People, Locations, Episodes

The Underground Railroad in America, a story

On this date, in 1787, the Underground Railroad is celebrated. This organization helped escaped African slaves from the Antebellum South on their journey to freedom in the North, Canada, and Mexico.

It is believed that the system originated and gained its name when Isaac T. Hopper, a Quaker, established a network for hiding and aiding escaped slaves. Opponents of slavery, abolitionists, allowed their homes, called stations, to be used as places where escaped slaves were provided with food, shelter, and money. The routes crossed 14 northern states, Canada, and Texas, heading to Mexico.

Mexico abolished slavery in 1829 when Texas was still part of the country, prompting white, slave-holding immigrants to fight for independence in the Texas Revolution.   The Free Soil Party also had a significant impact on public policy. The Alamo conflict was an indicator of America's quest to spread slavery in the Southwest. Once they formed the Republic of Texas in 1836, they made slavery legal again, and it continued to be legal when Texas joined the U.S. as a state in 1845.

Fugitive slaves got to Mexico in many different ways. Some went on foot, while others rode horses or were able to board ferries bound for Mexican ports. John Webber, a Unionist ally, settled in Texas and Mexico and aided slaves across the Rio Grande. In 1857, Nathaniel Jackson became one of the conductors using his ranch in South Texas. Stories spread about enslaved people who crossed the Rio Grande River dividing Texas from Mexico by floating on bales of cotton, and several Texas newspapers reported in July 1863 that three enslaved people had escaped this way.

It is estimated that by 1850, approximately 3,000 people were involved in the Underground Railroad. Some of the best-known individuals who assisted on the route included William Still, Gerrit Smith, Salmon Chase, David Ruggles, Thomas Garrett, William Purvis, Jane Grey Swisshelm, William Wells Brown, Frederick Douglass, Henry David Thoreau, Lucretia Mott, Charles Langston, Levi Coffin, and Susan B. Anthony.

The Underground Railroad also utilized volunteers known as conductors, who traveled to the South and assisted slaves in guiding them to safety. One of the most notable was Harriet Tubman, a former slave. She made over 20 secret trips to the South, leading more than 1000 slaves to freedom. During the Civil War, as the Union army traveled to South Carolina, she served as a liaison between the soldiers and newly freed African Americans, helping them toward self-sufficiency.

On the night of June 2, 1863, Tubman guided a troop of 150 Black soldiers of the Second South Carolina Battalion on the Combahee River. The plan was to liberate as many slaves as possible by catching slaveholders by surprise. The attack became known as the Combahee River Raid and freed more than 750 slaves. Tubman was considered such a threat to the slave system that plantation owners offered a $40,000 reward for her capture.

Underground Railroad Stations were usually about 20 miles apart. Conductors used covered wagons or carts with false bottoms to carry slaves from one station to another. Runaway slaves usually hid during the day and traveled at night. Some involved individuals notified runaways of their locations by placing brightly lit candles in a window or by setting up lanterns in the front yard. By the middle of the 19th century, it was estimated that over 50,000 slaves had escaped from the South using the Underground Railroad.