The Underground Railroad, a term that have been used dating back as early as the1830s. The Underground Railroad, people networking vastly in helping slave fugitives escape to Canada or the North, no one person nor single organization ran this operation. Rather, this operation were made up of several individuals (black predominantly but also consisted of many whites) who mainly knew of the efforts of locals to help in fugitives aiding and not the operations overall. It still moved slaves by the hundredths to the north each year effectively, according to the estimate of one chart; the south took a loss of roughly one hundred thousand slaves between 1810 and 1850. The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people who helped fugitive …show more content…
A system that was organized to assist in aiding slave runaways began near the ending of the 18th century. In the year 1786, George Washington outspokenly griped about how “society of Quakers” helped in the runaway of one of his personal slaves. The Society of Quakers was created for these purposes alone. This system continuously grew, by the year 1831 its number in size dubbed. The Underground Railroad began emerging into steam railroads. The operation system used terms relating to railroading, places fugitives called their place of rest such as homes and businesses and where they would eat were being called depots or stations and were operated by what people calling themselves stationmasters, also people who was contributing goods and money were called stockholders, and conductors were held responsible of the moving of fugitives to and from each station. The slaves that were running away Northward had it very roughly; this was not an easy route for them. Their very first task was the escaping from their actual slaveholder. For several slaves, they had to use their own resources to rely upon. At times the conductor would pose as a slave, gain entrance to a plantation and then aid in the guidance of the northward runaways.
Almost all the slaves were born in the New World; with the end of the Atlantic slave trade, the diasporic population lost all touch with their indigenous culture. Although a few individuals afforded comfortable living conditions, most free black men and slaves still suffered deplorable conditions that followed the lack of education, wealth and political privilege. To ameliorate the conditions, free blacks determined to revoke the barricades that prevented them from getting formal education and enfranchisement rights; meanwhile, slaves continued to fortify their communal practices through religion and escape the appalling conditions by fleeing to the northern states through the Underground Railroad
slaves. This is a period in Southern America at the beginning ofthe Second World War. The
In the south, slavery was a oppression of the government. There were "southern defenders of slavery taunted abolitionists by arguing that wage workers in the North and England were equally slaves" and that "women were equally" treated unjustly, which means slavery was a way for the government to take advantage of their power (Balkin and Levison 1463). Slaves were constantly trying to find opportunities to escape. In Ads for Runaway Servants and Slaves (1733-72), many servants and slaves were runaways but many were caught or chose to returned to their masters because they had nowhere else to go. Many slave owners were uncertain as to why their slaves would run away because "he has been always too kindly used, if ...
being brought into the country from the west had a choice to have slavery if and
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.
In roughly every retelling, the objective of secrecy in all aspects of the operation is emphasized. Gara writes “Some individuals, however, plotted and executed their own escapes without consulting anyone, and...learned from bitter experience that it was best to keep such plans to themselves” (Gara 45). This illustrates how slaves told very little, if anything, to others for they feared problems were sure to arise if more and more fugitives were involved. One story in Gara’s book is about a man by the name of Henry Brown, who is hailed for his most creative and daring escape from slavery in 1849. While working in a tobacco factory in Richmond, Virginia, Brown observed large boxes being shipped out, he then cooked up a risky plan with befriended carpenter Samuel Smith who built a similar crate just for him. He had just enough room to fit and after a short time he was on a train headed to the Anti-Slavery Society in Philadelphia. After a 26 hour trip, out walked a free man who coined the name Henry “Box” Brown. His story soon became an international sensation, newspapers around the world printed every detail of his elaborate escape. He then began to lecture about his planning and with no surprise shipments headed to the north were inspected by a much closer eye. His associate Samuel
During the 1800’s, America was going through a time of invention and discovery known as the Industrial Revolution. America was in its first century of being an independent nation and was beginning to make the transition from a “home producing” nation to a technological one. The biggest contribution to this major technological advancement was the establishment of the Transcontinental Railroad because it provided a faster way to transport goods, which ultimately boosted the economy and catapulted America to the Super Power it is today.
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).
Although the slaves had families they had no control on whether or not they would stay together. Slaves were sold to different parts of the country in which sometimes they would never see their family members again. Although slavery was accepted, the northern part of America allowed African Americans to be free. This ultimately led to a bloody division between the North and the South. The south led a revolt to go to war against the north, specifically in order to keep their rights to allow slavery.
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
To avoid over work slaves tried to work at their own pace and resist speedups. Some of the techniques they used to prevent work were to fake illness or pregnancy, break or misplace tools or fake ignorance. Unless slaves lived near free territory, or near a city where they could blend into a free black population, they knew that permanent escape was unlikely. Only rarely, did a large group of slaves attempt a mass escape and maintain an independent freedom for long periods of time. On numerous occasions groups of runaway slaves either attacked white slave patrollers or tried to bribe them.
were losing their rights, and were forced to do other work that was similar to slavery. African
Foremost, the enabling of Douglass’ escape from slavery was not his classification in an unjust society alone. Looking back at the characteristics and livelihood of the American society in the 1800’s, one can gain a clearer understanding of the society as a whole. Slaves who were deemed unfit to do anything but work vigorously in hard labor, were subjected to the belief that they were nothing more than property. Just as cattle on the plantations, slaves were believed to be animals and were treated as such. Hence, the belief that
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.
order for a slave to be truly free, they had to escape physically first, and once that