Underground railroad

Conductors
Harriet Tubman

Well known conductor of the underground railroad

Helped hundreds of runaway slaves escape to freedom
Never lost 1 of them on the way
Was also a fugitive
Helped another conductor William Still

Threatened people with a shotgun who wanted to turn back

into a slave

Abolitionist
Both white and black African American individuals
Free and enslaved, male and female, famous and not famous
Committed to work together to eradicate slavery

Risks and dangers of the

underground railroad
Had to travel long distance in short amount of time
Little or no food and no protection from slave catchers

If caught, any number or terrible things could happen

Flogged, branded, jailed, sold back into slavery or killed

Safety and freedom would not be reached until they

entered Canada

Spirituals
Best known use is hidden messages in songs
Signal songs and map songs
Signal song- a singer or group of singers communicated in code that a
certain event such as a planned escape from a plantation was
imminent
Map songs- Lyrics actually came from elements of a map that directed
people to points of escape

First use was Frederick Douglass

Quilts
Some used quilts to navigate the underground railroad
Pattern names- Wagon wheel, tumbling blocks, bears paw.
Contained secret messages that helped direct slaves to freedom

Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard first posited the

quilt theory 6 years ago in their book
Hidden in plain view a secret story of quilts and the underground
railroad
Publishes in 1998

Code- was a way to say something to a person in the

present of many others without others knowing.

Struggles and issues of the

underground railroad
Had to get to Canada without getting caught

Escape routes
To trick a slave hunter, males dressed as females and
females dressed as males
Some of the best hiding spots were right under the
hunters nose
Some pretended to deliver messages and goods on
behalf of their masters
Conductors put the runaway slaves in wagons and
carriages and proceed through town as if a funeral were
taking place.

Life as a slave
Incredibly difficult
Worked from sunrise to sunset
Children and elderly also worked all day
Generally allowed Sundays and holidays such as Christmas
and 4th of July off
Shelters were meager

Small stick houses with dirt floors

Cracked walls letting cold air in
Thin covers over windows
Slave owners felt it was to their advantage to allow slave to marry
If slaves had children, the children would become slaves

Consequences of getting caught

running away
Punishments could be severe
Sold
Forced to do harder work