The Underground Railroad Essay

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The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many individuals -- many whites but predominently black -- who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives and not of the overall operation. Still, it effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year -- according to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850.

An organized system to assist runaway slaves seems to have begun towards the end of the 18th century. In 1786 George Washington complained about how one of his runaway slaves was helped by a "society of Quakers, formed for such purposes." The system grew, and around 1831 it was dubbed "The Underground Railroad," after the then emerging steam railroads. The system even used terms used in railroading: the homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called "stations" and "depots" and were run by "stationmasters," those who contributed money or goods were "stockholders," and the "conductor" was responsible for moving fugitives from one station to the next.

For the slave, running away to the North was anything but easy. The first step was to escape from the slaveholder. For many slaves, this meant relying on his or her own resources. Sometimes a "conductor," posing as a slave, would enter a plantation and then guide the runaways northward. The fugitives would move at night. They would generally travel between 10 and 20 miles to the next station, where they would rest and eat, hiding in barns and other out-of-the-way places. While they waited, a message would be sent to the next station to alert its stationmaster.

The fugitives would also travel by train and

The Underground Railroad

slaves were caught trying to escape, according to Interesting Facts about the Underground Railroad, “100 thousand slaves escaped using the Railroad system.” When they were caught the punishments weren’t merciful. In order to be free you had to be in Canada. If you had the chance to run away would you? Would you want to get the education that you always wanted? According to the Interesting Facts about Underground Railroad, “Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it more difficult for slaves to escape. The…

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The Influence Of The Underground Railroad

those things. The Underground Railroad saved many former slaves from eventually being killed from lack of nutrition or from working to hard. But no matter what difficulties lay ahead, there was only one goal, to be free. The Underground Railroad was the road to freedom, for some it saved their lives. The success of the Underground Railroad is astonishing, it was a very important system to have when slavery was legal, and very important to how things are today. The Underground Railroad influenced the…

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Slavery: The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was started to help in-slaved blacks to escape from their slave holder. It was a very intricate operation. The operation included various escape routes, different ways to travel, and different areas to escape to. The Underground Railroad got its name because everything that took place in the organization ha to be done in secrecy. It was never underground or a railroad just a name made up for the purpose of it. The idea of there being an organization like the "Underground…

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Slavery: The Underground Railroad

When you hear the term underground railroad, what comes to your mind? Do you think of people sneaking away in the middle of the night after the North Star? Well that wasn’t always the case. Sometimes they would sneak away in daylight. Some researchers think that some of these slaves had people on the outside leading them to their freedom. The Underground Railroads had gotten its name when it first appeared in print in an abolitionist newspaper in 1839, at the end of the decade when railways had come…

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Underground Railroad Essay

Escape To The Underground Railroad Eli, who lived in Virginia, was a young slave on a tobacco plantation. Eli, his parents and his younger brother Josiah all lived together in a very small one bedroom cabin. He also had older siblings, but they had been taken and sold to other plantations. Eli was afraid that he would someday be taken from his parents too. He knew his parents felt the same way because he could sense the fear in their eyes, but they were always comforted by a song they had learned…

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Essay On The Underground Railroad

The underground railroad was not a system of railways that ran underground. The underground railroad was a key part of slavery, it is what helped some one hundred thousand slaves become free. The underground railroad was important not only because of the people who were apart of it, but it was also important because of the secrets it kept. The dangers involved in running away from slavery were ungodly horrible. If it was not for the underground railroad and how the many people along its line helped…

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Preserving The Underground Railroad

Baxa Preserving The Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad is an important part of history. It was made up of stations and other things that helped slaves escape from slavery to the north. I believe it is important to preserve the stations, cemeteries, and trails/paths that the slaves took on their journey. The reason it is important to preserve these things is because it is part of the history about slaves. One of the things from the Underground Railroad is the stations. The…

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Underground Railroad Research Paper

The Underground Railroad was a network of routes that nobody knew of, that was created in the 1830’s. Even though there were smaller, less known, organizations before it, they were never as big as the Underground Railroad was. And the Underground Railroad was used to escape enslaved African Americans into the free states. The person who created the Underground Railroad was a man named Isaac Hopper. And some of the people who were helping the Underground Railroad were abolitionists and people who…

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Underground Railroad Research Paper

Why was the Underground Railroad so important? The Underground Railroad was a passage in which its conductors, like Harriet Tubman, were. Rescued slaves and guided them into freedom. Frederick Douglass was also a major escapee who helped with the abolition movement. He was famous for rescuing many slaves and for being one of the few African Americans from that time to know how to read and write. The Underground Railroad is a famous passageway through which slaves escaped. The railroad has a special…

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Underground Railroad Thesis

Tubman was a “conductor” on Underground Railroad. This Underground Railroad, contrary to as it seems, was not truly train tracks under the surface; it was a system of secret routes and houses that were scattered all across the United States. The goal of the Underground Railroad was to contribute to the freeing of slaves from the southern slave states of the United States. Henry County, Iowa, and specifically Salem, Iowa, were huge “stations” in the Underground Railroad. These stations were used to…

Words 1578 - Pages 7