The Underground Railroad And Its Influence On The Civil War

Through Colson Whitehead’s vivid language in The Underground Railroad, the reader, like the dancing slave, forgets the terrorizing presence of slave masters and is discomfited by as the overseer’s abrupt arrival whilst also getting a purview into slave community life in the 19th century. Amidst festivities for a senior slave’s birthday, the narrator suddenly interjects, “THE music stopped. The circle broke.” The brevity of the two sentences only elevate the suspense of the moment and the slaves’ terror. The stopping of the music symbolizes the forced removal of African culture from blacks.

Known to many who lived in the 1800’s as merely a mystery, the Underground Railroad secretly had a major effect on all people during the time the covert operation existed. Although the Underground Railroad may not have been extremely effective in the number of slaves it led to freedom, it did have a major impact on the Civil War, the morale of people fighting for emancipation, and the thinking of all people during the 19th century. The Underground Railroad was a true agent of social change, despite many people’s beliefs that the Underground Railroad was simply a symbolic effort that had no major effect.

“I looked at my hands to see if I was the same person… There was such a glory over everything. The sun came up like gold through the trees, and I felt like I was in Heaven.” Harriet Tubman uttered these words when she arrived in Pennsylvania, a free woman at last (National Geographic). Years later, when talking about the reasons she ran away, Ms. Tubman would state, “[There are] two things I [have] a right to and these are Death and Liberty. One or the other I mean to have. No one will take me back alive” (America’s Civil War, 42). While most research on the Underground Railroad focuses on the northern states, the state of Iowa played an essential role in the

Slavery is an association of authority and respect where one individual, the plantation owner, owns another individual, the slave. The owner can command the individual to various jobs around the plantation. Slaves were brought from Africa to work in the home, babysit plantation owner 's kids, and the most popular , to work on farms. Women were more common for working in the owner 's homes and watching after the owner 's kids. Where men were more likely to work on farms picking cotton. Slavery was serious and diminishing towards the African American race. Punishment toward slaves included numerous gruesome activities such as being whipped. Slaves had no legal rights. Slaves could not own property, vote, or have control over their family. There was so much expected from slaves to keep the plantation running like it needed too. Without slaves the South would not

In the South, it was very well known for slaves to be working in plantation fields. The often would work cultivating cotton, tobacco, and sugar. Tobacco was a very popular cash crop, but died out due to the harsh conditions it would give the soil. Moreover, southern states were referred to as Cotton Kingdom. The reason being is because in the southern states, cotton was the major cash crop they grew. In addition, more than 50% of the cotton was grown in the south. Additionally, the culture in the South was quite different compared to the slaves that were in the North. The southern slave states culture was determined by plantation owners and families. The slaves were not authorized to be educated, and only the plantation owners had the right to be educated. They were not allowed to attend school and their culture revolved around the plantations. To add in, their economy revolved around the agricultural plantations. The southern grew cotton, tobacco, rice, sugar cane, and indigo. Many of

One hundred and sixty seven years ago, the Underground Railroad led thousands of slaves to their newfound freedom and helped unite millions of people against the annihilation of slavery within their new nation. Even though the new nation was committed to equality and liberty, it denied the freedom of millions of its residents. The ultimate goal of the Underground Railroad was to accomplish the safe arrival of runaway slaves to the North and Canada where the long arm of the law could no longer reach them. The Underground Railroad was neither a road nor underground; it was any house, cave, hidden room, or empty barn that acted as a place a runaway could hide safely (Buckmaster, 42). This whole operation appears to have started at the end of 18th

The Gateway to Freedom is an enticing novel that gives further knowledge of racial discrimination and the social inequality of blacks at the time of slavery and how the Underground Railroad combatted this through the different committees and activists of the time. This essay will focus on how the Underground Railroad affected family, economy and religion- the social institutions, those who operated the Underground Railroad were diverse and have different reason for following the abolitionist movement, and not all the committees are made equally.

The Underground Railroad was a passage to freedom for the slaves which made the slave-owners exasperate. The slaves had to risk their lives while travelling to the northern states but it was worth it as the result of such hard work was freedom. The underground railroad, a secret network running from the Deep South through the free states and to the Canadian border that helped slaves escape from the slave-holding states before the Civil War, allowed abolitionists and their allies to help runaway slaves, made "conductors" like Harriet Tubman famous, and reached its height after the passage of the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act.

The Underground Railroad was an intricate system of households and farmhouses alike that were all connected throughout many towns and villages in the mid 1800s. It was formed by the common goal of people taking a stand against the law and helping thousands of black slaves escape from the south to gain their rightful freedom in the north. This happened because many people began to see slaves as human beings with value, rather than brutes that were valued less than a human. Throughout the mid 1800s, there were many cases of runaway slaves attempting to escape to freedom without anywhere to hide or anyone to help. A lot of people realized that this was a very impactful movement so they began to open up their minds and homes to these fugitive slaves as an attempt to help them make it into the north. Many people helped these runaway slaves because they believed it was morally right, that black oppression was a crime; slaves held value and deserved to keep their family together and lead a life as any other man or woman would, and former slaves shed light on these critical issues.

The Underground Railroad is infamous due to motivations that aren‘t completely uplifting for the United States‘ image during. This was one of many hardcore blemishes for American History. Yes, slavery was actually everywhere, it wasn’t always looked at seriously. Example, a slave may have ran away and his owner may make a comment, “he must have gone off on an underground railroad.”(Abdur-Rahim) Although this comment seems harmless, it was said in order make a mockery of the Underground Railroad movement. This comment normally would be followed by possible whippings of any slaves associated with the runaway. The North’s

The slave’s life depended on their owners. Most owners treated their slaves well by making sure they had decent food, clean houses, and warm clothes to wear. Other planters spent little time caring about these things. They were determining to get the most work possible from their slaves. Slaves worked from sunup to sundown, at least sixteen hours a day. They sometimes suffered whippings and other cruel punishments. Owners thought of them as valuable property, that way the owners wanted to keep their human property healthy and as productive as they can. Keeping slaves families together was very difficult to do because slaves were considered as

In order to make it harder for the slave locators to retrieve their slaves, The Underground Railroad network had no set trails or paths that they followed. The conductors who operated each mission chose a path where slaves would be less likely captured or recaptured. According to the article, “The Underground Railroad: Cloaked Getaway to Freedom,” some of these routs consisted of using abandoned mineshafts and walkways, tunnels built by smugglers and/or pirates, covered wagons or carts with false bottoms, and hidden compartments of cupboards, floors and closets. Helping any black was against the law, but because so many people knew and believed that slavery wasn’t right, they unselfishly risked everything in order to help them to freedom. Not only did they risk everything, some whites even created abolition groups.

The majority of the slaves were employed in agricultural areas in the South. By the mid-19th century, a large number of slaves worked in urban areas as well, and about 5% worked in more industrial occupations. The hours of the slave workers were long. The average life expectancy of African slaves was at least 12% lower than whit Americans in 1850 and the infant mortality rate was 25% higher for slaves. Oftentimes slave marriages and families dissolved due to separation. This concept is horrible when you take under consideration that family was the entire basis of African culture.

The Underground Railroad was not a railroad or underground. The Underground Railroad was a path for slaves to escape. More than 100,000 slaves escaped through the Underground Railroad. (History.com, history.com staff, paragraphs one and two) The slaves can thank people like Harriet Tubman because she was one of the people that helped the slaves leave and be free. There were other people, like William Still, Levi Coffin, and John Fairfield. One of the paths that went through the Underground Railroad was in Cincinnati, Ohio. Different paths extended through fourteen states and including Canada. The Underground Railroad was formed during the 1700-1790s. The Underground Railroad ended in 1861 when the Civil War started. (history.net, in between paragraphs one and two)

     In the later 1700’s to 1863, slavery was an intricate part of the South. Slaves were needed for plantation work like planting, caring for, and harvesting crops to maintaining the land. After