Can you keep a secret? What if it was a secret you could never tell because it was a matter of life and death? There was a secret in history that few people knew. Knowledge of this information was once so dangerous, so deadly, that only the strongest, bravest, and most reliable people could be trusted as secret keepers. Could you carry that kind of burden?
For more than two centuries in the United States, slavery was the law of the land. People could be bought and sold the way someone today might buy a house or a car or a cow. They were forced to work under brutal conditions for long hours and no pay. Who were these people? They were Africans who had been kidnapped from their homeland, transported to America, and sold on the auction block.
Decade after decade, slavery grew in the United States. By 1860, there were 4 million African Americans living in bondage in the United States.
WORDS TO KNOW
auction: a public sale of property to the highest bidder.
auction block: the platform from which an auctioneer sells goods to a crowd of buyers.
bondage: another word for slavery.
enslave: to make someone a slave.
fugitive: someone who runs away to avoid being captured.
abolitionist: someone who believed that slavery should be abolished, or ended.
abolish: to completely do away with something.
Underground Railroad: a system of cooperation among people who believed slavery was wrong that secretly helped fugitive slaves reach the Northern states and Canada.
Deep South: a region of the Southeastern United States that includes the states of Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina.
legend: a story from the past that cannot be proved true.
network: a group of people who work together for a common cause.
Slaves had no rights. They could not go to school. Their owners could legally beat them for any reason or for no reason at all. Worst of all, families were often separated when fathers, mothers, or children were sold off, never to be seen again.
For many years, American society resisted granting slaves their freedom. During this time, some enslaved people ran away from their owners. Many of these fugitives were caught and returned to their owners and severely punished. However, some escaped and reached a free land. This is the secret part.
THE BEST-KEPT SECRET OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
A small group of free people called abolitionists hated slavery almost as much as the slaves did. They wanted to abolish slavery. Until that could happen, they created a crafty system called the Underground Railroad to help slaves escape. What the railroad was, how it worked, and who operated it was the best-kept secret of the nineteenth century.
When you read the phrase Underground Railroad, what do you imagine? Dark tunnels deep in the center of the earth? A train careening at top speed, its headlight illuminating the rocky belly of a mountain? Haunted faces peering out train windows?
Historians believe that about 100,000 people escaped from slavery on the Underground Railroad.
That is a dramatic picture, but it’s also a false one. The Underground Railroad was not underground and it was not a train. It was a process. Slaves ran away from their owners, most by fleeing north to free states or to Canada.
Free people, both black and white, helped the runaways by guiding them, hiding them, transporting them, and sometimes fighting for them. Because it was against the law to aid fugitives, sheriffs and slave catchers prowled back roads and city streets searching for runaways. Slaves who were caught were physically punished and brought back to the Deep South. Their helpers could be heavily fined and imprisoned.
To guard against this fate, the Underground Railroad was a tightly held secret.
Because the Underground Railroad was kept under wraps for so many years, rumors about the organization arose. People filled in missing facts with their imaginations. This was how the Underground Railroad was transformed from history to story.
Origin of the Name
How the Underground Railroad got its name remains a mystery, but legend suggests one origin. In 1831, a slave named Tice Davids swam across the Ohio River, vanishing on the other side. His owner told friends that Davids had disappeared on an “underground road.” Historians cannot verify this account, but one fact is certain. By the 1840s, the term Underground Railroad was used by people across the country to refer to the escape network.
Some people think of Harriet Tubman single-handedly leading hundreds of slaves to safety or courageous white conductors shepherding exhausted slaves from the Deep South all the way to Canada. Maybe they picture fugitives concealed in elaborate tunnels or slave quilts hanging from porch posts with hidden messages sewn into their patterns. Grains of truth are embedded in these legends, but much of what people believe about the Underground Railroad is not accurate or complete.
WORDS TO KNOW
embed: to put something firmly inside of something else.
resistance: a fight to prevent something from happening.
navigate: to find a way to get to a place when you are traveling.
In this book, you will glimpse what life was like for enslaved people and how they fought the system that shackled them.
You will meet a few brave people and learn how their individual acts of courage evolved into the greatest campaign of resistance the nation has ever seen. You will trail fugitives as they navigate the wilderness to freedom—the final stop on the Underground Railroad.
Throughout the trip, you will have the opportunity to experience some of what nineteenth-century American life was like. You will examine the thinking of white Americans, some who supported slavery and others who wanted to destroy it forever. You will design wanted posters and memorials and navigate by the stars. You will use math and music and art to explore the impact the Underground Railroad had on American history.
Once you know the history of the Underground Railroad, your job is to spread the word. Gone are the days when knowing this information could get you killed. The Underground Railroad is no longer a secret. Now, it’s part of history for all Americans.
Good Study Practices
Every good historian keeps a history journal! As you read through this book and do the activities, keep track of your ideas and observations and record them in your history journal.
Each chapter of this book begins with an essential question to help guide your exploration of the Underground Railroad. Keep the question in your mind as you read the chapter. At the end of each chapter, use your history journal to record your thoughts and answers.
ESSENTIAL QUESTION
Why are there many myths and legends about the Underground Railroad?
