The Underground Railroad : Book Report : The Underground Railroad

The late 19th Century was a revolutionizing period in American History evident by the Industrial Revolution and the Civil War. However, it was the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad which profoundly changed the United States. The discovery of gold, the acquisition of Mexican territories and the continued settlement of the West increased the need for a primary railway system connecting the East and the West Coasts.

The Underground Railroad is a figurative railroad involving hundreds of thousands of people such as slaves, free Blacks, and White abolitionists. The Underground Railroad began in the late 1700s to 1865, with the height of the railroad happening in 1850 to the 1860s, where a thousand or more slaves were able to escape per year. The name of the Underground Railroad comes from the use of railroad code and the railroad being a form of resistance to slavery at the time (Wikipedia). Following the Compromise of 1850 that strengthened the Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, slave catchers were allowed to work in free states and claim free Blacks as slaves and put them back into slavery. The specifics of the railroad are unknown to keep out infiltrators, everything relied on word of mouth, and many who helped only knew their part of the trip (Wikipedia).

Plantation life is all they have known. Growing up on a huge plot of land where you are surrounded by a hundred people, all the same race as you, watching your friends get in fights, get beat by a white person, hearing screams of pain and terror all by yourself. In “The Underground Railroad,” by Colson Whitehead, Cora is a dynamic character who changes from a traumatized, emotionally drained character to an independent, determine young women as she experiences many life-changing events clarifying the theme, if you set your mind to it, you can overcome anything. Cora was a young girl who experienced hardships from the very beginning.

This autobiography is about a young girl named Frado, who was born free but when her mother Mag and step-father Seth abandoned her, she was forced into being an indentured servant for the family she was left with. Mag was a white woman who became an outcast after she bore a child out of wed-lock. The child only live but a few short weeks before she passed away; Mag found it to be a blessing for the child couldn’t be taunted for her mother’s mistake. After leaving the town that looked down upon her, she met and befriended a black man named Jim, he later convinced her to marry him, which in this 19th century society put her even lower on the totem-poll. Together they had two beautiful mulatto children, Frado and a son whose name was never mentioned in the book. After a couple of years of being

Ancestors can only tell of what they've been told, and sometimes it isn't the whole story or the truth. But there are no records of the Underground Railroad and so estimates from ancestors and historians are all that can be contrived to come up with an idea of what really happened on and away from the plantations.

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.

“Plantation Life” told by Rachel Adams. Rachel was born into slavery in Putman County close to Eatonton, Georgia. Rachel had a mother and father but her father was sold when she was a baby. Her mom’s job was to weave clothes and many times Rachel got to wear the clothes. Rachel grew up with 17 children and only one of them being a boy. They lived in small log cabins, their beds and pillows were made from old hay. Rachel says as children they were fed cornbread and potlicker, adults were fed meat, greens, and cornbread. Marse Lewis Little and Miss Sallie were the owners. Marse Lewis was kind to his slaves. The overseer, however, was cruel and if they didn’t do what he wanted, they would be whipped. Slaves were also whipped if they didn’t do their task in a certain amount of time. Some slaves learned how to read and write while others didn’t. Rachel

Slavery was a dark time in America’s past. Not only did slavery separate millions of families, it destroyed the white man’s reputation to African people. Many slave owners treated their slaves well, many did not. They forced their slaves to live in deplorable conditions. Malnutrition and overworking often led to death. If you were a slave, would you risk it all and try to run away? You might not have a choice if you wanted to stay alive.

Mr. Still was unusual in that he kept careful, written records of those he assisted, including short biographies on some, which he published in 1872. Mr. Still often employed railroad metaphors in his writing. The following example illustrates the way messages were encoded so that only those active in the railroad would fully understand their meaning, even if intercepted by outsiders:

The Underground Railroad was a secret system of individuals who assisted fugitive slaves in their quest for freedom prior to the Civil War. The term, used between 1830-1860, refers to the swift, “invisible” way in which the slaves escaped. Usually they hid during the day and moved at night. Coffin says: “fugitive slaves relied heavily on fellow slaves and free blacks, who rarely betray them.” (Coffin, 2006). The most famous black leader in the movement was Harriet Tubman, a nonliterate runaway slave who became the “Moses” of her people.

The Underground Railroad is viewed as simply a series of trails that led slave to freedom. It was more than that. What were the motivations behind the creation of it? Were there political involvements? Was it developed with financial gain in mind? The Underground Railroad is another one of those subjects that gets swept under the proverbial carpet. Slavery happened everywhere, whether people want to admit it or not. The Underground Railroad was a positive and a negative thing. Most people don’t comprehend what it fully entailed or the impact that it had on all people. It is important to review the past, so we can make an attempt to not make the same mistakes. The above questions will be answered in a well rounded account of all parties involved from the abolitionists to the slaves and those who were supporters.

(2) Perhaps the most effective and dramatic aspect of The Underground Railroad was Mr. Whitehead’s decision to present characters with little or no background information and then detail that information in dramatic fashion in later chapters devoted exclusively to that character. This decision by the author to “jump around in time and space” was especially noteworthy with respect to Cora’s mother, Mabel. Throughout the novel, we are led to believe that Mabel had run away from the Randall plantation while purposely leaving her young daughter behind to suffer as a slave. Cora is portrayed repeatedly as resenting her mother for not taking her when she had escaped. “Once Mabel ran, Cora thought of her as little as possible. After landing in South Carolina, she realized that she had banished her mother not from sadness but from rage. She hated her.” (98) Further, despite extensive searches by the slave catcher, Ridgeway, no evidence of

The Underground Railroad was what many slaves used to escape slavery. It was not an actual railroad, although it could easily be compared to one. It was a route, with safe houses and many other hiding spots for the slaves to use. The paths had conductors telling you where to go and people who would drive you to the next safe house. You had to be quick, you had to be strong, and you had to be very courageous. The Underground Railroad led all the way to Canada. There were many people helping the slaves, and even more people that were opposing them. It was no easy task. Many slaves died of sickness or natural causes, gave up and returned back to the plantation, or were caught and either killed or brought back. It was a rough journey but a

The routes of the Underground Railroad were complicated and often zigzagged to confuse slave hunters. The one problem with this was it often confused the runaway slaves also. Due to this there are obviously plenty of stories about slaves getting lost and sometimes instead of going north they would accidentally head south.

In the book, Incidents in the Life of Slave Girl, Linda Brent tells a spectacular story of her twenty years spent in slavery with her master Dr. Flint, and her jealous Mistress. She speaks of her trials and triumphs as well as the harms done to other slaves. She takes you on the inside of slavery and shows you the Hell on Earth slavery really was. She tells you the love and