Underground Railroad

For train transportation used underground, see Rapid transit. For other uses, see Underground Railroad (disambiguation).

Underground Railroad

Map of Underground Railroad routes to modern day Canada
Founding location	United States
Territory	United States, and routes to British North America, Mexico, Spanish Florida, and overseas
Ethnicity	African Americans and other compatriots
Criminal activities	Fleeing from slavery into the Northern United States or Canada. Aiding fugitive slaves
Allies	Religious Society of Friends Congregational church Wesleyan Church Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America Philadelphia Vigilance committee
Rivals	Slave catchers, Reverse Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century, and used by enslaved African-Americans to escape into free states and Canada. The scheme was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. Not literally but metaphorically a railroad, the workers (both black and white, free and enslaved) who secretly aided the fugitives are also collectively referred to as the "Underground Railroad". Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, or overseas. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession (except 1763–83), existed from the late 17th century until Florida became a United States territory in 1821. One of the main reasons Florida was purchased by the United States was to end its function as a safe haven for escaped slaves. However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad was formed in the late 1700s. It ran north and grew steadily until the Civil War began. One estimate suggests that by 1850, 100,000 slaves had escaped via the "Railroad".

British North America (present-day Canada) was a desirable destination, as its long border gave many points of access, it was further from slave catchers, and beyond the reach of the United States' Fugitive Slave Acts. Most former slaves, reaching Canada by boat across Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, settled in Ontario. More than 30,000 people were said to have escaped there via the network during its 20-year peak period, although U.S. Census figures account for only 6,000. Numerous fugitives' stories are documented in the 1872 book The Underground Railroad Records by William Still, an abolitionist who then headed the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee.

Political background

At its peak, nearly 1,000 slaves per year escaped from slave-holding states using the Underground Railroad – more than 5,000 court cases for escaped slaves were recorded – many fewer than the natural increase of the enslaved population. The resulting economic impact was minuscule, but the psychological influence on slave holders was immense. Under the original Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, officials from free states were required to assist slaveholders or their agents who recaptured runaway slaves. But, citizens and governments of many free states ignored the law, and the Underground Railroad thrived.

With heavy lobbying by southern politicians, the Compromise of 1850 was passed by Congress after the Mexican–American War. It stipulated a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law; ostensibly, the compromise addressed regional problems by compelling officials of free states to assist slave catchers, granting them immunity to operate in free states. Because the law required sparse documentation to claim a person was a fugitive, slave catchers also kidnapped free blacks, especially children, and sold them into slavery. Southern politicians often exaggerated the number of escaped slaves and often blamed these escapes on Northerners interfering with Southern property rights. The law deprived suspected slaves of the right to defend themselves in court, making it difficult to prove free status. In a de facto bribe, judges were paid a higher fee ($10) for a decision that confirmed a suspect as a slave than for one ruling that the suspect was free ($5). Many Northerners who might have ignored slave issues in the South were confronted by local challenges that bound them to support slavery. This was a primary grievance cited by the Union during the American Civil War, and the perception that Northern States ignored the fugitive slave law was a major justification for secession.

Structure

Harriet Tubman (photo H. B. Lindsley), c. 1870. A worker on the Underground Railroad, Tubman made 13 trips to the South, helping to free over 70 people. She led people to the northern free states and Canada. This helped Harriet Tubman gain the name "Moses of Her People".

Quaker abolitionist Levi Coffin and his wife Catherine helped more than 2,000 slaves escape to freedom.

The escape network was neither literally underground nor a railroad. (Actual underground railroads did not exist until 1863.) According to John Rankin, "It was so called because they who took passage on it disappeared from public view as really as if they had gone into the ground. After the fugitive slaves entered a depot on that road no trace of them could be found. They were secretly passed from one depot to another until they arrived in Canada." It was known as a railroad, using rail terminology such as stations and conductors, because that was the transportation system in use at the time.

The Underground Railroad did not have a headquarters, nor were there published guides, maps, pamphlets, or even newspaper articles. The Underground Railroad consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, and safe houses, all of them maintained by abolitionist sympathizers and communicated by word of mouth. Participants generally organized in small, independent groups; this helped to maintain secrecy because individuals knew some connecting "stations" along the route but knew few details of their immediate area. Escaped slaves would move north along the route from one way station to the next. "Conductors" on the railroad came from various backgrounds and included free-born blacks, white abolitionists, former slaves (either escaped or manumitted), and Native Americans. Church clergy and congregations of the North often played a role, especially the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Congregationalists, Wesleyans, and Reformed Presbyterians, as well as the anti-slavery branches of mainstream denominations which split over the issue, such the Methodist church and the Baptists. The role of free blacks was crucial; without it, there would have been almost no chance for fugitive slaves to reach freedom safely.

Terminology

Members of the Underground Railroad often used specific terms, based on the metaphor of the railway. For example:

• People who helped slaves find the railroad were "agents" (or "shepherds")
• Guides were known as "conductors"
• Hiding places were "stations" or "way stations"
• "Station masters" hid slaves in their homes
• Escaped slaves were referred to as "passengers" or "cargo"
• Slaves would obtain a "ticket"
• Similar to common gospel lore, the "wheels would keep on turning"
• Financial benefactors of the Railroad were known as "stockholders"

The Big Dipper (whose "bowl" points to the North Star) was known as the drinkin' gourd. The Railroad was often known as the "freedom train" or "Gospel train", which headed towards "Heaven" or "the Promised Land", i.e., Canada.

William Still, sometimes called "The Father of the Underground Railroad", helped hundreds of slaves to escape (as many as 60 a month), sometimes hiding them in his Philadelphia home. He kept careful records, including short biographies of the people, that contained frequent railway metaphors. He maintained correspondence with many of them, often acting as a middleman in communications between escaped slaves and those left behind. He later published these accounts in the book The Underground Railroad: Authentic Narratives and First-Hand Accounts (1872), a valuable resource for historians to understand how the system worked and learn about individual ingenuity in escapes.

According to Still, messages were often encoded so that they could be understood only by those active in the railroad. For example, the following message, "I have sent via at two o'clock four large hams and two small hams", indicated that four adults and two children were sent by train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. The additional word via indicated that the "passengers" were not sent on the usual train, but rather via Reading, Pennsylvania. In this case, the authorities were tricked into going to the regular location (station) in an attempt to intercept the runaways, while Still met them at the correct station and guided them to safety. They eventually escaped either to the North or to Canada, where slavery had been abolished during the 1830s.

Route

To reduce the risk of infiltration, many people associated with the Underground Railroad knew only their part of the operation and not of the whole scheme. "Conductors" led or transported the fugitives from station to station. A conductor sometimes pretended to be a slave in order to enter a plantation. Once a part of a plantation, the conductor would direct the runaways to the North. Slaves traveled at night, about 10–20 miles (16–32 km) to each station. They rested, and then a message was sent to the next station to let the station master know the runaways were on their way. They would stop at the so-called "stations" or "depots" during the day and rest. The stations were often located in barns, under church floors, or in hiding places in caves and hollowed-out riverbanks.

The resting spots where the runaways could sleep and eat were given the code names "stations" and "depots", which were held by "station masters". "Stockholders" gave money or supplies for assistance. Using biblical references, fugitives referred to Canada as the "Promised Land" or "Heaven" and the Ohio River as the "River Jordan", which marked the boundary between slave states and free states.

Struggle for freedom in a Maryland barn. Wood-engraving from William Still's The Underground Rail Road, p. 50

Traveling conditions

Eastman Johnson, A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves, oil on paperboard, 22 × 26.25 inches, circa 1862, Brooklyn Museum

Although the fugitives sometimes traveled on boat or train, they usually traveled on foot or by wagon in groups of one to three slaves. Some groups were considerably larger. Abolitionist Charles Turner Torrey and his colleagues rented horses and wagons and often transported as many as 15 or 20 slaves at a time.

Routes were often purposely indirect to confuse pursuers. Most escapes were by individuals or small groups; occasionally, there were mass escapes, such as with the Pearl incident. The journey was often considered particularly difficult and dangerous for women or children. Children were sometimes hard to keep quiet or were unable to keep up with a group. In addition, enslaved women were rarely allowed to leave the plantation, making it harder for them to escape in the same ways that men could. Although escaping was harder for women, some women were successful. One of the most famous and successful conductors (people who secretly traveled into slave states to rescue those seeking freedom) was Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave woman.

Due to the risk of discovery, information about routes and safe havens was passed along by word of mouth. Southern newspapers of the day were often filled with pages of notices soliciting information about escaped slaves and offering sizable rewards for their capture and return. Federal marshals and professional bounty hunters known as slave catchers pursued fugitives as far as the Canada–US border.

Fugitives were not the only black people at risk from slave catchers. With demand for slaves high in the Deep South as cotton was developed, strong, healthy blacks in their prime working and reproductive years were seen and treated as highly valuable commodities. Both former slaves and free blacks were sometimes kidnapped and sold into slavery, as was Solomon Northup of Saratoga Springs, New York. "Certificates of freedom," signed, notarized statements attesting to the free status of individual blacks also known as free papers, could easily be destroyed or stolen, so provided little protection to bearers.

Some buildings, such as the Crenshaw House in far southeastern Illinois, are known sites where free blacks were sold into slavery, known as the "Reverse Underground Railroad". Under the terms of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, when suspected fugitives were seized and brought to a special magistrate known as a commissioner, they had no right to a jury trial and could not testify in their own behalf. Technically, they were guilty of no crime. The marshal or private slave-catcher needed only to swear an oath to acquire a writ of replevin for the return of property.

Congress was dominated by Southern Congressmen because the population of their states was bolstered by the inclusion of three-fifths of the number of slaves in population totals. They passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 because of frustration at having fugitive slaves helped by the public and even official institutions outside the South. In some parts of the North, slave-catchers needed police protection to exercise their federal authority. Opposition to slavery did not mean that all states welcomed free blacks. For instance, Indiana, whose area along the Ohio River was settled by Southerners, passed a constitutional amendment that barred free blacks from settling in that state.

Arrival in Canada

See also: American immigration to Canada

International Underground Railroad Memorial in Windsor, Ontario

John Brown participated in the Underground Railroad as an abolitionist.

Estimates vary widely, but at least 30,000 slaves, and potentially more than 100,000, escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad. The largest group settled in Upper Canada (Ontario), called Canada West from 1841. Numerous Black Canadian communities developed in Southern Ontario. These were generally in the triangular region bounded by Niagara Falls, Toronto, and Windsor. Several rural villages made up mostly of freed slaves were established in Kent and Essex counties in Ontario.

Fort Malden, in Amherstburg, Ontario, was deemed the "chief place of entry" for slaves seeking to enter Canada. The abolitionist Levi Coffin, who was known for aiding over 2,000 fugitives to safety, supported this choice. He described Fort Malden as "the great landing place, the principle terminus of the underground railroad of the west." After 1850, approximately thirty fugitive slaves a day were crossing over to Fort Malden by steamboat. The Sultana was one of the ships, making "frequent round trips" between Great Lakes ports. Its captain, C.W. Appleby, a celebrated mariner, facilitated the conveyance of several fugitive slaves from various Lake Erie ports to Fort Malden.

Another important destination was Nova Scotia, which was first settled by Black Loyalists during the American Revolution and then by Black Refugee (War of 1812) (see Black Nova Scotians). Important black settlements also developed in other parts of British North America (now parts of Canada). These included Lower Canada (present-day Quebec) and Vancouver Island, where Governor James Douglas encouraged black immigration because of his opposition to slavery. He also hoped a significant black community would form a bulwark against those who wished to unite the island with the United States.

Upon arriving at their destinations, many fugitives were disappointed, as life in Canada was difficult. While the British colonies had no slavery after 1834, discrimination was still common. Many of the new arrivals had to compete with mass European immigration for jobs, and overt racism was common. For example, in reaction to Black Loyalists being settled in eastern Canada by the Crown, the city of Saint John, New Brunswick, amended its charter in 1785 specifically to exclude blacks from practicing a trade, selling goods, fishing in the harbor, or becoming freemen; these provisions stood until 1870.

With the outbreak of the Civil War in the U.S., many black refugees left Canada to enlist in the Union Army. While some later returned to Canada, many remained in the United States. Thousands of others returned to the American South after the war ended. The desire to reconnect with friends and family was strong, and most were hopeful about the changes emancipation and Reconstruction would bring.

Folklore

Main articles: Quilts of the Underground Railroad and Songs of the Underground Railroad

Since the 1980s, claims have arisen that quilt designs were used to signal and direct slaves to escape routes and assistance. According to advocates of the quilt theory, ten quilt patterns were used to direct slaves to take particular actions. The quilts were placed one at a time on a fence as a means of nonverbal communication to alert escaping slaves. The code had a dual meaning: first to signal slaves to prepare to escape, and second to give clues and indicate directions on the journey.

The quilt design theory is disputed. The first published work documenting an oral history source was in 1999, and the first publication of this theory is believed to be a 1980 children's book. Quilt historians and scholars of pre-Civil War (1820-1860) America have disputed this legend. There is no contemporary evidence of any sort of quilt code, and quilt historians such as Pat Cummings and Barbara Brackman have raised serious questions about the idea. In addition, Underground Railroad historian Giles Wright has published a pamphlet debunking the quilt code.

Similarly, some popular, nonacademic sources claim that spirituals and other songs, such as "Steal Away" or "Follow the Drinking Gourd", contained coded information and helped individuals navigate the railroad. They have offered little evidence to support their claims. Scholars tend to believe that while the slave songs may certainly have expressed hope for deliverance from the sorrows of this world, these songs did not present literal help for runaway slaves.

The Underground Railroad inspired cultural works. For example, "Song of the Free", written in 1860 about a man fleeing slavery in Tennessee by escaping to Canada, was composed to the tune of "Oh! Susanna". Every stanza ends with a reference to Canada as the land "where colored men are free". Slavery in Upper Canada (now Ontario) was outlawed in 1793; in 1819, John Robinson, the Attorney General of Upper Canada, declared that by residing in Canada, black residents were set free, and that Canadian courts would protect their freedom. Slavery in Canada as a whole had been in rapid decline after an 1803 court ruling, and was finally abolished outright in 1834.

Legal and political

When frictions between North and South culminated in the Civil War, many blacks, slave and free, fought for the Union Army. Following Union victory in the Civil War, on December 6, 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution outlawed slavery. Following its passage, in some cases the Underground Railroad operated in the opposite direction, as fugitives returned to the United States.

Criticism

Frederick Douglass was a writer, statesman, and an escaped slave. He wrote critically of the attention drawn to the ostensibly secret Underground Railroad in his seminal autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845):

I have never approved of the very public manner in which some of our western friends have conducted what they call the Underground Railroad, but which I think, by their open declarations, has been made most emphatically the upperground railroad.

He went on to say that, although he honors the movement, he feels that the efforts serve more to enlighten the slave-owners than the slaves, making them more watchful and making it more difficult for future slaves to escape.

Notable people

See also: Category:Underground Railroad people

• John Brown
• Owen Brown
• Samuel Burris
• Obadiah Bush
• Levi Coffin
• Elizabeth Rous Comstock
• George Corson
• Moses Dickson
• Frederick Douglass
• Asa Drury
• George Hussey Earle Sr.
• Calvin Fairbank
• Bartholomew Fussell
• Matilda Joslyn Gage
• Thomas Galt
• Thomas Garrett
• Sydney Howard Gay
• Josiah Bushnell Grinnell
• Frances Harper
• Laura Smith Haviland
• Lewis Hayden
• John Hunn
• Roger Hooker Leavitt
• Jermain Wesley Loguen
• Samuel Joseph May
• John Berry Meachum
• Mary Meachum
• William M. Mitchell
• Solomon Northup
• John Parker
• Mary Ellen Pleasant
• John Wesley Posey
• Amy and Isaac Post
• John Rankin
• Alexander Milton Ross
• David Ruggles
• Gerrit Smith
• George Luther Stearns
• William Still
• Charles Turner Torrey
• William Troy
• Harriet Tubman
• John Van Zandt
• Martha Coffin Wright

National Underground Railroad Network

Following upon legislation passed in 1990 for the National Park Service to perform a special resource study of the Underground Railroad, in 1997, the 105th Congress introduced and subsequently passed H.R. 1635 - National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998, which President Bill Clinton signed into law in 1998. This act authorized the United States National Park Service to establish the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program to identify associated sites, as well as preserve them and popularize the Underground Railroad and stories of people involved in it. The National Park Service has designated many sites within the network, posted stories about people and places, sponsors an essay contest, and holds a national conference about the Underground Railroad in May or June each year.

The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, which includes Underground Railroad routes in three counties of Maryland's Eastern Shore and Harriet Tubman's birthplace, was created by President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act on March 25, 2013. Its sister park, the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New York, was established on January 10, 2017 and focuses on the later years of Tubman's life as well as her involvement with the Underground Railroad and the abolition movement.

Inspirations for fiction

• The Underground Railroad was the inspiration for a faction in Fallout 4, the Railroad, consisting of safehouses for synthetic humanoids who escaped another faction known as the Institute.
• The Underground Railroad is a 2016 novel by Colson Whitehead. It won the 2016 National Book Award and the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.
• Underground is an American television series that premiered in 2016, on WGN America.
• The Simpsons episode "The Colour Yellow" S21 E13 mentions that the Simpsons' ancestor helped on the railroad.

Contemporary literature

• David Walker (1829) Appeal to the Coloured Citizens of the World
• Harriet Beecher Stowe (1852) Uncle Tom's Cabin
• Caroline Lee Hentz (1854) The Planter's Northern Bride
• William M. Mitchell (1860) The Under-Ground Railroad
• Sarah Hopkins Bradford (1869) Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman; (1896) Harriet Tubman, Moses of Her People
• Colson Whitehead (2017) The Underground Railroad; Won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018 for this poetical, mythical reflection on the meaning of the railroad in American history

See also

• Ausable Chasm, NY, home of the North Star Underground Railroad Museum
• Bilger's Rocks
• Caroline Quarlls (1824–1892), first known person to escape slavery through Wisconsin's Underground Railroad
• Fort Mose Historic State Park
• List of Underground Railroad sites
• Reverse Underground Railroad
• Slave codes
• Escape to Sweden, an "underground railroad" during the Holocaust in Norway

Further reading

Library resources about the Underground Railroad

Online books Resources in your library Resources in other libraries

• Blackett, R.J.M. (2013). Making Freedom: The Underground Railroad and the Politics of Slavery. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.
• Curtis, Anna L. (1941). Stories of the Underground Railroad. Archived from the original on March 31, 2012. (Stories about Thomas Garrett, a famous agent on the Underground Railroad)
• Frost, Karolyn Smardz (2007). I've Got a Home in Glory Land: A Lost Tale of the Underground Railroad. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. ISBN 9780374531256.
• Larson, Kate Clifford (2004). Bound For the Promised Land: Harriet Tubman, Portrait of an American Hero. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-45627-0.
• Still, William (1872). The Underground Railroad: A Record of Facts, Authentic Narratives, Letters, &c., Narrating the Hardships, Hair-Breadth Escapes and Death Struggles of the Slaves in Their Efforts for Freedom, As Related by Themselves and Others, or Witnessed by the Author. Philadelphia: Porter & Coates. (Classic book documenting the Underground Railroad operations in Philadelphia).
  • Public domain ebook at Project Gutenberg
  • Book at Internet Archive
  • The Underground Railroad public domain audiobook at LibriVox

Folklore and myth

• "Documentary Evidence is Missing on Underground Railroad Quilts". historyofquilts.com.
• "New Jersey's Underground Railroad Myth-Buster: Giles Wright is on a Mission to Fine Tune Black History". Historic Camden County.
• "Putting it in Perspective: The Symbolism of Underground Railroad quilts". quilthistory.com.
• "Underground Railroad Quilts & Abolitionist Fairs". Womenfolk.com.

External links

• Underground Railroad Studies
• Underground Railroad Timeline
• Friends of the Underground Railroad
• National Underground Railroad Freedom Center
• Underground Railroad Research Institute at Georgetown College
• Underground Railroad in Buffalo and Upstate New York: A bibliography by The Buffalo History Museum
• Newspaper articles and clippings about the Underground Railroad at Newspapers.com