Underground Railroad

Vocabulary

Abolition: the movement to end slavery

Abolitionist: a person who believed and worked for the abolishment (end) of slavery

The Underground Railroad

Above-ground series of escape routes for slaves traveling North

Consisted of “stations” or safe houses owned by abolitionists

“Conductors” were people who led the runaways to freedom (like guides)

Henry “Box” Brown

Packed himself in a box and shipped himself to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Harriet Jacobs

Hid in a crawl space in her grandmother’s attic for seven years

Finally escaped to Philadelphia by boat in 1842

Wrote a novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which was one of the first autobiographical accounts of the struggle for freedom and the sexual abuse endured by many female slaves

Frederick Douglass

Escaped slave, social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman

Leader of the abolitionist movement

Known for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing

Acted as a living counter-example to slaveholders’ arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as free American citizens

Would you take the risk?

If slaves were caught, they were sold or beaten with a whip; sometimes they were lynched (hung)

Harriet Tubman

Harriet Tubman

Born a slave in Maryland

Escaped using the Underground Railroad

She made 19 journeys from the South to the North as a Conductor on the Underground Railroad

Harriet TubmanSouthern plantation owners offered $40,000 for her capture

She was never caught.

Spirituals

Many spirituals referred directly to the Underground Railroad

Singing as an expression of values

Singing as a source of inspiration or motivation

Singing as an expression of protest

Singing as a communication tool

Chorus:Swing low, sweet chariot,Comin' for to carry me home!

I looked over Jordan and what did I see,Comin' for to carry me home!A band of angels comin' after me,Comin' for to carry me home!

Chorus:

If you get there before I do,Comin' for to carry me home,Jess tell my friends that I'm acomin' too,Comin' for to carry me home.

Chorus:

I'm sometimes up and sometimes down,Comin' for to carry me home,But still my soul feels heavenly boundComin' for to carry me home!

Quilts

During the time of the Underground Railroad fugitive slaves would use quilts as a means of communication.

Quilts were used by conductors to help fugitive slaves flee the South and arrive safely in the North.