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A Report On The Underground Railroad

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Tena Walker
Mr. Steven McCall
U.S. History I
June 30, 2015
A Mysterious Train In The Night…The Underground Railroad One of the most talked about railroads in the history of the United States was never an actual railroad. “The Underground Railroad is every route that the enslaved took, or attempted to take to freedom. It is a vast network of paths and road, through swamps and over mountains, along and across rivers and by sea, that cannot be documented with precision [sic].” (Landau 71) The people helping lead the runaway slaves to freedom were called conductors and the houses where the runaway slaves stayed while on their journey to freedom were called stations. People who donated money to help the runaway slaves find freedom were called stockholders. The runaway slaves were the passengers. The success of the Underground Railroad depended on its ability to be an extremely secretive mission. As early as the 1500’s, slave hunters went to Africa, where they captured men and women, often branding them with hot irons before locking them in dungeons on ships and sailing them to the American colonies. Prisoners who managed to survive the 10 week trip were then sold as slaves to the American colonies. These slaves were first considered indentured servants destined to serve the people that purchased them for a certain amount of time, usually seven years. The state of Massachusetts passed a law in 1641 that allowed slavery of Africans. In 1639, Maryland passed a law that anyone

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