The Underground Railroad was a network of many abolitionists that led and hid fugitive slaves as they ran away from their owners in the South to the North and Canada. Slave owners tried to prevent their slaves from getting any ideas about freedom by isolating them from the outside world. This is seen in Bennet Barrow's "Rules of Highland Plantation (1838)" which advises owners to not let their slaves leave the plantation or marry slaves so information doesn't spread. However some slaves still learned that they could be free if they made it too the North. Fredrick Douglas was one slave who escaped once he learned about the freedom offered in the North.
Running away was a very dangerous decision. Slaves who ran away and got caught would be beaten severely when they returned. It was a very long way to travel through unknown territory. Once a slave escaped the owner would often chase them down with hunting dogs that could sniff out their trail. If the fugitive slave escaped the dogs, they still were not free as slave owners would often post advertisements with a reward for returning their slave. Even if the slave succeeded in making it to the North, they could still be brought back due to the passing of the fugitive slave clause. Due to this, many tried to cross the border into Canada.
The first fugitive slave act was passed in 1793. It allowed the slave owners to hunt for their slaves in the free states and it ordered people to capture and return the fugitive slaves to their masters. It punished anyone who disobeyed this order or helped the slaves escape. The reasoning behind this law was that slaves were considered the properties of their owners, and the constitution protected the private property rights of the people. As part of the Compromise of 1850, northerners had to accept a stricter fugitive slave act in order to get California to enter the union as a free state. Despite these laws that prohibited the aiding of slaves, many abolitionists risked a lot by disobeying these acts because they believed in freedom for all.
There were many brave people who people who helped fugitive slaves as part of the underground railroad. Many Quakers believed that slavery was wrong and helped. There were also many free-African-Americans who escaped from slavery that devoted their lives to helping their fellow African-Americans achieve their same freedom. Some famous names are Harriet Tubman, Fredrick Douglass and William Still.
Harriet Tubman was born a slave in Maryland but she successfully escaped in 1849. Her real name was actually Araminta Ross. She risked her freedom 19 times traveling back to the South to assist her family and more than one hundred other slaves achieve freedom as well; every time she was succesful. She was very brave and showed great selflessness as she helped other slaves even though she was pursued by many slave hunters who were offered as much as $40,000 for capturing her.
The underground railroad was not really a railroad. There are many theories as to who first coined the term. The metaphor probably aroused from thinking of the people like Harriet Tubman that led them as "Conductors" and the places where they hid like the stations a train stops at. They were able to escape wearing disguises, hiding in barns, using secret codes passed by the conductors and many other methods.
I chose to wrote about this topic because I read a book called "underground to Canada" which is very popular and taught in school in Canada where I was born. One of my relatives named Bennet was also part of the underground railroad and even had their barn burned down.
Sources:
History.com Staff. “Fugitive Slave Acts.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/black-history/fugitive-slave-acts.
“Pathways to Freedom | Underground Railroad Library | People.” Pathways to Freedom: Maryland and the Underground Railroad, pathways.thinkport.org/library/people.cfm.
History.com Staff. “Harriet Tubman.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 2009, www.history.com/topics/black-history/harriet-tubman.
This post was very interesting and informative! After some additional research, I learned that Frederick Douglass, who, as you mentioned, was an active abolitionist, actually escaped partially by the UR. After sailing to New York, he hid in the house of "conductor" David Ruggles until he eventually moved to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where he purchased his freedom and then began his famous abolitionist career. He didn't even publish the details of his escape until after the Civil War in order to protect those who helped him and to keep authorities ignorant of the method he employed to free himself. Once free, he didn't actually help others like himself by hiding them. However, he helped by publishing literature protesting slavery.
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http://freedomcenter.org/content/frederick-douglass
I learned a lot from your blog post and found that it was very clearly written and insightful. I had always known of the underground railroad as a path of underground tunnels that slaves would follow in order to escape from their masters. I never really knew however that many slaves would continue past just moving into the North, I thought that once they were in the North they were free. However like you mentioned, the fugitive slave act made it hard for slaves to just stay in the North and they would as a result move into Canada. After reading your blog post I got curious about whether or not the underground railroad still exists and I found that, "Many of the routes and stations have remained a secret until this day." and "Historians are working very hard to discover the exact locations of stations and routes in Maryland". I didn't know either that we really don't actually know the location of the railroad.
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Owen - Your post about the underground railroad was very interesting because it went in depth about an important even for African American rights. What I found especially interesting was the bravery of Harriet Tubman who was willing to sacrifice her life to help others and take a stance against slavery. This post reminded me of the white supremacy that plagues modern america today. While not as extreme as in the past, the first fugitive slave act made me remember the racial superiority that whites felt to completely disregard any word that African Americans had. While today there is luckily no such law, there are still people in the world who feel they can assert power just because of their skin. I also was reminded about an article that describes Mark Ruffalo, a white actor, taking a stance against white supremacy. This connects to how the Quakers gave shelter to African Americans and how history does repeat itself.
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Your post was very well detailed with great information on various aspects of the underground railroad and slaves options for freedom. I thought the part about the quakers was very interesting and wondered where there population was mostly dispersed. I also wonder how the slaves from the deep south made it to the north considering their extensive haul through slave territory. Given the strict rules on inter plantation communication, it was likely that many slaves journeyed on their own and found refuge in pro abolitionist southerners. This must have brought trouble to the confederacy when they seceded and found themselves incapable of being independent.
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