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Underground Railroad Benefits

Decent Essays

The Underground Railroad not only benefited slaves, but helped society in numerous ways. The Underground Railroad was a system abolitionists used to help slaves escape to the North. It reunited families who were separated by slavery and made life better for the slaves that were able to escape safely, like Harriet Tubman. People from different backgrounds, races, and religions were involved in the escapes. The Underground Railroad was very dangerous, for slaves and the abolitionists who helped them. The Railroad’s impact later led to more freedom for black men and women in America.
The Underground Railroad was not a railroad, but a system created to help free slaves. The abolitionists and slave owners used railroad terms such as “conductor”, …show more content…

They had to endure near-starvation, attacks from wild animals, and severe temperatures. Once they arrived in the North, they still weren’t safe, as the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850 allowed slaves to be taken back to the South if they were captured. Slaves faced severe punishments if they were caught, like being beaten, flogged, branded, jailed, sold back into slavery, or even killed. They had to travel to out of the country to be free from this law. Fugitive slaves also had to avoid the “Reverse Underground Railroad”, which was a group of slave catchers who kidnapped black men, women, and children in the North and took them to the South to be sold into slavery, even if they bought their freedom or were born free. To avoid these dangers, some fugitives escaped by other means, including Frederick Douglass and Henry “Box” Brown. Frederick Douglass escaped on an actual train, and since he needed free papers, he used a sailor’s protection certificate. The train conductor didn’t look very closely at his papers, and Douglass stayed on the train. Henry Brown mailed himself to the North in a wooden crate, giving him his nickname, …show more content…

Harriet Tubman made 19 trips to the South, risking her own freedom, to liberate over 300 slaves. William Still, an African-American abolitionist and civil rights activist, helped free nearly 800 slaves in 14 years. Quakers, the “Religious Society of Friends” were some of the earliest abolitionists. In fact, two Quakers, Levi and Catherine Coffin, were believed to have assisted more than 3,000 slaves in escaping. Vigilance committees, or “stockholders” contributed money, goods, and sometimes clothes to the fugitive slaves.
In conclusion, the Underground Railroad was very beneficial to society. It was used by many to escape the cruelty of slavery. Though there were many dangers involved with the Underground Railroad, hundreds of thousands of slaves and abolitionists who assisted them took the risk. There were many people who helped the runaway slaves in any way they could. Though it was a dark time in our history, the Underground Railroad was the beginning of the end of

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