Underground Railroad Definition

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 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

Throughout the 1800s in America, slavery was a controversy between the north and the south. A Slave was one who was the property of another human being under law and was forced to obey them. The North felt that slavery was unfair and inhumane, whereas in the South, they felt as though slavery was crucial to their success. African American slaves were not allowed many rights: they were not allowed to testify in court against a white person, could not receive an education, or even sign contracts. Due to the brutality they faced each day, many slaves escaped with hopes to find freedom. The Underground Railroad, a system utilized by many runaway slaves to help them escape from the South to Canada, played a large role in the downfall of slavery and eventual abolition in the United States following the Civil War.

Thousands of enslaved african americans lived in the south and was ⅓ of the south’s population, slavery violated the rights of human rights of thousands of african americans. If it wasn't for Abraham Lincoln and thousands of his supporters, The underground railroad saved the lives of thousands of african americans. The most famous legend is Harriet Tubman, she herself saved the lives of thousands and was

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.

Though slavery was a controversial topic of the 19th century, many people thought that slavery was necessary because they raised crops and maintained houses for their owners for free, but many people thought that this was inhumane so they contributed to something called the Underground Railroad, which a woman named Harriet Tubman contributed to the Underground Railroad by providing safe routes for slaves coming to the North, but this lead to the Civil War which was abolitionist vs. pro-slavery. Slavery started in 1619 in the first English settlement of Jamestown. Between 1502 and 1866, of the 11.2 million Africans, only 450,000 arrived in the United States, while the rest arrived in Latin America and the Caribbean. These slaves were brought as early as the 16th and 17th centuries. A number of slaves in the south in 1860 was about 2.3 million and this was during the end of the Underground Railroad.

The Underground Railroad was a series of routes that slaves would use to escape the ownership of their owners. It helped slaves escape and the people who would help the “underground railroad” function were white abolitionists who would hide the escapees in secret places, while supplying them with food and the things necessary to live. The Underground Railroad helped many slaves escape to the North.

"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

The underground railroad is a secret network for helping slaves escape from the South to the North and to Canada in the years before the Civil War ("Oxford Dictionaries | The World's Most Trusted Dictionary Provider"). It is called this because although the Underground Railroad was neither underground, or a railroad, the system worked in a similar fashion to a railroad("Fast Facts - The Underground Railroad"). The passengers followed a route; there were many stops; a conductor led the way, which explains the “railroad” part("Fast Facts - The Underground Railroad"). It was underground because it had to be a secretive operation in order to succeed, and the runaway slaves often had to hide to stay safe("Fast Facts - The Underground Railroad").

In 1619, the first Africans arrived in Jamestown, Virginia setting in motion one of the darkest eras in American history. Slavery would continue throughout the 17th and 18th centuries and eventually divide the nation in the bloody battles of the American Civil War (1861 – 1865). On January 1, 1863, four million slaves were freed when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. However, the road to freedom for many slaves was long and brutal. Countless African American slaves were tortured and terrorized and many lost their lives. In the early 1800s, a secret network of routes and safe houses was established to help fugitive slaves reach freedom. This system became known as the Underground Railroad and spanned across twenty-nine states. Routes also led to Canada, Mexico, and the Caribbean. Historians believe the origins of the Underground Railroad can be traced back to the Quakers (Penrice). Without the courageous efforts of the dedicated Quaker men and women, the Underground Railroad would not have been successful in leading an estimated 100,000 slaves to freedom ("Myths of the Underground Railroad").

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.

In America’s history, slaves were widely used to assist with tasks, mostly on plantations. The first African slaves were brought to the Jamestown colony in 1619 to aid in growing tobacco, and pretty soon more and more people wanted slaves of their own. During the 1700s, six to seven million slaves came to America. But as long as slavery was in the United States, slaves were dissatisfied with their lives and wanted to escape. In the 1780s, George Washington complained of a runaway slave who had been aided by “a society of Quakers, formed for [helping slaves escape].” This was the beginning of the Underground Railroad, a network of people who helped slaves escape to freedom in the North or in Canada. These people were called “conductors,” and the places they guided slaves to were called “stops.” One stop

     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.

In 1831, northern free slaves began to try to free slaves from forced captivity of southern slave owners, which began the movement of the Underground Railroad. In 1865, the victory of the civil war, freed four million black slaves, but white southerners were not happy with the idea of slaves having freedom so they designed laws to restrict freed slaves from civility and ensure that they did not lose their labor force. As the years went on and new laws were passed for citizenship, white southerners continued to come up with ways to restrict Blacks from many social activities in which they were already granted through the laws of the Constitution.

By the 1840s the Underground Railroad was known to be up and running, the first organized system to help runaway slaves.