The Underground Railroad was large group of people who secretly worked together to help slaves escape slavery in the south. Despite the name, the Underground Railroad had nothing to do with actual railroads and was not located underground (www.freedomcenter.org). The Underground Railroad helped move hundreds of slaves to the north each year. It’s estimated that the south lost 100,000 slaves during 1810-1850 (www.pbs.org).
In Pennsylvania, Harriet Tubman became an abolitionist. She worked to end slavery. She decided to become a conductor on the Underground Railroad (a network of antislavery activists who helped slaves escape from the South). On her first trip in 1850, Harriet Tubman brought her sister and her sister's two children out of slavery in Maryland. In 1851 she rescued her brother, and in 1857 Harriet Tubman returned to Maryland and brought her parents to freedom.
The Fugitive Slave Act was a very controversial law when passed. In 1850, the Fugitive Slave Act was a federal law that stated runaway slaves should be captured and returned to their owner. If anyone were to interfere and help a runaway slave, there would be severe punishments for the interferer. The Fugitive Slave Act denied slave the right of trial by jury and any citizens who helped any slaves were fined. This act resulted badly in free states. In The Slave Catchers, the author informs the readers that the Act of 1850 imposed “ the possibilities that free Negroes would be kidnapped and sold into slavery posed a constant threat” (Campbell 175). Slave hunters or slave holders would go into free states and enslave free black men. One victim of the Fugitive Slave Act was Northup. Northup was a musician. He was mistaken for a runaway slave and was sold into slavery for twelve years. This act made the Abolitionist mad because the federal government was so quick in enforcing this law. They believed that if the government can enforce this law so quickly, other slave laws could be enforced too. Northerners tried every way to bypass this law and work their way around it. They would help the runaway slaves through various methods, one most famously known as The Underground Railroad. For slaves that started a new life in the North before the act was enacted, it meant
Although not "underground" nor a "railroad," this informal system became a loosely constructed network of escape routes that originated in the South, intertwined throughout the North, and eventually ended in Canada and other places where runaways were safe from being recaptured. From 1830 to 1865, the Underground Railroad reached its peak as abolitionists who condemned human bondage aided large numbers of slaves to freedom. They not only called for an end to slavery, but acted to assist its victims in securing freedom. Unlike other organized activities of the abolition movement that primarily denounced human bondage, the Underground Railroad secretly resisted slavery by aiding runaways.
The Underground Railroad brought freedom to countless passengers in the years leading up to the Civil War, thanks to conductors who risked their own lives to help slaves escape and lead them to slavery. Harriet Tubman is one of the most famous conductors to have worked on the Underground Railroad, whose journeys were made even more dangerous due to the fact that she was an escaped slave herself. Tubman was nicknamed “Moses” for helping hundreds of slaves find freedom and was very proud to say to say of her time as a conductor, “I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger” (Harriet Tubman).
Throughout the 19th century slavery was prevalent in the United States. African Americans were treated harshly and unequally and struggled tremendously to achieve social and political equality. The North and South fought back and fourth about free and slave territories which eventually led to the civil war. Harriet Tubman was an African American woman born into slavery. She was an abolitionist,humanitarian and Union spy, who desperately believed that all slaves should be free. Tubman took extreme risks in trying to get slaves to safety through the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman’s contributions as the conductor of the Underground Railroad and her role in the Civil War had crucial influence in the emancipation of slaves. Her perseverance helped lead to social equality between Whites and African Americans and changed the history of the United States. Harriet Tubman was an American icon who’s bravery and heroic actions led to great impacts throughout America.
Servitude has been present in America since 1619 and has affected the lives of countless Americans. Slavery was the underlying cause to the American Civil War, which led to tremendous consequences within the United States. Slaves were being sold to work on cotton farms in the southern parts of the United States where cash crops generated money. Many of these slaves tried to escape from slavery, and were unsuccessful. However, Harriet Tubman was one of the few people to individually accomplish freedom and escape the horrors of enslavement. She is a remarkable individual who accomplished incredible tasks through her own bravery, intelligence, and strength. She is acknowledged as one of the most influential and passionate women in American history. Motivated by her own unjust past, Harriet Tubman became an active abolitionist, a respected conductor in the abolitionist movement known as the Underground Railroad, and served as a nurse and a spy in the American Civil war.
Harriet Tubman was closely associated with Abolitionist John Brown and was well acquainted with other abolitionists, including Frederick Douglas, Jermain Loguen, and Gerrit Smith. After freeing herself from slavery, Tubman worked at various activities to save to finance her activities as a Conductor of the Underground Railroad. She is believed to have conducted approximately 300 persons to freedom in the North. The tales of her exploits reveal her highly spiritual nature, as well as a grim determination to protect her charges and those who aided t...
When people hear about the Underground Railroad for the first time they perceive the picture that it’s a railroad that is literally underground, but that isn’t the case with the Underground Railroad. This railroad was not underground or even a railroad. The name was derived from the activities being conducted in secret, and “using darkness or disguise” (history.com). This was the means of African Americans escapes; if they would have been caught they would get a harsh punishment, that punishment could consist of being “sold to someone who lived much further south than Maryland, where it would be harder to run away because the distance to the North was so much greater” (thinkport.org). Other punishments for slaves when they escape were that they would get “beaten and forced to do exceptionally hard work”. One of the most famous known conductors of the Underground Railroad is Harriet Tubman.
Hiding under wooden floors, in attics, in basements, and hidden doorways. The Underground Railroad wasn't a actual railroad but a system of abolitionist helping escaped slaves. Harriet Tubman was an escaped slave, she started the railway. Helping starving wanted ex-slaves and risking her life for theirs. Harriet Tubman has helped so many African Americans escaped before slavery was outlawed.
The Underground Railroad was used by many black slaves who escaped to freedom, conductors who helped free slaves were great people who took many risks. The days when slaves thought they could never make it or when a conductor's house was the best feeling in the whole world helped slaves not lose hope. Slaves may have not had a full education, but they knew they didn't deserve this, “Some slaves chose to rebel because of their lack of rights and the dominant power places on them...they received physical punishments, physical abuse and no right to an education” (The Underground Railroad Wksht). Many slaves were soon fed up with the abuse they were received all based on the color of their skin and background so they decided to resist and flee. More than hundreds were lucky enough to seek help from conductors on the Underground Railroad. Men and women of each color worked in unison to free slaves, they are the reason to why so many slaves could breathe in the fresh air and walk without any chains. They broke laws, but they did a good deed and the many bounties on their heads and the suspicions never hindered their determination to bring slaves to freedom. One conductor could not bring a handful of slaves to freedom in the North or especially Canada without the high risk of being caught. It took the whole team of conductors to bring slaves to freedom. Many conductors who took slaves out of the plantations and started them on their journeys, used disguises to return for others and help slaves at least get a day without whips or chains. Conductors were able to walk freely, but they are the ones who decided for themselves to help the men, woman, and all the children who wanted a new life. Many slaves were able to escape with no more physical abuse, get an education, and all because the conductors on the Underground Railroad gave a
The Underground Railroad was how Harriet freed hundreds of slaves, including her aging parents. The Underground Railroad was a route that Harriet took to free the slaves. She would have covered wagons with fixed bottoms, which were filled with slaves. She would take them to various homes of other abolitionists for food and shelter throughout the night. Once day broke Harriet would continue her journey towards the free states (Smith par 1-2).
The Underground Railroad consisted of many secret routes that the runaway slaves took to escape to freedom. Although some historians claim that the Underground Railroad was never as effective and organized as people make it to be, the system did exist. It’s conductors were always black and they rescored bands of slaves into the North, relying on both black and white homesteads, called “stations.” At these stations, the runaway slaves would hide and be fed. Harriet Beecher Stowe said that she and her husband hid slaves too, and her novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, was based on a real-life story of how Eliza Harris and her son escaped to the North.
The Underground Railroad was an escape network of small, independent groups of individuals bound together by the common belief that enslaving a human being was immoral. A loosely structured, informal system of people who, without regard for their own personal safety. Conducting fugitives from slavery to free states, and eventually to Canada where they could not be returned to slavery was a dangerous undertaking.
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