“Harriet Tubman, Henry Bibb, Anthony Burns, Addison White, Josiah Henson and John Parker -”(“Underground Railroad: A Pathway to Freedom” 1) . These were all well known individuals who escaped slavery using the Underground Railroad. Beginning in the late 1700’s, many lives were at risk all for the sake of their freedom. The Underground Railroad was not only a secret system that was used to help fugitive slaves gain their freedom, but it was an opportunity for a better life. Although the Railroad had its advantages, it also had many downfalls. The life of slavery had taken a large toll on many lives, so they had to find a way to the north for a better chance of survival. At the time, by escaping to the north, slaves would be considered freed men and women, but with the creation of the fugitive slave acts, many African American men and women had to do so much more to gain their freedom. Freedom was the objective that all slaves sought. Each day of their lives they were not even considered a full person, but only three fifths of one. Slaves had worked long hours in harsh conditions only to be disciplined when seen fit. The only way to escape this madness was to flee from the plantations since they had no rights in the court. Few had succeeded on their own, but many were caught and punished. The only way they could escape would be through the use of “a secret system developed to aid fugitive slaves on their escape to freedom.(“Underground Railroad: A Pathway to Freedom” 1). With the usage of the Underground railroad, there were “ conductors” ( conductors were anti- slavery volunteers) that made it their priority to rescue runaway slaves and aid them on the dangerous journey to the north. “The Underground Railroad, was organized prio... ... middle of paper ... ...ve to keep moving forward and never give up your goal. Without a goal in mind, you will not get very far in life. Works Cited "Civil War and Underground Railroad Timeline and Resources from American Historian Fergus Bordewich." Civil War and Underground Railroad Timeline and Resources from American Historian Fergus Bordewich. N.p., n.d. Web. 15 Apr. 2014. Eastern Illinois University Homepage." Underground Railroad: A Path to Freedom. N.p., n.d. Web. 21 Apr. 2014. "Pathways to Freedom | About the Underground Railroad." Pathways to Freedom | About the Underground Railroad. N.p., n.d. Web. 19 Apr. 2014. "The Underground Railroad." The Underground Railroad. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 Apr. 2014. Tobin, Jacqueline, and Hettie Jones. From Midnight to Dawn: The Last Tracks of the Underground Railroad. New York: Doubleday, 2007. Print.
It is believed that the system of the Underground Railroad began in 1787 when a Quaker named Isaac T. Hopper started to organize a system for hiding and aiding fugitive slaves. The Underground Railroad was a vast, loosely organized network of people who helped aid fugitive slaves in their escape to the North and Canada. It operated mostly at night and consisted of many whites, but predominately blacks. While the Underground Railroad had unofficially existed before it, a cause for its expansion was the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed for runaway slaves to be captured and returned within the territory of the United States and added further provisions regarding the runaways and imposed even harsher chastisements for interfering in their capture (A&E). The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was a major cause of the development o...
Annie Filban was 12-years-old when her and her family moved into an old house in Wendell, North Carolina. Her parents found this house for a very reasonable price, but it wasn’t just because the house was old. It was soon discovered that her parents had purchased a home that was part of the Underground Railroad. Not only did it have a deep history, but also the last tenant had recently died in the home. So, her family moved into their new home.
Burke, Henry R. Journeys on the Underground Railroad . Marietta, OH: The Underground Railroad Research Center, 1995.
Burns, Eleanor and Bouchard, Sue - The Underground Railroad Sampler, pp. 33, 97, 100, 128.
" Time, November 1998. Harley, Sharon. The Timetables of African-American History. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995.
The. Crichton, Michael. A. The Great Train Robbery. First Ballantine Books, ed.
The Underground Railroad was an extremely complex organization whose mission was to free slaves from southern states in the mid-19th century. It was a collaborative organization comprised of white homeowners, freed blacks, captive slaves, or anyone else who would help. This vast network was fragile because it was entirely dependent on the absolute discretion of everyone involved. A slave was the legal property of his owner, so attempting escape or aiding a fugitive slave was illegal and dangerous, for both the slave and the abolitionist. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass understands that he can only reveal so many details about his escape from servitude, saying, “I deeply regret the necessity that impels
The Underground Railroad received its name from two events involving masters chasing after the slaves. In 1831 a slave escaped to Ohio and has to swim across the Ohio River because that was the only way to escape his master. His master got into a small and continued to trail him. The slave reached the shore and then disappeared. When his master wasn’t able to find him, he told his friends that, “he must have gone off on an underground road”. Eight years after this incident, spoke of the torture of a captured slave. The reporter said he told of a railroad that went underground all the way to Boston. This is how the Underground Railroad became the Underground Railroad, although it doesn’t deal with railroads or underground (The Underground Railroad by: Shaaron Cosner).
Biography Underground Railroad Kate Clifford Larson. N.p., n.d. Web. 04 Mar. 2014. Ripley, C. Peter et al., eds., The Black Abolitionist Papers, vol. 5, The United States, 1859-1865
Another point that someone might argue about the Underground Railroad is Harriet Tubman. She was one of the conductors of the Underground Railroad. She would an African American born slave, spent most of her life on the plantation, who risked her life multiple to times to get her fellow slaves to safety. She escaped from Maryland but see continued to put her freedom on the line for fellow slaves who wanted to use the Underground Railroad. Her original intent was to go back to Maryland to get her husband, but to her surprise, he had taken a new wife. She was angered by this but this anger was only used for the good of getting her whole family out of slavery and to their freedom. She continued to travel back south help people about ten years
The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad with a train but a network of meeting places in which African slaves could follow to Canada where they could free. Those who helped were at risk of the law but got the satisfaction of knowing that they were helping those who did not deserve to be treated like less than everyone else. People who escaped had to take care, they were creative with giving instructions and the way they escaped their owners but if they were caught the punishment was not very humane.
The underground railroad was a system organized to safely move slaves into free states (Coddon). Harriet Tubman was an outstanding abolitionist and black leader of her time. After freeing her whole family from slavery, Tubman’s main concern was the freedom of all slaves. She became well acquainted with many white abolitionists and often received food and shelter from them, while trying to free someone from slavery (Coddon). Most of the Underground Railroad was organized in Philadelphia, where Tubman became acquainted with William Still (Coddon). This was were the first anti-slavery society was established. Still was a black man who was the executive director of the General Vigilance Committee and later became known as “The Father of the Underground Railroad” (Coddon). Since written records were life-threatening to keep, many were burned or not kept at all. Although William Still did say this about Harriet Tubman, “She was a woman of no pretensions; indeed , a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found...Yet courage shrewdness, and disinterested exertions to rescue her fellow man, she was without equal. (Coddon)” Still encouraged African resistance to slavery, and even taught himself how to read (Turner). He worked nonstop to end race discrimination and, in 1867, he published A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of Colored
The Underground Railroad despite occurring centuries ago continues to be an “enduring and popular thread in the fabric of America’s national historical memory” as Bright puts it. Throughout history, thousands of slaves managed to escape the clutches of slavery by using a system meant to liberate. In Colson Whitehead’s novel, The Underground Railroad, he manages to blend slave narrative and history creating a book that goes beyond literary or historical fiction. Whitehead based his book off a question, “what if the Underground Railroad was a real railroad?” The story follows two runaway slaves, Cora and Caesar, who are pursued by the relentless slave catcher Ridgeway. Their journey on the railroad takes them to new and unfamiliar locations,
By the early 19th century, slavery had grown and become interwoven with all social and political institutions, and was considered by many to be a vital part of our nation. As many of the northern states began to change their policies on the enslavement of Africans, the South became aware that those areas might become a haven of refuge for runaway slaves. In an effort to appease southern slave owners, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1793, which allowed slave owners to apprehend fugitives in any state or territory and only required them to apply for custody from a circuit or district judge. Due to the act’s ambiguity and lack of uniform enforcement, slaveholders became increasingly agitated. The growing movement of abolitionists to smuggle and rescue fugitive slaves compounded this frustration; the best known organization being the Underground Railroad.
"The Road Not Taken: a Study Guide." Cummings Study Guides. Michael Cummings, n.d. Web. 3 Apr 2011. .