Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and from there to Canada.[1] The network, primarily the work of free African Americans (and some whites as well),[2] was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees.[3] The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the Railroad, respectively.[4] Various other routes led to Mexico,[5] where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade.[6] An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession (except 1763–1783), existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790.[7][8] However, the network generally known as the Underground Railroad began in the late 18th century. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln.[9] One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network.[9]
For other uses, see Underground Railroad (disambiguation).Founding location
United States
United States, and routes to British North America, Mexico, Spanish Florida, and the Caribbean
African Americans and other compatriots
- Fleeing from slavery into the Northern United States or Canada
- Aiding freedom seeking slaves
Origin of the name[edit]
Eric Foner wrote that the term "was perhaps first used by a Washington newspaper in 1839, quoting a young slave hoping to escape bondage via a railroad that 'went underground all the way to Boston'".[10][11] Dr. Robert Clemens Smedley wrote that following slave catchers' failed searches and lost traces of fugitives as far north as Columbia, Pennsylvania, they declared in bewilderment that "there must be an underground railroad somewhere," giving origin to the term.[12] Scott Shane wrote that the first documented use of the term was in an article written by Thomas Smallwood in the August 10, 1842, edition of Tocsin of Liberty, an abolitionist newspaper published in Albany. He also wrote that the 1879 book Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad said the phrase was mentioned in an 1839 Washington newspaper article and that the book's author said 40 years later that he had quoted the article from memory as closely as he could.[13][14]
Political background[edit]
For the fugitive slaves who "rode" the Underground Railroad, many of them considered Canada their final destination. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 of them settled in Canada, half of whom came between 1850 and 1860. Others settled in free states in the north.[15] Thousands of court cases for fugitive slaves were recorded between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War.[16] Under the original Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, officials from free states were required to assist slaveholders or their agents who recaptured fugitives, but some state legislatures prohibited this. The law made it easier for slaveholders and slave catchers to capture African Americans and return them to slavery, and in some cases allowed them to enslave free blacks. It also created an eagerness among abolitionists to help enslaved people, resulting in the growth of anti-slavery societies and the Underground Railroad.[17]
With heavy lobbying by Southern politicians, the Compromise of 1850 was passed by Congress after the Mexican–American War. It included a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law; ostensibly, the compromise addressed regional problems by compelling officials of free states to assist slave catchers, granting them immunity to operate in free states.[18] Because the law required sparse documentation to claim a person was a fugitive, slave catchers also kidnapped free blacks, especially children, and sold them into slavery.[19] Southern politicians often exaggerated the number of escaped slaves and often blamed these escapes on Northerners interfering with Southern property rights.[20] The law deprived people suspected of being slaves of the right to defend themselves in court, making it difficult to prove free status.[21] Some Northern states enacted personal liberty laws that made it illegal for public officials to capture or imprison former slaves.[22] The perception that Northern states ignored the fugitive slave laws and regulations was a major justification offered for secession.[23]
National Underground Railroad Network[edit]
Following upon legislation passed in 1990 for the National Park Service to perform a special resource study of the Underground Railroad,[115] in 1997, the 105th Congress introduced and subsequently passed H.R. 1635 – National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom Act of 1998, which President Bill Clinton signed into law that year.[116] This act authorized the United States National Park Service to establish the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom program to identify associated sites, as well as preserve them and popularize the Underground Railroad and stories of people involved in it. The National Park Service has designated many sites within the network, posted stories about people and places, sponsors an essay contest, and holds a national conference about the Underground Railroad in May or June each year.[117]
The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad National Historical Park, which includes Underground Railroad routes in three counties of Maryland's Eastern Shore and Harriet Tubman's birthplace, was created by President Barack Obama under the Antiquities Act on March 25, 2013.[118] Its sister park, the Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in Auburn, New York, was established on January 10, 2017, and focuses on the later years of Tubman's life as well as her involvement with the Underground Railroad and the abolition movement.[119]