Looking Back: The Underground Railroad and Freedom

By: Leah Jenkins, Assistant Researcher

The Underground Railroad was a symbolic title for the secret network of houses, paths, and people that assisted fleeing enslaved in obtaining freedom outside of slave states. The system comprised of roads, trails, rivers, canals, bays and the Atlantic Coast, stretched as far north as Canada and as south as Mexico and the Caribbean. Beginning in the late eighteenth century, conductors – such as formerly enslaved individuals and white abolitionists – assisted freedom seekers or “passengers” in navigating the convoluted and treacherous routes. The most notable conductor was Harriet Tubman. A former enslaved individual herself, Tubman used her expertise in the railroad to aid dozens.

Outside of the perilous environmental circumstances, conductors and passengers dodged federal marshals, slave catchers and plantations. Despite liberation, freedom came with its own hardships. Newly emancipated African Americans endured racial discrimination, job competition and indentured servitude. The Underground Railroad lost steam on January 1, 1863, when President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Declaration, announcing that “all people held as slaves are, and henceforth shall be free.” It is estimated that nearly 100,000 people escaped slavery through the Underground Railroad from 1810 to 1850.

References:

• https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html

• https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/harriet-tubman

• https://www.archives.gov/exhibits/featured-documents/emancipation-proclamation#:~:text=President%20Abraham%20Lincoln%20issued%20the,and%20henceforward%20shall%20be%20free.%22