 但此地只是我所承担的繁重使命的一处停留地。 Josiah Henson is but one name on a long list of courageous men and women who together
6、 forged the Underground Railroad, a secret web of escape routes and safe houses that they used to liberate slaves from the American South. 乔赛亚亨森只是一长串无所畏惧的男女名单中的一个名字，这些人共同创建了这条“地 下铁路” ，一条由逃亡线路和可靠的人家组成的用以解放美国南方黑奴的秘密网络。 Between 1820 and 1860, as many as 100,000 slaves traveled the Railroad to freedom.
7、在 1820 年至 1860 年期间，多达十万名黑奴经由此路走向自由。 5 In October 2000, President Clinton authorized $16 million for the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center to honor this first great civil-rights struggle in the U. S. 2000 年 10 月，克林顿总统批准拨款 1600 万美元建造全国“地下铁路”自由中心，以此纪 念美国历史上第一次伟大的民权斗争。 The center is scheduled to open in 2004 in Cincinnati. And its about time. 中心计划于 2004 年在辛辛那提州建成。真是该建立这样一个中心的时候了。 For the heroes of the Underground Railroad remain too little remembered, their exploits still largely unsung. 因为地下铁路的英雄们依然默默无闻，他们的业绩依然少人颂扬。 I was intent on telling their stories. 我要讲述他们的故事。
