The Underground Railroad: The Movement Against Slavery

The Underground Railroad was one of the most remarkable protests against slavery in United States history. It was a fight for personal survival, which many slaves lost in trying to attain their freedom. Slaves fought for their own existence in trying to keep with the traditions of their homeland, their homes in which they were so brutally taken away from. In all of this turmoil however they managed to preserve the customs and traditions of their native land. These slaves fought for their existence and for their cultural heritage with the help of many people and places along the path we now call 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.

Harriet Tubman is considered a hero when she helped free slaves. She led them through the Underground Railroad since she knew the all the routes well. The Underground Railroad was a transport that would help slaves escape to freedom and it was certainly secretive. Each stop would go to a safe-house (Math.buffalo.edu). Harriet Tubman

The Underground Railroad was a huge success lasting for decades and freed around one hundred thousand slaves by 1850 (History.com). The events of the railroad happened all over the country, each trip different and all routes kept secret, but slaves from the South would escape in small groups of three to five in an attempt to pass the Ohio River to Northern Free states. Slaves mainly traveled by foot in small groups, occasionally a slave would travel by boat or train, but wagon or foot was easiest as the night provided cover and there were set up safe houses (Wikipedia). The underlying causes of the Underground Railroad was as a means of escape from the harsh lives most slaves lived. The events that caused the construction of the Underground Railroad are unknown but is believed to be started by Quakers in the late 1700s (History.com). The Underground Railroad was a huge success bringing thousands of slaves into freedom a year, giving them hope for a better

The Underground Railroad was a path to safety and freedom for thousands of slaves before the Civil War. Escaping from the chains, confinement and abuse of slavery was no easy task and it took the cooperation of many people

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.

Slave resistance began for many enslaved Africans before they reach the Americas. Karenga explained the many arrangements in which Africans resisted to enslavement, while in Africa, during the middle passage, and in the Americas. Employing the Karenga text one can evaluate the different resistances that transpired in Antigua as Cultural, Resistance, Day-to-Day Resistance, Abolitionism, Armed Resistance, Revolts, Ship Mutinies, and Afro-Native Alliance. One can conclude that enslaved Africans had an unrelenting resistance to enslavement (Karenga).

The Underground Railroad was a system set up to help escaping slaves safely survive their trip to the north. Harriet Tubman was a leader and one of the best conductors on the Underground Railroad. Harriet Tubman made a total of 19 trips into slave holding states freeing around a total of 300 slaves. Huckleberry Fin was written by Mark Twain, Jim one of the main characters was an escaped slave. Harriet Tubman played a significant role in liberating slaves as she worked as a conductor for the Underground Railroad.

"Oppressed slaves should flee and take Liberty Line to freedom." The Underground Railroad began in the 1780s while Harriet Tubman was born six decades later in antebellum America. The Underground Railroad was successful in its quest to free slaves; it even made the South pass two acts in a vain attempt to stop its tracks. Then, Harriet Tubman, an African-American with an incredulous conviction to lead her people to the light, joins the Underground Railroad’s cause becoming one of the leading conductors in the railroad. The Underground Railroad and Harriet Tubman aided in bringing down slavery and together, they put the wood in the fires leading up to the Civil War. The greatest causes of the Civil War were the Underground Railroad

A strong and powerful lady said these wise words: “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; for no man should take me alive; I should fight for my liberty as long as my strength lasted, and when the time came for me to go, the Lord would let them take me”. The brave women who said these words were Harriet Tubman and she was one of the leaders of the Underground Railroad that helped slaves reach freedom. “Although not an actual railroad of steel rails, locomotives and steam engines, the Underground Railroad was real nevertheless” (encyclopedia The Civil War and African Americans 329) The term “Underground Railroad” referred to the

     The Underground Railroad, the pathway to freedom which led a numerous amount of African Americans to escape beginning as early as the 1700‘s, it still remains a mystery to many as to exactly when it started and why. (Carrasco). The Underground Railroad is known by many as one of the earliest parts of the antislavery movement. Although the system was neither underground nor a railroad, it was a huge success that will never be forgotten.

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

Slavery has always been an anomaly, although abolitionists such as Harriet Tubman did much to ameliorate, and later, abolish slavery. Harriet was a strong and courageous woman and a well-known conductor of the Underground Railroads, around the 1850s. Harriet Tubman personal experiences throughout her life have shaped her to become the stout-hearted woman who helped many slaves escape to freedom, by using the Underground Railroad—a network of secret routes.

The stability of the slave system was hindered by those who ran away. The war provided opportunities for slaves to escape their miserable lifestyle and try to gain their freedom by running away to British lines. The slaves had many disadvantages when they ran away. The white men would question them if they saw a slave by themselves, patrollers were always on the lookout for runaway slaves, the hounds could track them, the slave knew little to nothing about the geography of the land. Several slaves used the north star as their way for directions because the north star led to freedom. The Underground Railroad was another option for slaves because the loose organization of abolitionists would hide fugitive slaves in their homes and send them to the next house until the slaves reached freedom. Harriet Tubman, a future slave herself, helped liberate slaves by risking her own life to make trips to Maryland, her state of birth, to help fugitive slaves get to freedom. Several fugitive slaves made it to the freedom of the North through their own intuitive ideas or passages of travel.

The Abolition movement had a final goal that consisted of the emancipation of slavery, as well as racial discrimination, and segregation. The main leaders of this movement were social reformers, such as, William Lloyd Garrison, John Greenleaf Whittier, and Harriet Beecher Stowe. While they all had the same end goal, they carried out different methods to assist in abolishing slavery. Proslavery Southerners felt that Abolitionists and antislavery Northerners were getting in the way of their accustomed lifestyle. The Southerners used numerous tactics against the Northerners to counter their efforts to abolish slavery, as well. Lastly, the Underground Railroad made a significant impact on the annihilation of slavery, as well.