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Signals of the underground railroad
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Signs, Symbols and Signals of the Underground Railroad A journey of hundreds of miles lies before you, through swamp, forest and mountain pass. Your supplies are meager, only what can be comfortably carried so as not to slow your progress to the Promised Land – Canada. The stars and coded messages for guidance, you set out through the night, the path illuminated by the intermittent flash of lightning. Without a map and no real knowledge of the surrounding area, your mind races before you and behind you all at once. Was that the barking of the slavecatchers’ dogs behind you or just the pounding rain and thunder? Does each step bring you closer to freedom or failure? 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. As secrecy was a necessity for all involved with the Underground Railroad, those assisting the enslaved were forced to be creative in their methods of communication. All communication was guarded, so it was better not to say too much, or put information into writing, that way if questioned sensitive information would not be revealed. By necessity, written communication used coded words to convey the information. People who helped the slaves find the railroad were referred to as agents, guides were called conductors. A note might refer to a number of packages or cargo (fugitives) being delivered, even going so far as to indicate dry goods, whic... ... middle of paper ... ... Civil Rights Movement, pp. 352 – 353. Burns, Eleanor and Bouchard, Sue - The Underground Railroad Sampler, pp. 33, 97, 100, 128. Hudson, J. Blaine - Encyclopedia of The Underground Railroad , pp. 188, 206. Siebert, Wilbur H. - The Underground Railroad From Slavery to Freedom , pp. 125, 156. Tobin, Jacqueline L. and Dobard, Raymond G. - Hidden in Plain View – A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, pp.22 -23, 130-143, 176 – 183. www.hgtv.com/hgtv/cr_quilting_blocks/article www.phillyburbs.com/undergroundrailroad/signals.shtml www.quiltersmuse.com/underground_railroad_and_ quilts_blocks.htm www.twoelizabeths.com/5441.1.31854/Quilt_Block_Patterns.html www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_%28music%29 www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad www.wqln.org/safeharbor/Film/InterviewTranscripts/Dobard/HiddenMeanings.htm
As a final note, Gregory Wigmore`s article really touched upon a unique and unexplored topic on local history in the Windsor-Detroit region. I had never seen the Detroit River as a safe haven for anyone, much less slaves. His article focuses on how the borders provided freedom and screwed over the slave owners that got stuck in red tape trying to retrieve their `property.` Although cross border freedoms were created, laws at the time didn`t protect the slaves in the country they were living in; the only way to freedom was to run away. This article is an interestingly unique and an underexplored topic of slavery before the underground railroads.
Americans must understand that the horrors of slavery and oppression were not just limited to the South, one reason why the Underground Railroad ran to Canada. Although Fugitive Slave Laws were not dated until 1850, slaves—in this case indentured servants—could not be sure of freedom until they reached Canadian soil. This book gives readers a glimpse of who we might have found as a conductor on the Underground Railroad, and what kind of predicaments they put themselves into for the sake of others. The author’s tone generally seems to sympathize with the abolitionist plight, and she refers to the prejudices of southern Illinois society as a “legacy of shame” (Pirtle 120-121).
Crichton, Michael. The Great Train Robbery. First Ballantine Books ed. N.p.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1975. Print.
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).
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 a network of northerners that helped slaves reached the north and Canada for safety from their plantation. It was secret and railway terms were used to describe system as a way to hide the real nature of the operation. The underground railroad extended from Maine to Nebraska but was most concentrated in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indian, New York, and The New England States. More of the more specific spots were Detroit, Michigan, Erie, Pennsylvania, Buffalo and New York.
After America acquired the West, the need for efficient transportation heightened. Ideas circulated about a railroad that would spread across the continent from East to West. Republican congresses ruled for the federal funding of railroad construction, however, all actions were halted for a few years on account of a war. Following the American Civil War of 1861-1865, the race to build transcontinental railroad began in 1866. Lincoln approved Pacific Railway Act of 1862, granting two railroad companies the right to build the first American transcontinental railroad, (Clark 432).
Kendler, Adam. "The Middle Passage." Slave Resistance. Edward E. Baptist, Web. 13 Dec 2009. .
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).
The Underground Railroad, a term that have been used dating back as early as the1830s.
The Underground railroad was a means by which slaves in the south could escape to the north and to freedom. The pioneers of the railroad went back to help their brothers and sisters in bondage. Many of them were leaders, or conductors that led others to freedom and risked theirs to do it again and again.
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,
The Underground Railroad was a very effective, very successful network of people that assisted fugitive slaves in their escape to the North and Canada. He stated, “By many views, apparently 30,000 to 100,000 maroons ‘were freed’ as opposed to having freed themselves” Maroons were Africans who escaped slavery and formed settlements independently. The Underground Railroad was an ongoing organized illegal journey that very dangerous, but necessary. Harriet Tubman, civil rights activist, Levi Coffin, unofficial president of the Underground Railroad and Fredrick Douglass, abolitionist, all of which had very different positions, yet impacted the world of slavery and saved the lives of thousands. Even “centuries later, the history of slavery hovers
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 quilts were pieced together by Mama, Grandma Dee, and Big Dee symbolizing a long line of relatives. The quilts made from scraps of dresses worn by Grandma Dee, Grandpa Jarrell’s Paisley shirts, and Great Grandpa Ezra’s Civil War uniform represented the family heritage and values, and had been promised to Mama to Maggie when she married. However, Dee does not understand the love put into the making of the quilts, neither does she understand the significance of the quilts as part of her family heritage. It is evident she does not understand the significance of the quilt, having been offered one when went away to college declaring them “as old-fashioned” and “out of style”. She does not care about the value of the quilts to her family, rather she sees it as a work of art, valuable as an African heritage but not as a family heirloom. She wants the quilts because they are handmade, not stitched with around the borders. She tells Mama, “Maggie can’t appreciate these quilts!... She’d probably be backward enough to put them to everyday use… But, they’re priceless!.. Maggie would put them on her the bed and in five years they’d be in rags. Less than that!” (317). The quilt signifies the family pride and history, which is important to Mama. She makes the decision to give the quilt to Maggie who will appreciate it more than Dee, to whom she says, “God knows I been saving ‘em for long enough with