<>by
Anna Thornton

INTRODUCTION 

"Many times I have suffered in the cold, in beating rains pouring in torrents from the watery clouds, in the midst of the impetuosity of the whirlwinds and wild tornadoes leading on my company—not to the field of...war...but to the land of impartial freedom, where the bloody lash was not buried in the quivering flesh of a slave...." (7,p.i).

Such were the conditions of the Underground Railroad.  It was a fictitous railroad but served the same purpose: to transport people from one place to another.  This railroad, however, was not sanctioned by any government, in fact if it had been discovered many would have died.  The Underground Railroad was a huge risk.  If you used it, and were caught, you could die.  For some that was better than being treated like pack animals or breeding animals by their southern owners.  That was a risk they chose to take and conditions they must endure.
The Underground railroad was a means by which slaves in the south could escape to the north and to freedom.  The pioneers of the railroad went back to help their brothers and sisters in bondage.  Many of them were leaders, or conductors that led others to freedom and risked theirs to do it again and again.

NATIONAL STANDARDS
    This particular subject deals a lot with maps.  Understanding the Underground Railroad means understanding maps and spatial organiation.  The journeyers, themselves, had to know, distinctly, where north was or which way to follow the Ohio River.  A reader will glean an understanding of the people that chose to journey on the railroad.  They were fierce believers in freedom, willing to die for it.  From this paper, readers will be able to define different cultures and use those definitions to interpret the world's changing complexity.  Perhaps, the most important standard that is met by this subject is knowing and understanding how culture and experience influence people's perception of places and experiences.  If the whites had not enslaved the blacks for two-hundred years there wouldn't have been an underground freedom movement.
    Knowing and understanding the characteristics, distribution, and migrations of people is another key factor.  The people who travelled on the underground railroad were migrants, though not legally.  Moving from one area to another defines thema s migrants.  When they got to the desired place, there was an economic interdepence was set up.
    Lastly, two more standards that apply are about applying geography.  Using the information we know now about the time of slavery can help us to interpret the past, however, it can also help us to interpret the future and the present.

HISTORY 
    "The Underground Railroad developed in a section of the country rid of slavery, and situated between two regions" (6, p.17).  The two regions were the southern half of what was then the United States, and Canada: the land without any hint of slavery or threat of extradition.  The Underground Railroad, therefore, developed in the land between these two factors, which would be the northern half of what was then the U.S.
     Slavery was outlawed early on in New England, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.  The Ordinance of 1787 that created many of the mid-western states such as Ohio and Illinois, slavery was never instituted.  Vermont was the first state to abolish slavery altogether with its constitution after a legal separation from New York in 1777.  With the creation of the five states as a result of the Ordinance of 1787, a defining line was drawn between slave and free states (3).
 The realization of escaping to Canada did not become a popular, and probable, venture until men returning home from the War of 1812 brought "the news of the disposition of the Canadian government to defend the rights of the self-emancipated slaves under its jurisdiction" (6, p.28).  By 1815 many fugitives had crossed into the Western Reserve (Northeastern Ohio).  These fugitives had been sustained along the way from states in close proximity, like Kentucky and Virginia, by "stations" on the newly emerging Underground Railroad. As the refugee slaves reached their destination in Canada, many sent word, or went back themselves, to spread the news that escape and freedom were realities.  They wanted let their friends and families know that the "Land of Promise" to the north was a real place (6, p.29).
     Whites also went down into the south and encouraged the slaves to escape north.  One such man was Dr. Alexander M. Ross, a Canadian, even ventured as far south as New Orleans, "(he) made extensive tours through various slave states for the express purpose of spreading information about Canada and the routes by which that country could be reached" (6, p.28).  Another incident was the case of Isaac White, a slave from Kanawha County, Virginia, who was shown a map and told expressly how to get to Canada by a man from Cleveland, Ohio.
     The idea of freedom is as old as American slavery itself.  One source writes that "the desire for freedom was in the mind of almost every" slave (6, p.25).  Countless songs were written on the subject, we call them spirituals today.  Countless slave preachers preached about liberty (6, p.25).  Freedom was always the dream at the back of every slaves mind; Is it possible?  What would it be like?  Finally, how can I obtain it?  Mexico and Florida were refuge for those that lived near them such as Texan or Georgian slaves.  However, for the great majority of the enslaved hope lied northward.

POLITICS 
     The greatest political issue that arose out of secret networks to freedom was what do to with fugitive slaves that were caught.  Where does one states jurisdiction end and another’s begin?  Is it a question for the federal government?  In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which created a several states without slavery and spawned a whole different set of debates, there are stipulations about fugitive slaves.  These stipulations are the result of pressure form pro-slavery politicians (6, p.20).  The Constitution of the United States  even made provisions for runaway slaves:
"No person held to service in or labor in one state or another under the laws thereof, escaping into another, shall, in consequence of any law or regulation therein, be discharged from service or labor, but shall be delivered up on claim of the party to whom such service or labor may be due" (Article IV, Section 2).
This clause passed without much opposition and remained the law.  Under this law, obviously, southern slave owners enjoyed a great degree of security that their property would be protected in all parts of the Union.
 In 1793 Congress passed the first Fugitive Slave Law.  This law, basically, further benefited slave owners by saying that the slave must be returned to the owner and up to a $500 fine would be enforced on anyone "hindering arrest, or for rescuing  and harboring a fugitive slave" (6, p.22).  Siebert also makes the comment that this law was, for intents and purposes, ineffective.  Ohio and Pennsylvania, specifically, were sensitive to the states around them and promised to enforce this law more adequately.
     To meet rising demands from the south for stronger enforcement of slave laws, the Fugitive Slave Recovery Bill was passed in 1850.  It was clear that the law was created by slave owners for the slave owners benefit and nothing else.  This law angered many, even those to which the question of slavery was not a pertinent one.  Many abolitionists were created out of simple dislike for this law and what it signified, namely the direct and selfish benefit of one particular group of people.  In fact, "a systematic evasion of the law was regarded as an imperative duty by thousands" (6, p.23).
This law actually helped to the underground movement to grow stronger.
    The abolitionist theory was the proponent of the Underground Movement.  They were also powerful political figures and their topic was most certainly a politcal one.  Slavery was no one clear cut issue by itself.  Along with debating the issue of slavery were economic factors and religious ones.  Christians, in particular, were convicted to abolitionism because their faith in their beliefs showed them the error of the law (8, pgs.32-41).

THE HELPERS 
     The Underground Railroad would not have been possible without the aid of white northerners.  The movement was created for and by the black people, an deserved their purpose and none other.  No help was expected but many white people had a conviction of right even in those dark times.  So, the white people with the conviction to help out were, realistically, an invaluable resource to the movement.
     Many of the original instigators were motivated to help out for spiritual reasons.  The Quakers, the first to speak out against slavery, aided a fugitive slave whenever the request was made (6, p.31).  Some other denominations that also advocated abolition openly were: Scotch Covenanters, and Wesleyan Methodists (2).  These groups settled mostly in the central Ohio region.  Another group of great importance was the students of Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio.
    Black workers were particularly active in Ohio.  One man, James G. Birney is quotes saying, "such matters are almost uniformly managed by the (black) people" (5, p.145).  Ohio was an easy escape over the Ohio River from the slave states of Kentucky and Virginia, which then bordered Ohio and later became West Virginia.
    For interest purposes, there is a book called The Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad that has a complete listing of all the stations and other musuems that deal with the Underground Railroad.  This book was compiled by an African-American named Charles Blockson, who serves on the advisory board to the National Park Service.  His influence has helped to initiate a nationwide collection of data about the stations and make the remaining houses into museums(4).

GEOGRAPHICAL ORIGINS OF THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD
     Like many other aspects of American society, the Underground Railroad developed on the east coast.  Philadelphia  and southeastern Pennsylvania became some of the first stops on the railroad.  It seems that here, and in the adjoining part of New Jersey, "were largely settled by people of a distinct opposed to slavery, and were knitted together by those whose ties of blood hat are known to have been favorable in other quarters to the development of underground routes" (6, p.34).
 Further north into New England many people were involved with the movement.  One example of a man named Mr. Brown Thurston of Portland, Maine; he, at one time, had in his care 30 refugees (6, p.37).
     Perhaps one of the most important states to get involved with the Underground Railroad was Ohio.  If you look at any map of routes that the refugees took, most of them go through Ohio.  As early as 1815 there were people harboring fugitives in their homes.  David Hudson, the founder of what is now the suburb of Cleveland: Hudson, kept fugitives in his house in the eastern part of the state.  The Ottawa Indians of western Ohio sheltered some refugee slaves as well (6, p.37).  A judge, who had settled along Lake Erie in Huron county, Judge Jabez Wright, "Never failed when opportunity offered to lend a helping hand to the fugitives secreting them when nesessary, feeding them when they were hungry, clothing and employing them" (6, p.39).
 From these original states the railroad spread through many other states, such as Illinois and Iowa.  Some southern states even joined in the movement.  The people in the south had to be extra careful, but tries to do everything they could to help the fugitives.  Many southerners came face to face with the problems of slavery all the time.
     The name "Underground Railroad" is thought to have come into existence in Columbia, a neighborhood in Pennsylvania with a lot of underground traffic.  Slave-hunters used this name to refer to the mysterious and subversive way the slaves were getting from the south to the north.  The first known use of the term was heard in a Quaker settlement in southeastern Pennsylvania (7, p.25).

JOURNEYS 
     Many times an actual journey went something like this:  a slave, after planning carefully the time and place, escapes from where he or she lives.  It is to be noted that many city slaves escaped, and had a better chance at getting to the north, than country slaves.  Frederick Douglass, in his My Escape from Slavery, recalls the story of his escape.  He wrote that he planned to simply write a fake pass, because he had, despite laws, taught himself how to read and write, and get on a train to New York City.  The was facilitated by the fact that he was living in Baltimore with ready access to the train.
     After the escape, the journey began.  Each slave, or group of slaves, would be put into contact with a person who could put them in contact with refuges along the road.  There were several options, or roads, and if one became to known, a there was a threat of the authorities finding out about it, another road would be used.  There many different routes as well, New York state had an eloborate system of getting refugees to freedom through the Finger Lake region of western New York.  There were just scores and scores of people helping out at the peak of the railroad’s usefulness,

"the principal agents on the road northward and eastward (from Columbia, Pennsylvania) were Daniel Gibbons, Thomas Peart, Thomas Whitson, Lindley Coates, Dr. Eshleman, James Morre, Caleb C. Hood, of Lancaster County; James Fulton, Gideon Pierce, Joseph Haines, Thomas Bonsall, Gravner Marsh, Zebulon Thomas,...."

and the list goes and on.  The transport of the refugees had to made quickly and efficiently so no one would be caught; abolitionist or refugee.
     Other methods, learned from nature,  helped those on the journey northward.  The most common method was to use the North Star, which of course is always located in the northern sky.  Another, only slightly less well known, was to look on which side moss grew on trees.  Moss, traditionally, grows on the north side.  This information was helpful traversing through the dense forests of the eastern part of this country.  Rivers also played a very important role.  Since the border made by the Ohio River was the border between slave and free, many followed tributaries of the Ohio.  The tributary would eventually lead into the Ohio, and if not apprehended, the refugees could make it to Ohio and to freedom.  The Appalachian mountains also served as a natural guide (6 p.54).
     At each station the fugitives were warmly welcomed and encouraged to rest according to the degree of danger.  Then, when fully rested, the refugees were given "full and minute" (6, p.54) instructions to the next station.

CONCLUSION 
     The conclusion to the Underground Railroad comes with the Emancipation Proclamation 1865.  This was a joyous time when there could be utter freedom of movement.  There was no need for an underground railroad.  While prejudice and discrimination ran rampant, blacks were still, legally, free.
     The underground railroad served a great purpose.  It transported blacks to much deserved freedom.  It also gave them a sense of dignity, a sense that what they really sought should be theirs.  The underground railroad helped may to realize dreams.  It could even be said that without the sentiment started by participants in the underground movement, emancipation might not have even been a goal to work for.

BIBIOGRAPHY

1. Blockson, Charles. Hippocrene Guide to the Underground Railroad. Hippocrene Books: New York, 1994.
2. History and Geography of the Underground Railroad. 199?. http://www.niica.on.ca/csonan/UNDERGROUND.htm (April 14, 1998).
3. May, Ilana, Mark Beigel, and Lenny Hothchild. The Underground Railroad in Rochester, New York. http://www.history.rochester.edu/class/ugrr/home.html (April 14, 1998)
4. National Park Service Study: Taking the Train to Freedom. 1998. http://www.nps.gov/undergroundrr/contents.htm (April 14, 1998).
5. Quarles, Benjamin. Black Abolitionists. Oxford Universoty Press: New York, 1969.
6. Siebert, Wilbur H. The Underground Railroad. Arno Press and The New York Times: New York, 1968.
7. Smedley, R.C. History of the Underground Railroad. Arno Press and The New York Times: New York, 1969.
8. Weisberger, Bernard A. Abolitionism: Disrupter of the Democratic System or Agent of Progress? Rand McNally & Company:  Chicago, 1963.
 

Created April 16, 1998

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