![]() Eventually, with the help of Quakers from Maryland, Tubman sought freedom again, this time crossing the Choptank River into Pennsylvania. After seeing a fugitive slave ad, the brothers returned, taking a reluctant Harriet with them. When her owner died, she and two of her brothers, Ben and Henry, fled to free territory. In 1844, Tubman married John Tubman, a free man, and she changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother. To learn about resistance stories and analyze thousands of "runaway ads" published in newspapers, see the NEH-funded Freedom on the Move. ![]() history.įor more description of an Underground Railroad site supported by NEH, see The President of the Underground Railroad. Researching and Interpreting the Underground Railroad is a National Park Service resource that provides questions, guidance on conducting primary source research, and addresses the limitations of researching this era in U.S. While historians are uncertain about whether or not songs and textiles could have been used to convey secret messages in the Underground Railroad system, they are nonetheless important aspects of African American culture in the 19th century. Similarly, the EDSITEment lesson entitled Stories in Quilts addresses how quilts may have been used to direct slaves toward stations of safe passage. For more information about other songs from this era, visit EDSITEment's Music in African American History lesson. Some believe that songs such as “Follow the Drinking Gourd” was a reference to the Big Dipper and the North Star that led passengers in the direction of free states. However, the Underground Railroad has generated a lot of lore surrounding the signals allies would send to one another. Although the winter could be a dangerous time to flee due to the bitterly cold climate of the north, it also offered much longer periods of darkness under which to take cover.īecause railroad trips took place in secret, there is little documentary evidence of the trips. If daytime travel was unavoidable along the railroad, passengers took up errands and chores to make it appear as though they worked for someone in the area. Freedom-seekers rested during the day and conducted most of their long-distance travel (5-10 miles) at night when they were less likely to be visible. The conductors of the Underground Railroad knew how to take advantage of all possible angles. The American Anti-Slavery Society, Philadelphia (1833).William Lloyd Garrison, The Liberator (1831).Vestal and Levi Coffin initiate escape route for slaves (1820).Students might also research people and key phrases around these critical years: To begin this inquiry lesson, students can construct a timeline from the National Endowment for the Humanities and Library of Congress’s Chronicling America newspaper sources and the Digital Public Library of America. These vocabulary terms and others- such as personal liberty laws, redemption, and manumission- can be found on the " Language of Slavery” page hosted by the National Park Service. Similarly a person who kept slaves as property is a “slave holder” and not a “slave master” or “slave owner,” since the latter two terms connote a relationship of superiority over other human beings. ![]() Refer to this list of historic Underground Railway locations to see if one is in your area.Īccording to the National Underground Railroad Network to Freedom, the preferred term for an enslaved person running away from bondage toward freedom is a “freedom-seeker.” The terms “fugitive,” “escapee,” or “runaway” all suggest that the person fleeing forced labor was somehow at fault for seeking liberation. While it was harder to for slaves to flee from the most southern states-like Alabama and Mississippi-because they were surrounded by other slave-holding states, nearly every state had some Underground Railroad activity. The facilitators, or conductors, of the Underground Railroad, typically comprised free black persons in the North, formerly escaped slaves, and abolitionists of all backgrounds, such as Thaddeus Stevens, William Still, Thomas Garrett, Isaac Hopper, John Brown, Elijah Anderson, Levi Coffin, and, of course, Harriet Tubman.
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