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Underground Railroad

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This page is about the slave escape route. For railroads built below ground, see rapid transit.
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The Underground Railroad was a network of clandestine routes by which African slaves in the 19th century United States attempted to escape to free states, or as far north as Canada, with the aid of abolitionists. Other routes led to Mexico or overseas. It's estimated that at its height between 1810 and 1850, between 30,000 and 100,000 people escaped enslavement via the Underground Railroad, though U.S. Census figures only account for 6000. The Underground Railroad has captured public imagination as a symbol of freedom, and figures prominently in Black American history.

Map of some Underground Railroad routes
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Map of some Underground Railroad routes

Contents

Structure

The escape network was "underground" in the sense of underground resistance, but was seldom literally subterranean. The Underground Railroad consisted of clandestine routes, transportation, meeting points, safe houses and other havens, and assistance maintained by abolitionist sympathizers. These individuals were organized into small, independent groups who, for the purpose of maintaining secrecy, knew of connecting "stations" along the route, but few details of their immediate area (see vigilance committee). Many individual links were via family relation. Escaped slaves would pass from one waystation to the next, while steadily making their way North. The diverse "conductors" on the railroad included free-born blacks, white abolitionists, former slaves (either escaped or manumitted), and Native Americans. Churches and religious denominations played key roles, especially the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Congregationalists, and Wesleyans, as well as breakaway sects of mainstream denominations such as branches of the Methodist church and American Baptists.

Traveling conditions

Although sometimes the fugitives travelled on real railways, the primary means of transportation were on foot or by wagon.

Ismary Istroyer tells her story, "It were so hard to travel, all by myself. It took 89 long tiring days. I travelled through 23 swamps, and had nothing to eat, but grass, leaves, and the rare food I would get at a stationers house."

The routes taken were indirect to throw off pursuers. Most escapes were by individuals or small groups; occasionally, such as with the Pearl Rescue, there were mass escapes. The majority of the escapees are believed to have been male field workers less than forty years old; the journey was often too arduous and treacherous for women and children to complete successfully. It was relatively common, however, for fugitive bondsmen who had escaped via the Railroad and established livelihoods as free men to purchase their mates, children and other family members out of slavery ad seriatim, and then arrange to be reunited with them. In this manner, the number of former slaves who owed their freedom at least in part to the courage and determination of those who operated Underground Railroad was far greater than the many thousands who actually traveled the clandestine network. Traveling was extremely harsh and close to impossible during the time of the Underground Railroad.

Because of the risk of discovery, information about routes and safe havens was passed along by word of mouth. Southern newspapers of the day often were filled with pages of notices soliciting information about escaped slaves and offering sizable rewards for their capture and return. Professional bounty hunters pursued fugitives even as far as Canada. Strong, healthy blacks in their prime working and reproductive years were highly valuable commodities, and it was common for free blacks to be kidnapped and sold into slavery. Certificates of freedom, signed, notarized statements attesting to the free status of individual blacks, could be easily destroyed and afforded their owners little protection.

Terminology

The Underground Railroad developed its own jargon, which continued the railway metaphor: William Still, often called "The Father of the Underground Railroad," helped hundreds of slaves to escape (as many as 60 slaves a month), sometimes hiding them in his Philadelphia home. He kept careful records, including short biographies of the people, that contained frequent railway metaphors. Still maintained correspondence with many of them, often acting as a middleman in communications between escaped slaves and those left behind. He then published these accounts in the book The Underground Railroad in 1872.

According to Still, messages were often encoded so that only those active in the railroad would fully understand their meanings. For example, the following message, "I have sent via at two o'clock four large and two small hams," indicated that four adults and two children were sent by train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. However, the addition of the word via indicated that they were not sent on the regular train, but rather via Reading. In this case, the authorities went to the regular train station in an attempt to intercept the runaways, while Still was able to meet them at the correct station and guide them to safety, where they eventually escaped to Canada.

Folklore

Since the 1980s, claims have arisen that quilt designs were used to signal and direct slaves to escape routes and assistance. The first published work documenting an oral history source was in 1999, so it is difficult to evaluate the veracity of these claims. Many accounts also mention spirituals and other songs that contained coded information intended to help navigate the railroad. Songs such as "Steal Away" and other field songs were often passed down purely orally. Tracing their origins and exact meanings is difficult. In any case, a great number of African-American songs of the period deal with themes of freedom and escape, and distinguishing coded information from expression and sentiment may not be possible.

Legal and political

The Underground Railroad was a major cause of friction between the North and South. Many northerners sympathized with those who helped to deliver slaves to safety. For many years, southerners pushed for strong laws to force the recapture of runaway slaves. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1793 was the first law passed by the U.S. Congress to address the issue of escaped slaves in free states; and in 1850, Congress passed the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, which mandated the capture of fugitive slaves. This prevented runaways from settling legally in free states, forcing them to escape into Canada and other British colonies. The law also provided an impetus for the growth of Underground Railroad routes through free states such as Ohio. During the same period, a series of unsuccessful slave rebellions led to retaliatory violence by vigilantes against innocent slaves, which increased the numbers of runaways heading North.

When frictions between North and South culminated in the American Civil War, many blacks, slave and free, fought with the Union Army. Following the passing of the Thirteenth Amendment, in some cases the Underground Railroad operated in reverse as fugitives returned to the United States.

Effect on Canada

Estimates vary widely, but at least 30,000 slaves escaped to Canada via the Underground Railroad [link]. This had an important effect on Canadian society. The largest group settled in Upper Canada (called Canada West from 1841, and today southern Ontario), where a number of African Canadian communities developed. These were generally in the triangle between Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Windsor, and particularly in Toronto where 1,000 refugees settled and in Kent and Essex counties where several rural villages made up largely of ex-slaves were established.

Important black settlements also developed in more distant British colonies (now parts of Canada). These included Nova Scotia as well as Vancouver Island, where Governor James Douglas encouraged black immigration due to his opposition to slavery and because he hoped a significant black community would form a bulwark against those who wished to unite the island with the United States.

Upon arrival at their destinations, many fugitives were disappointed. While the British colonies had no slavery, discrimination was still common. Many of the new arrivals had great difficulty finding jobs, and open racism was common. However, most refugees remained. Of the 20,000 who emigrated to Upper Canada only 20% returned to the United States.2

With the outbreak of the Civil War in the United States, a large number of black refugees enlisted in the Union Army and, while some later returned to Canada, many remained in the United States. Thousands of others returned to the American South after the war ended. The desire to reconnect with friends and family was strong, and most were hopeful about the changes emancipation and Reconstruction would bring.

Today, Canadians take some pride on being a place American slaves sought as a refuge from the USA. In effect, in some Canadians' eyes, their country represented a place of true freedom for a time for an oppressed people that their neighbor, for all its rhetorical love for the value, refused to be. There are numerous monuments erected in Ontario to reflect that pride.

Contemporary literature

Related events

See also

Footnotes: Web Sites: Books: Folklore:

Sources and further reading

 

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