Social and political movements and great upheavals such as war are often created by a spontaneous uprising or a violent act. Such is the case of one of the earliest "origin stories" about where and how the Underground Railroad Movement began. The Thomas Boude and Stephen Smith incident of 1804 in Columbia, Lancaster County, PA is one such event. This single-session course will explore this event in context with the often vague and misunderstood nature of the Underground Railroad, which has been characterized as America's first civil rights movement.