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Essay On The Underground Railroad In North Carolina

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The Underground Railroad in North Carolina

The Underground Railroad was perhaps the most active and dramatic protest action against slavery in United States history and as we look at the Underground Railroad in North Carolina we will focus on the Quakers, Levi Coffin’s early years, and the accounts of escaped slaves from North Carolina. The unique blend of southern slave holder and northern abolitionist influences in the formation of North Carolina served to make the state an important link in the efforts to end slavery inside and outside of North Carolina borders.

Although not "underground" nor a "railroad," this informal system became a loosely constructed network of escape routes that originated in the South, intertwined …show more content…

Levi Coffin was born on October 28, 1798 on a farm in New Garden, North Carolina, the only son of seven children born to Quaker parents, Levi and Prudence (Williams) Coffin.
Because his father needed him to work on the farm, young Levi received the bulk of his education at home. His home schooling proved to be a good education. As a young boy growing up in North Carolina in the early 1800's, Levi saw firsthand the reality of slavery. One day while he was out with his father helping to chop wood by the roadside, a group of slaves, handcuffed and chained together, passed by on their way to be sold in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. When Levi’s father asked them why they were chained, one of the men sadly replied: "They have taken us away from our wives and children, and they chain us lest we should make our escape and go back to them."1 After the group of slaves had gone, young Levi wondered to himself how he would feel if his father were taken away from him.

The incident by the side of a Guilford County road marked the first stirring of Levi Coffin's sympathy for the oppressed. Together with a strong hatred of oppression and injustice in any form, Coffin later said these "were the motives that influenced my

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