Underground Railroad

The term “Underground Railroad” encompassed a broad range of organizations and individuals that aided enslaved African Americans who self-emancipated in the ante-bellum era and fled to northern states or Canada. The activities of the underground railroad began in earnest in the late 1830s, with the phrase itself in use by 1842, although enslaved people had begun seeking freedom in the north long before the 1830s. Both supporters and opponents of the underground railroad adopted railroad terminology and metaphors to describe the phenomena. Rather than being provided by a single organized entity or secret society, the aid available to those who sought their freedom was often spontaneous and ad hoc and included support in the form of food, shelter, protection, and assistance in travel. While white abolitionists and especially Quakers aided such efforts, free black communities were instrumental in providing financial and legal support and protection for the formerly enslaved. Black churches and social organizations were integral to these efforts. The role of black communities in the underground railroad was long overlooked in favor of a romanticized vision of an organized network of abolitionists spiriting the formerly enslaved through tunnels and into secret hiding places. In her 1852 novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, author Harriet Beecher Stowe’s depiction of an enslaved girl dramatically fleeing with the aid of benevolent whites contributed to the mythologization of the underground railroad as a secret society of abolitionists. Abolitionists were in fact divided on the subject of the underground railroad, with some preferring to concentrate their efforts on ending slavery outright rather than providing aid to those who self-emancipated. In addition to the anonymous participants who provided assistance through the underground railroad, prominent formerly enslaved people such as Harriet Tubman and John P. Parker became famous for their roles as conductors guiding those who sought their freedom. It is unknown how many enslaved African Americans were successful in claiming their freedom by escaping to the north.

Donna M. DeBlasio, “Underground Railroad,” Encyclopedia of African American History 1619-1895, ed. Paul Finkelman (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 3:254-56; Donald Yacovone, “Underground Railroad,” Encyclopedia of African-American Culture and History, ed. Jack Salzman, David Lionel Smith, and Cornel West (New York: Macmillan Library Reference, 1996), 5:2699-2701; Larry Gara, The Liberty Line: The Legend of the Underground Railroad (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1961); Cheryl Janifer LaRoche, Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad: The Geography of Resistance (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2014); The Evening Post (New York), 23 September 1842, 2:4.