The
Underground Railroad was the name given to the system by which escaped
slaves from the South were helped in their flight to the North. It
is believed that the system started in 1787
when Isaac T. Hopper, a Quaker,
began to organize a system for hiding and aiding fugitive
slaves. Opponents of slavery allowed their homes, called stations,
to be used as places where escaped slaves were provided with food,
shelter and money. The various routes went through 14 Northern states
and Canada. It is estimated that by 1850
around 3,000 people worked on the underground railroad. Some of the
most best known of the people who provided help on the route included
William Still, Gerrit
Smith, Salmon Chase, David
Ruggle, Thomas Garrett, William
Purvis, Jane Grey Swisshelm, William
Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass,
Henry David Thoreau, Lucretia
Mott, Charles Langston, Levi
Coffin and Susan B. Anthony.
The underground railroad also had people known as conductors who went
to the south and helped guide slaves to safety. One of the most important
of these was the former slave, Harriet Tubman.
She made 19 secret trips to the South, during which she led more than
300 slaves to freedom. Tubman was considered such a threat to the
slave system that plantation owners offered a $40,000 reward for her
capture.
Stations were usually about twenty miles apart. Conductors used covered
wagons or carts with false bottoms to carry slaves from one station
to another. Runaway slaves usually hid during the day and travelled
at night. Some of those involved notified runaways of their stations
by brightly lit candles in a window or by lanterns positioned in the
frontyard. By the middle of the 19th century it was estimated that
over 50,000 slaves had escaped from the South using the underground
railroad.
Plantation owners became concerned at the large number of slaves escaping
to the North and in 1850 managed to persuade Congress to pass the
Fugitive
Slave Act.
In future, any federal marshal who did not arrest an alleged runaway
slave could be fined $1,000. Any person aiding a runaway slave by
providing shelter, food or any other form of assistance was liable
to six months' imprisonment and a $1,000 fine.
The Fugitive Slave
Act failed to stop the underground railroad. Thomas
Garrett, the Deleware station-master, paid more than $8,000 in
fines and Calvin Fairbank served over seventeen years in prison for
his anti-slavery activities. Whereas John Fairfield, one of the best
known of the white conductors, was killed working for the underground
railroad.
(1)
Frederick Douglass, Life and Times
of Frederick Douglass (1881)
One
important branch of my anti-slavery work in Rochester, was as station
master and conductor of the underground railroad passing through this
goodly city. Secrecy and concealment were necessary conditions to
the successful operation of this railroad, and
hence its prefix "underground." My agency was all the more
exciting and interesting, because not altogether free from danger.
I could take no step in it without exposing myself to fine and imprisonment,
for these were the penalties imposed by the fugitive slave law, for
feeding, harboring, or otherwise assisting a slave to escape from
his master; but in face of this fact, I can say, I never did more
congenial, attractive, fascinating, and satisfactory work.
True as a means of destroying slavery, it was like an attempt to bail
out the ocean with a teaspoon, but the thought that there was one
less slave, and one more freeman, brought to my heart unspeakable
joy. On one occasion I had eleven fugitives at the same time under
my roof, and it was necessary for them to remain with me, until I
could collect sufficient money to get them on to Canada. It was the
largest number I ever had at any one time, and I had some difficulty
in providing so many with food and shelter, but as may well be imagined,
they were not very fastidious in either direction, and were well content
with very plain food, and a strip of carpet on the floor for a bed,
or a place on the straw in the barn loft.
The underground railroad had many branches; but that one with which
I was connected had its main stations in Baltimore, Wilmington, Philadelphia,
New York, Albany, Syracuse, Rochester, and St. Catharines (Canada).
It is not necessary to tell who were the principal agents in Baltimore;
Thomas Garrett was the agent in Wilmington; Melloe McKim, William
Still, Robert Purvis, Edward M. Davis, and others did the work in
Philadelphia; David Ruggles, Isaac T. Hopper, Napolian, and others,
in New York city; the Misses Mott and Stephen Myers, were forwarders
from Albany; Revs. Samuel J. May and J. W. Loguen, were the agents
in. Syracuse; and J. P. Morris and myself received and dispatched
passengers from Rochester to Canada, where they were received by Rev.
Hiram Wilson.
(2) In
her book, Harriet Tubman, The
Moses of Her People , Sarah Bradford explained the role that Harriet
Tubman played in the Underground Railroad. (1886)
It would be impossible here to give a detailed account of the journeys
and labors of this intrepid woman for the redemption of her kindred
and friends, during the years that followed. Those years were spent
in work, almost by night and day, with the one object of the rescue
of her people from slavery. All her wages were laid away with this
sole purpose, and as soon as a sufficient amount was secured, she
disappeared from her Northern home, and as suddenly and mysteriously
she appeared some dark night at the door of one of the cabins on a
plantation, where a trembling band of fugitives, forewarned as to
time and place, were anxiously awaiting their deliverer. Then she
piloted them North, traveling by night, hiding by day, scaling the
mountains, fording the rivers, threading the forests, lying concealed
as the pursuers passed them. She, carrying the babies, drugged with
paregoric, in a basket on her arm. So she went nineteen times, and
so she brought away over three hundred pieces of living and breathing
"property," with God given souls.
The way was so toilsome over the rugged
mountain passes, that often the men who followed her would give out,
and foot-sore, and bleeding, they would drop on the ground, groaning
that they could not take another step. They would lie there and die,
or if strength came back, they would return on their steps, and seek
their old homes again. Then the revolver carried by this bold and
daring pioneer, would come out, while pointing it at their heads she
would say, "Dead niggers tell no tales; you go on or die!"
And by this heroic treatment she compelled them to drag their weary
limbs along on their northward journey.
But the pursuers were after them. A reward of $40,000 was offered
by the slave-holders of the region from whence so many slaves had
been spirited away, for the head of the woman who appeared so mysteriously,
and enticed away their property, from under the very eyes of its owners.
(3)
Thomas
Garrett, a Quaker who was the Delaware
station-master, wrote a letter to Sarah Bradford about the activities
of Harriet Tubman on the Underground
Railroad (June, 1866)
The
date of the commencement of her labors, I cannot certainly give; but
I think it must have been about 1845; from that time till 1860, I
think she must have brought from the neighborhood where she had been
held as a slave. from 60 to 80 persons, from Maryland, some 80 miles
from here.
No slave who placed himself under her care, was ever arrested that
I have heard of; she mostly had her regular stopping places on her
route; but in one instance, when she had several stout men with her,
some 30 miles below here, she said that God told her to stop, which
she did; and then asked him what she must do. He told her to leave
the road, and turn to the left; she obeyed, and soon came to a small
stream of tide water; there was no boat, no bridge; she again inquired
of her Guide what she was to do. She was told to go through. It was
cold, in the month of March; but having confidence in her Guide, she
went in; the water came up to her armpits; the men refused to follow
till they saw her safe on the opposite shore. They then followed,
and, if I mistake not, she had soon to wade a second stream; soon
after which she came to a cabin of colored people, who took them all
in, put them to bed, and dried their clothes, ready to proceed next
night on their journey. Harriet had run out of money, and gave them
some of her underclothing to pay for their kindness.
When she called on me two days after, she was so hoarse she could
hardly speak, and was also suffering with violent toothache. The strange
part of the story we found to be, that the masters of these men had
put up the previous day, at the railroad station near where she left,
an advertisement for them, offering a large reward for their apprehension;
but they made a safe exit. She at one time brought as many as seven
or eight, several of whom were women and children. She was well known
here in Chester County and Philadelphia, and respected by all true
abolitionists.
(4)
Harriet Jacobs was one of the slaves rescued
by the people on the Underground Railroad.
Peter took me in his boat, rowed out to a vessel not far distant,
and hoisted me on board. They said I was to remain on board till near
dawn, and then they would hide me in Snaky Swamp. About four o'clock,
we were again seated in the boat, and rowed three miles to the swamp.
My fear of snakes had been increased by the venomous bite I had received,
and I dreaded to enter this hiding place. But I was in no situation
to choose, and I gratefully accepted the best that my poor, persecuted
friends could do for me.
Colored people were allowed to ride in a filthy box, behind white
people, at the south but they were not required to pay for the privilege.
It made me sad to find the north aped the customs of slavery. We were
stowed away in a large, rough car, with windows on each side, too
high for us to look without standing up. It was crowded with people,
apparently of all nations. There were plenty of beds and cradles,
containing screaming and kicking babies.
(5)
William Still describing the rescue of
Anna Maria Weems in his book The Underground Railroad (1870)
The only
chance of procuring her freedom, depended upon getting her away on
the Underground Rail Road. She was neatly attired in male habiliments,
and in that manner came all the way from Washington. After passing
two or three days with her new friends in Philadelphia, she was sent
on (in male attire) to Lewis Tappan, of New York, who had likewise
been deeply interested in her case from the beginning, and who held
himself ready, as was understood, to cash a draft for three hundred
dollars to compensate the man who might risk his own liberty in bringing
her on from Washington. After having arrived safely in New York, she
found a home and kind friends in the family of Rev. A. N. Freeman,
and received quite an ovation characteristic of an Underground Rail
Road.
(5)
Francis
Fredric, Fifty Years of Slavery (1863)
Since
my first attempt to escape I was so uniformly treated badly, that
my life would have been insupportable if I had not been soothed
by the kind words of the good abolitionist planter who had first conveyed
to me a true knowledge of religion. I had been flogged, and went one
day to show him the state in which I was. He asked me what I wanted
him to do. I said, "To get me away to Canada."
He sat for full twenty minutes thoughtfully, and
at last said, "Now, if I promise to take you away out of all
this, you must not mention a word to any one. Don't breathe a syllable
to your mother or sisters, or it will be betrayed." Oh, how my
heart jumped for joy at this promise. I felt new life come into me.
Visions of happiness flitted before my mind. And then I thought before
the next day he might change his mind, and I was miserable again.
I solemnly assured him I would say nothing to any one. "Come
to me," he said, "on the Friday night about ten or eleven
o'clock; I will wait till you come. Don't bring any clothes with you
except those you have on. But bring any money you can get." I
said I would obey him in every respect.
I went home and passed an anxious day. I walked
out to my poor old mother's hut, and saw her and my sisters. How I
longed to tell them, and bid them farewell. I hesitated several times
when I thought I should never see them more. I turned back again and
again to look at my mother. I knew she would be flogged, old as she
was, for my escaping. I could foresee how my master would stand over
her with the lash to extort from her my hiding-place. I was her only
son left. How she would suffer torture on my account, and be distressed
that I had left her for ever until we should meet hereafter in heaven
I hoped.
At length I walked rapidly away, as if to leave
my thoughts behind me, and arrived at my kind benefactor's house a
little after eleven o'clock. He said but little, and seemed restless.
He took some rugs and laid them at the bottom of the waggon, and covered
me with some more. Soon we were on our way to Maysville, which was
about twenty miles from his house. The horses trotted on rapidly,
and I lay overjoyed at my chance of escape. When we stopped at Maysville,
I remained for some time perfectly quiet, listening to every sound.
At last I heard a gentleman's voice, saying, "Where is he? where
is he?" and then he put in his hand and felt me. I started, but
my benefactor told me it was all right, it was a friend. "This
gentleman," he added, "will take care of you; you must go
to his house." I got out of the waggon and shook my deliverer
by the hand with a very, very grateful heart, you may be sure; for
I knew the risk he had run on my account.
He wished me every success, and committed me to
his friend, whom I accompanied to his house, and was received with
the utmost kindness by his wife, who asked me if I was a Christian
man. I answered yes. She took me up into a garret and brought me some
food. Her little daughters shook hands with me. She spoke of the curse
of slavery to the land. "I am an abolitionist," she said,
"although in a slaveholding country. The work of the Lord will
not go on as long as slavery is carried on here." Every possible
attention was paid to me to soothe my troubled mind. The following
night the gentleman and his son left the house about ten o'clock.
A little after twelve o'clock the gentleman returned, and said he
had got a boat and I was to go with him. His lady bid me farewell,
and told me to put my trust in the Lord, in whose hands my friends
were, and asked me to remember them in my prayers, since they had
hazarded everything for me, and, if discovered, they would be cruelly
treated. I was soon rowed across the river, which is about a mile
wide in that place.
The son remained with me in the skiff whilst his
father went to a neighbouring village to bring some one to take charge
of me. After some time, he brought a friend, who told me never to
mention the name of any one who had helped me. He took me to his house
outside the town, where I had some refreshment, and remained about
half-an-hour. A waggon came up, and I was stowed away, and driven
about twenty miles that night, being well guarded by eight or ten
young men with revolvers.
It would do any real Christian man good to see
the enthusiasm and determination of these young Abolitionists. Their
whole heart and soul are in the work. A dozen such men would have
defied a hundred slaveholders. From having seen over and over again
slaves dragged back chained through their country, and having heard
the tales of horrible treatment of the poor hopeless captives, some
having been flogged to death, others burnt alive, with their heads
downwards, over a slow fire, others covered with tar and set on fire,
these noble, courageous, self-sacrificing men have been so wrought
upon, that they are heroes of the highest stamp, and I verily believe
they would willingly lay down their lives rather than allow one fugitive
slave to be taken from them.
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