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Harriet Tubman and the civil rights movement
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The Underground Railroad was an opportunity that slaves did not want to miss. There was one seemingly simple goal that everyone seemed to have; it was to be free. Slaves were determined to be free, despite the many consequences of being caught. From 1619, when the first slave ship docked, through December 6th, 1865 when the 13th amendment was passed freeing all slaves, was basically hell on earth for blacks in America. States in the south had more slaves and less free states than the north, making it hard to escape. At times, fugitives started to give up the idea of freedom because it's so hard to escape. This did not stop slaves from wanting to be free; every time there was an obstacle, the abolitionists came up with more creative ways to …show more content…
help slaves safely escape. Most, if not all free slaves were able to become free only because of the Underground Railroad and the Quakers. The Underground Railroad had a positive impact on America during the time of slavery. When blacks were brought to America, they were treated poorly and tortured. Slaves were seen as property instead of people. The Dred Scott case didn’t help with blacks being viewed as people. During the Dred Scott case, the supreme court ruled that blacks were not and never will be citizens of the United States. Slaveholders were only encouraged to keep slaves because they can legally get away with it (PBS 1). This resulted in slaves being overworked and beaten. Families were torn apart and sold separately. The severity of your abuse and torture was kind of based on what state you ended up going to. The slaves in the south had a harder life than slaves in the north. Other than being tortured and abused, there were other reasons slaves wanted to escape. Being “sold South” was a main reason slaves ran away. The conditions in the South were a lot worse than North. Other times, families fled together to avoid being separated. There are simpler reasons to wanting to be free. Some slaves wanted to make money on their own with their own talents and live where they want while getting an education (Pathways to Freedom 5). No matter the reason, slaves wanted to be free. The main reason is still harsh conditions on their slave owners land. More often than not, slaves were unable to get a decent meal or place to sleep. A small farm owner that wasn’t having a good growing season was not able to feed their slaves. If they were to get a meal, it sometimes wasn’t even suitable for an animal to eat; let alone a human being working about 6 days a week. Living conditions weren’t any better. A lot of the time there was a dirt floor for the slaves to sleep on and little or no furniture (Slave Life and Slave Codes 1). This only pushed the slaves to want to escape quicker. Harsh living conditions were the least of the slaves worries, though. Slaves were harshly abused by their slave owners for what seemed like small mistakes or unreasonable reasons. Anita Ross, a thirteen-year-old slave from Virginia explained her treatment on the plantation by her master. Anita Ross said, “Life, for me, is living Hell. I am whipped if I do not work fast enough. I am put through un-imaginable, physical pain every day, and I am determined to get free” (Anita Ross 1). Many other slaves were also under these conditions. Slaves were left with deep slashes on their backs for not working fast enough, and still were forced to work right after. There was no sympathy for slaves; they wanted to escape the life they were living. The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad, or underground.
It was made up of routes to houses and buildings that were safe for fugitive slaves. Here the fugitive slaves could receive appropriate clothing for the weather, food, and shelter. The people living in these houses were aware of the risks that they were taking for aiding runaway slaves. Between 1810 and 1850, about 100,000 slaves were helped through the Underground Railroad. A society of Quakers developed the Underground Railroad, and after that, abolitionists joined the idea and helped out. The Quakers were one of the first Abolitionist movements. A lot of the Quakers lived in Pennsylvania, which was one of the first states to ban slavery (Robert Mitchell 1-2). Whether you were helping support the Underground Railroad or using the Underground Railroad to get to freedom, there were secret messages that told the escape routes for runaways to follow. “Follow The Drinking Gourd” is an example of a song that helped lead runaways to escape routes. There are many other songs that helped runaways. Once a fugitive slave arrived at a house, they had to come up with ways to outwit slave hunters. One was to use disguises. Sometimes men dressed as women and women dressed as men. Other times, slaves dressed as laborers and carried around tools pretending to go to work. Sometimes, slaves borrowed or forged “free papers” (Pathways to Freedom 10). Transporting Slaves was just as clever. One time, a line of carriages in …show more content…
the streets had fugitives in them and the line was mimicking a funeral line. Others were put into boxes and shipped to Canada. Canada was even more free than the North because laws were put into place in the states saying all escaped slaves must be returned to their owners (Secrets and Lies 1-2). One law put in place was The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. This law gave slave hunters permission to enter into free states and capture a former slave and return them to their owner. This was devastating for escaped slaves and people in the Underground Railroad to hear. People were fleeing to Canada from the free states whether they were a former slave or not. With this law, the punishment for for those helping fugitives were worsened. That caused a lot of people to stop helping the Underground Railroad. This made the Underground Railroad busier than ever (Anita Ross 2). The Fugitive Slave Act didn’t stop some people from helping, though. Many people were big contributors to the Underground Railroad; this included Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. The Underground Railroad was a secret.
If you were caught helping runaway slaves, you were punished. Your punishment wasn't incarceration; you were sold as a slave ((((()))))). Harriet Tubman had a 40,000 dollar reward for her capture, dead or alive; that didn’t stop her, though. Harriet Tubman was a former slave who went by “Moses”. She did this for her own protection while making trips to the south to free slaves. Harriet Tubman leads the way for the fugitive slaves. She is said to be fearless and made 10 trips to the deep south in a year (Anita Ross 1-2). She escaped at 27 and returned about 13 times to free her friends and family. After that, she decided to become a “conductor” of the Underground Railroad (Harriet Tubman Proclamation 1). Frederick Douglass was also a sole contributor to the Underground Railroad. He was also an escaped slave. Frederick Douglass spoke about his experience in slavery. He was also a “conductor” just like Harriet Tubman. Frederick Douglass wrote an autobiography called The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave. He was an important part to the Underground Railroad because he was one of the last stops before Canada (Pathways to Freedom 1). Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass were important contributors to the Underground
Railroad. The Underground Railroad had a positive impact on the United States. It helped free slaves. Despite all of the laws put in place, people didn’t give up. Slaves were treated poorly and wanted to escape. As you went further north, you were able to become a free slave. Many people helped with the Underground Railroad; this included Harriet Tubman and Frederick Douglass. Without the help of Harriet Tubman, Frederick Douglass, Abolitionists, and everyone who put themselves at risk by helping fugitive slaves, slavery might be in effect today.
“ I had reasoned this out in my mind, there was one of two things I had a right to, liberty or death; if I could not have one, I would have the other.”~Harriet Tubman. Harriet Tubman sacrificed her life and freedom as well. She organized the Underground Railroad, and freed hundreds of slaves. As if the journey wasn’t difficult enough,stated by the book, Who Was Harriet Tubman, “But the trip was even more dangerous after 1850. That was because the Fugitive Slave Law had been passed.”(pg.56) The Fugitive Slave Law meant that runaway slaves who made it to the free states had to be sent back to their masters. People were allowed to beat the slaves and sell them back into the South too. Even though the situation was tough, Harriet Tubman never gave up on what she thought was
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.
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).
It helped shape our society to what it is today, even if it took over a hundred years. In a hundred years we, as a country went from having slaves, to having segregation, and now everyone gets along and is equal. Sure we still have racism, but we changed a lot. If we never had the Underground Railroad, we might have never got the ball rolling.
Harriet Tubman, an escaped runaway slave, helped over 300 African Americans get freedom. Many people published books and reports on slavery. They showed Americans, as well as the world, the harshness of slavery. Some abolitionists held posts on the Underground Railroad to help free slaves and even helped them hide at times.
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.
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
The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad, nor was it an established route. It was, however, a way of getting slaves from the South to the North, or in this case, from the Deep South, to Mexico. In the 1800s, slavery was a major issue. As the United States began to mature, slavery began to divide. Slavery in the considered “Northern States” was emancipated, and slaves, still under bondage in the South, were looking for ways to get to the North. The Underground Railroad was one way to find freedom. A common myth about the Underground Railroad is that it was only in a pathway full of people, all trying to make it to the North for freedom. The truth is there was hardly any help in the South. The major help came along when the slaves reached the North. A former slave by the name of James Boyd was once interviewed in Itasca, Texas on this very subject. He recalls that many slaves running across the established border between Mexico and Texas to reach freedom in Mexico. ...
Numerous are mindful of the considerable deed that Harriet Tubman executed to free slaves in the south. Then again, individuals are still left considerably unaware about in which the way they were safeguarded and how she triumphed each and every deterrent while placing her life at risk of being captured. She is deserving of the great honor she has garnered by todays general society and you will find out her in the biography. The title of this biography is “Harriet Tubman, the Road to Freedom.” The author of this piece is Catherine Clinton. ”Harriet Tubman, the road to Freedom” is a charming, instructive, and captivating book that history appreciates and is a memoir than readers will cherish. The Target audience of the biography is any readers
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 of the Underground Railroad because it caused people to realize just how cruel slavery was, which invoked an increase in the support and aid of the strong, free, black population, who were a crucial component to the Underground Railroad, as well as abolitionist and anti-slavery white, resulting in the expansion of the Underground Railroad.
Many people would argue the Underground Railroad was a great strategy because of the benefits it brought. Even though the Underground Railroad was a strong, high risk for the slaves, it also helped many slaves too. The slaves would sing songs along the trails as they escaped to their freedom and they would be sent to different conductors along the travel. Different conductors would led them in the way they needed to go to successfully get freedom. They would use the stations to help them hide or eat. They would have to travel long distances barefoot and deal with severe temperatures. They were constantly on the run from slavecatchers and their dogs.
The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad, it was just an idea of indirect paths from on station to another. The Underground Railroad began when slaves had first entered America in 1619, and it ended along with the American Civil War in 1865 (Lavine - ). Slaves had the choice of escaping to the free-states in the North, or to Mexico. Depending on where you were coming from and what happened on the way, it could take from 24 hours to a year’s worth of running (How Stuff Works “How it Worked”).
The underground railroad was a system organized to safely move slaves into free states (Coddon). Harriet Tubman was an outstanding abolitionist and black leader of her time. After freeing her whole family from slavery, Tubman’s main concern was the freedom of all slaves. She became well acquainted with many white abolitionists and often received food and shelter from them, while trying to free someone from slavery (Coddon). Most of the Underground Railroad was organized in Philadelphia, where Tubman became acquainted with William Still (Coddon). This was were the first anti-slavery society was established. Still was a black man who was the executive director of the General Vigilance Committee and later became known as “The Father of the Underground Railroad” (Coddon). Since written records were life-threatening to keep, many were burned or not kept at all. Although William Still did say this about Harriet Tubman, “She was a woman of no pretensions; indeed , a more ordinary specimen of humanity could hardly be found...Yet courage shrewdness, and disinterested exertions to rescue her fellow man, she was without equal. (Coddon)” Still encouraged African resistance to slavery, and even taught himself how to read (Turner). He worked nonstop to end race discrimination and, in 1867, he published A Brief Narrative of the Struggle for the Rights of Colored
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,