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Slavery in the 19th and 20th century
Slavery in the 19th and 20th century
Slavery in the 19th and 20th century
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Slavery and The Underground Railroad
In the nineteenth century, before the American Civil War, slavery was a normal occurrence in most of America. The Underground Railroad was a series of routes in which in enslaved people could escape through. The “railroad” actually began operating in the 1780s but only later became known as the underground railroad when it gained notability and popularity. It was not an actual railroad but a series of routes and safe houses that helped people escape entrapment and find freedom in free states, Canada, Mexico as well as overseas.
The network of routes were highly secretive and code names were used for each section of the operation. Detroit the place from which most people left from was known as “midnight”, the Detroit River was known as “Jordan” a biblical reference to the river that lead to the promise land. The place they were headed was known as “dawn”. Take the railroad from midnight till dawn. Sometimes guides were available for the journey but more often then not you were alone only the route set out before them and luck to guide them. The journey on the railroad was one of great danger as, if the escapees were caught
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by slave trackers they would be beat to near death then returned to their owner to receive further punishment. The organization had secret names for all of the workings the guides and other people involved in safely getting the escapees to freedom became known as conductors and the refugees were known as passengers or cargo.
These people were mostly abolitionist -people who wished to see the abolishment of slavery- they came from all races and backgrounds, many of these people were Methodists and Quakers. Many of the guides had previously used the railroad to escape slavery so the journey was very personal. The railroad traffic peaked between 1840 and 1860, especially when the U.S passed its Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which gave slave trackers the right to hunt and capture enslaved persons in places they would otherwise be free. This lead to several attempts to kidnap escapees in Canada and return them to their
owners. On of the most notable faces of the railroad is Harriet Tubman, an escaped slave herself, returned to the south many times to guide slaves to freedom, by doing so each time she risked her freedom for the freedom of others. Other notable faces of the railroad include Josiah Henson, Alexander Ross and Mary Ann Shadd. The following is a powerful recount of Josiah Henson’s first moment as a free man. “When my feet first touched the Canadian shore, I threw myself on the ground, rolled in the sand, seized handfuls of it and kissed them.”- The words of Josiah Henson as remembers his first moment as a free man. This man was so thankful to be free that he threw himself onto the ground and kissed the sand. He has just received life, not one of slavery and destruction, he is a free man now. Alexander Ross, a Canadian, is another well known figure among the railroad. He would go to southern plantations guised as a bird fancier, his real mission was to distract the owners while he directed the slaves to escape routes. Dr. Martin Luther King once spoke about the black history of America and the role Canada played, “Canada was the north star” the old spiritual adage “ follow the drinking gourd”, gave slaves the hidden advice to follow the gourd (big dipper), which pointed the way north to “heaven” in this case Canada. More than 100,000 people escaped using the railroad during the time is was active. Nearly 1,000 slaves escaped each year from slave holding states via the railroad during its peak. The law deprived slaves the right to defend themselves in court, in that time the slaves were viewed as less than human, they had no rights and quite frankly not many people really cared about who they were. Black oppression and racism is a problem to this day. Racial profiling is still present in the media and our everyday lives, we have made a lot of progress but still have farther to go.
An Underground Railroad is not actually underground nor a railroad. It was named this because it worked similarly to the way railroads do. This process is most popularly known for the network of people, safe houses, and routes that helped escaped slaves in the South travel to the North to be free in the 1800s when slavery was at its most popular in the United States.
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.
By the early 19th century, slavery had grown and become interwoven with all social and political institutions, and was considered by many to be a vital part of our nation. As many of the northern states began to change their policies on the enslavement of Africans, the South became aware that those areas might become a haven of refuge for runaway slaves. In an effort to appease southern slave owners, the Fugitive Slave Law was passed in 1793, which allowed slave owners to apprehend fugitives in any state or territory and only required them to apply for custody from a circuit or district judge. Due to the act’s ambiguity and lack of uniform enforcement, slaveholders became increasingly agitated. The growing movement of abolitionists to smuggle and rescue fugitive slaves compounded this frustration; the best known organization being the Underground Railroad.
The Underground Railroad was an extremely complex organization whose mission was to free slaves from southern states in the mid-19th century. It was a collaborative organization comprised of white homeowners, freed blacks, captive slaves, or anyone else who would help. This vast network was fragile because it was entirely dependent on the absolute discretion of everyone involved. A slave was the legal property of his owner, so attempting escape or aiding a fugitive slave was illegal and dangerous, for both the slave and the abolitionist. In The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass understands that he can only reveal so many details about his escape from servitude, saying, “I deeply regret the necessity that impels
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).
Using of slaves began in New York when the Dutch West India Company imported 11 African slaves to New Amsterdam in 1626, and the first slave sale being held in New Amsterdam was in 1655. The company imported slaves to New Amsterdam in order to clear the forests, lay roads, build houses and public buildings, and grow foods. It was company-owned slave labor that developed the foundations of modern New York, and made agriculture flourish in the colony so that later white traders turned from fur trapping to farming. Later,the British expanded the use of slavery and in 1703, more than 42 percent of New York City households held slaves, often used as domestic servants and labors. However,the treatments to the slaves were always inhumane and cruel,but slaves were finally obtained the rights through the manumission.
The Underground Railroad was not a real railroad with a train, but a network of meeting places in which African slaves could follow to Canada where they could free. Those who helped were at risk of the law but got the satisfaction of knowing that they were helping those who did not deserve to be treated like less than everyone else. People who escaped had to take care, they were creative with giving instructions and the way they escaped their owners, but if they were caught the punishment was not very humane. John Fairfield was a white man, born into a family in Virginia who owned slaves; he never liked the idea of owning slaves, so he became friends with them. When he turned twenty, he helped his friend escape by taking him to Canada.
The film “Slavery by another name" is a one and a half hour documentary produced by Catherine Allan and directed by Sam Pollard, and it was first showcased by Sundance Film Festival in 2012. The film is based on Douglas Blackmonbook Slavery by Another Name, and the plot of the film revolves around the history and life of African Americans after Emancipation Proclamation; which was effected by President Abraham Lincoln in 1865, for the purpose of ending slavery of African Americans in the U.S. The film reveals very brutal stories of how slavery of African Americans persisted in through forced labor and cruelty; especially in the American south which continued until the beginning of World War II. The film brings to light one of my upbringing
It is believed that the system of the Underground Railroad began in 1787 when a Quaker named Isaac T. Hopper started to organize a system for hiding and aiding fugitive slaves. The Underground Railroad was a vast, loosely organized network of people who helped aid fugitive slaves in their escape to the North and Canada. It operated mostly at night and consisted of many whites, but predominately blacks. While the Underground Railroad had unofficially existed before it, a cause for its expansion was the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act. The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act allowed for runaway slaves to be captured and returned within the territory of the United States and added further provisions regarding the runaways and imposed even harsher chastisements for interfering in their capture (A&E). The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act was a major cause of the development o...
Michigan was important to the Underground Railroad because it was close to Michigan, had many important people there, and was a safe place for the slaves to rest. One reason why Michigan was an important stop is because the location of it. Michigan’s location was important for the slaves escape because it was close to Canada, and Canada was only one mile across the Detroit River. Fugitive slaves needed to escape to Canada because of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 basically declared no African American safe, for any African American, free or not, could be captured and sent to slavery. Because of the Fugitive Slave act of 1850 conductors of the Underground Railroad had to send escaped slaves to Canada to live
Along the way, stopping at a “Safe House” or “Station” was a slaves best chance during the daytime or when needing to rest. The Stations would normally hang a lantern outside on the porch for a time to show slaves it was a safe home (Chugger “Underground Railroad...for kids”) After the fugitives got what was needed, they would move onto the next station with the help of a conductor’s direction. Some conductors gave the fugitives a little bit of money or clothes to help them along their way (Pathways).
Also known as the Second Great Awakening, the Abolitionist Movement swept through the colonies in the early 1830’s. This was a movement to abolish slavery and to give blacks their freedom as citizens. Many men and women, free and enslaved, fought for this cause and many were imprisoned or even killed for speaking out. If it were not for these brave people, slavery would still exist today. The Abolitionist Movement paved the way in eradicating slavery by pursuing moral and political avenues, providing the foundation for the Underground Railroad, and creating a voice for African Americans.
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,
They may have seen pictures and helped shovel railroads,
The word “slavery” brings back horrific memories of human beings. Bought and sold as property, and dehumanized with the risk and implementation of violence, at times nearly inhumane. The majority of people in the United States assumes and assures that slavery was eliminated during the nineteenth century with the Emancipation Proclamation. Unfortunately, this is far from the truth; rather, slavery and the global slave trade continue to thrive till this day. In fact, it is likely that more individuals are becoming victims of human trafficking across borders against their will compared to the vast number of slaves that we know in earlier times. Slavery is no longer about legal ownership asserted, but instead legal ownership avoided, the thought provoking idea that with old slavery, slaves were maintained, compared to modern day slavery in which slaves are nearly disposable, under the same institutionalized systems in which violence and economic control over the disadvantaged is the common way of life. Modern day slavery is insidious to the public but still detrimental if not more than old American slavery.