AAASM.ORG
IMPROVING THE LIVES OF BLACK PEOPLE THROUGH
AWARENESS, KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATION
IMPROVING THE LIVES OF BLACK PEOPLE THROUGH
AWARENESS, KNOWLEDGE AND EDUCATION
| AAASM Black History Research Project |
| The Underground Railroad 1780 - 1862 |
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The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North
and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many
individuals -- many whites but predominently black -- who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives
and not of the overall operation. Still, it effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year --
according to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850.
An organized system to assist runaway slaves seems to have begun towards the end of the 18th
century. In 1786 George Washington complained about how one of his runaway slaves was helped by
a "society of Quakers, formed for such purposes." The system grew, and around 1831 it was dubbed
"The Underground Railroad," after the then emerging steam railroads. The system even used terms
used in railroading: the homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called
"stations" and "depots" and were run by "stationmasters," those who contributed money or goods were
"stockholders," and the "conductor" was responsible for moving fugitives from one station to the next.
For the slave, running away to the North was anything but easy. The first step was to escape from the
slaveholder. For many slaves, this meant relying on his or her own resources. Sometimes a
"conductor," posing as a slave, would enter a plantation and then guide the runaways northward. The
fugitives would move at night. They would generally travel between 10 and 20 miles to the next station,
where they would rest and eat, hiding in barns and other out-of-the-way places. While they waited, a
message would be sent to the next station to alert its stationmaster.
The fugitives would also travel by train and boat -- conveyances that sometimes had to be paid for.
Money was also needed to improve the appearance of the runaways -- a black man, woman, or child in
tattered clothes would invariably attract suspicious eyes. This money was donated by individuals and
also raised by various groups, including vigilance committees.
Vigilance committees sprang up in the larger towns and cities of the North, most prominently in New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston. In addition to soliciting money, the organizations provided food, lodging
and money, and helped the fugitives settle into a community by helping them find jobs and providing
letters of recommendation.
The Underground Railroad had many notable participants, including John Fairfield in Ohio, the son of a
slaveholding family, who made many daring rescues, Levi Coffin, a Quaker who assisted more than
3,000 slaves, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to
freedom.
***Information taken from www.pbs.org
and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many
individuals -- many whites but predominently black -- who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives
and not of the overall operation. Still, it effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year --
according to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850.
An organized system to assist runaway slaves seems to have begun towards the end of the 18th
century. In 1786 George Washington complained about how one of his runaway slaves was helped by
a "society of Quakers, formed for such purposes." The system grew, and around 1831 it was dubbed
"The Underground Railroad," after the then emerging steam railroads. The system even used terms
used in railroading: the homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called
"stations" and "depots" and were run by "stationmasters," those who contributed money or goods were
"stockholders," and the "conductor" was responsible for moving fugitives from one station to the next.
For the slave, running away to the North was anything but easy. The first step was to escape from the
slaveholder. For many slaves, this meant relying on his or her own resources. Sometimes a
"conductor," posing as a slave, would enter a plantation and then guide the runaways northward. The
fugitives would move at night. They would generally travel between 10 and 20 miles to the next station,
where they would rest and eat, hiding in barns and other out-of-the-way places. While they waited, a
message would be sent to the next station to alert its stationmaster.
The fugitives would also travel by train and boat -- conveyances that sometimes had to be paid for.
Money was also needed to improve the appearance of the runaways -- a black man, woman, or child in
tattered clothes would invariably attract suspicious eyes. This money was donated by individuals and
also raised by various groups, including vigilance committees.
Vigilance committees sprang up in the larger towns and cities of the North, most prominently in New
York, Philadelphia, and Boston. In addition to soliciting money, the organizations provided food, lodging
and money, and helped the fugitives settle into a community by helping them find jobs and providing
letters of recommendation.
The Underground Railroad had many notable participants, including John Fairfield in Ohio, the son of a
slaveholding family, who made many daring rescues, Levi Coffin, a Quaker who assisted more than
3,000 slaves, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to
freedom.
***Information taken from www.pbs.org
Harriet Tubman
1820 - 1913
Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a
ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once
proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."
Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to
work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her
early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for
someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The
overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head.
She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep
sleep.
Around 1844 she married a free black named John Tubman and took his last name. (She was born
Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, in fear that she, along
with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night
on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the
North Star by night, making her way to Pennsylvania and soon after to Philadelphia, where she found work
and saved her money. The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's
two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip back to the South soon after to rescue her brother
and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife.
Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North.
Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devised clever techniques that helped make her
"forays" successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first leg of the journey; leaving on a
Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning
about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if
its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the
fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die."
By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she
overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled
out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.
Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging
journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as
"Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has
willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that
she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."
Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the
way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who
had been captured.
During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war
she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.
1820 - 1913
Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a
ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once
proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."
Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to
work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her
early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for
someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The
overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head.
She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep
sleep.
Around 1844 she married a free black named John Tubman and took his last name. (She was born
Araminta Ross; she later changed her first name to Harriet, after her mother.) In 1849, in fear that she, along
with the other slaves on the plantation, was to be sold, Tubman resolved to run away. She set out one night
on foot. With some assistance from a friendly white woman, Tubman was on her way. She followed the
North Star by night, making her way to Pennsylvania and soon after to Philadelphia, where she found work
and saved her money. The following year she returned to Maryland and escorted her sister and her sister's
two children to freedom. She made the dangerous trip back to the South soon after to rescue her brother
and two other men. On her third return, she went after her husband, only to find he had taken another wife.
Undeterred, she found other slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the North.
Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devised clever techniques that helped make her
"forays" successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first leg of the journey; leaving on a
Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning
about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if
its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the
fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die."
By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she
overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled
out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.
Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging
journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as
"Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has
willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that
she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."
Becoming friends with the leading abolitionists of the day, Tubman took part in antislavery meetings. On the
way to such a meeting in Boston in 1860, in an incident in Troy, New York, she helped a fugitive slave who
had been captured.
During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war
she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.
John Brown
1800 - 1859
John Brown was a man of action -- a man who would not be deterred from his mission
of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal
arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his
men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and
Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had
been killed or captured.
John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1800.
Led by a father who was vehemently opposed to slavery, the family moved to northern
Ohio when John was five, to a district that would become known for its antislavery
views.
During his first fifty years, Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, and taking along his ever-growing
family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool
merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was finacially successful -- he even
filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him
from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David
Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to
fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He
also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the
League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from
slave catchers.
In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in
sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul
had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first
outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.
Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community
had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of
at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing
that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to
establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to
act as a "kind father to them."
Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of
major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory.
There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack
against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another
attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. Brown and
his sons would continue to fight in the territory and in Missouri for the rest of the year.
Brown returned to the east and began to think more seriously about his plan for a war
in Virginia against slavery. He sought money to fund an "army" he would lead. On
October 16, 1859, he set his plan to action when he and 21 other men -- 5 blacks and
16 whites -- raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia, where
he was tried and convicted of treason, Before hearing his sentence, Brown was
allowed make an address to the court.
. . . I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was
not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the
furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my
children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are
disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done."
Although initially shocked by Brown's exploits, many Northerners began to speak
favorably of the militant abolitionist. "He did not recognize unjust human laws, but
resisted them as he was bid. . . .," said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the
citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. "No man in America has ever stood up so
persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . ."
John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859.
1800 - 1859
John Brown was a man of action -- a man who would not be deterred from his mission
of abolishing slavery. On October 16, 1859, he led 21 men on a raid of the federal
arsenal at Harpers Ferry, Virginia. His plan to arm slaves with the weapons he and his
men seized from the arsenal was thwarted, however, by local farmers, militiamen, and
Marines led by Robert E. Lee. Within 36 hours of the attack, most of Brown's men had
been killed or captured.
John Brown was born into a deeply religious family in Torrington, Connecticut, in 1800.
Led by a father who was vehemently opposed to slavery, the family moved to northern
Ohio when John was five, to a district that would become known for its antislavery
views.
During his first fifty years, Brown moved about the country, settling in Ohio,
Pennsylvania, Massachusetts, and New York, and taking along his ever-growing
family. (He would father twenty children.) Working at various times as a farmer, wool
merchant, tanner, and land speculator, he never was finacially successful -- he even
filed for bankruptcy when in his forties. His lack of funds, however, did not keep him
from supporting causes he believed in. He helped finance the publication of David
Walker's Appeal and Henry Highland's "Call to Rebellion" speech. He gave land to
fugitive slaves. He and his wife agreed to raise a black youth as one of their own. He
also participated in the Underground Railroad and, in 1851, helped establish the
League of Gileadites, an organization that worked to protect escaped slaves from
slave catchers.
In 1847 Frederick Douglass met Brown for the first time in Springfield, Massachusetts.
Of the meeting Douglass stated that, "though a white gentleman, [Brown] is in
sympathy a black man, and as deeply interested in our cause, as though his own soul
had been pierced with the iron of slavery." It was at this meeting that Brown first
outlined his plan to Douglass to lead a war to free slaves.
Brown moved to the black community of North Elba, New York, in 1849. The community
had been established thanks to the philanthropy of Gerrit Smith, who donated tracts of
at least 50 acres to black families willing to clear and farm the land. Brown, knowing
that many of the families were finding life in this isolated area difficult, offered to
establish his own farm there as well, in order to lead the blacks by his example and to
act as a "kind father to them."
Despite his contributions to the antislavery cause, Brown did not emerge as a figure of
major significance until 1855 after he followed five of his sons to the Kansas territory.
There, he became the leader of antislavery guerillas and fought a proslavery attack
against the antislavery town of Lawrence. The following year, in retribution for another
attack, Brown went to a proslavery town and brutally killed five of its settlers. Brown and
his sons would continue to fight in the territory and in Missouri for the rest of the year.
Brown returned to the east and began to think more seriously about his plan for a war
in Virginia against slavery. He sought money to fund an "army" he would lead. On
October 16, 1859, he set his plan to action when he and 21 other men -- 5 blacks and
16 whites -- raided the federal arsenal at Harpers Ferry.
Brown was wounded and quickly captured, and moved to Charlestown, Virginia, where
he was tried and convicted of treason, Before hearing his sentence, Brown was
allowed make an address to the court.
. . . I believe to have interfered as I have done, . . . in behalf of His despised poor, was
not wrong, but right. Now, if it be deemed necessary that I should forfeit my life for the
furtherance of the ends of justice, and mingle my blood further with the blood of my
children, and with the blood of millions in this slave country whose rights are
disregarded by wicked, cruel, and unjust enactments, I submit: so let it be done."
Although initially shocked by Brown's exploits, many Northerners began to speak
favorably of the militant abolitionist. "He did not recognize unjust human laws, but
resisted them as he was bid. . . .," said Henry David Thoreau in an address to the
citizens of Concord, Massachusetts. "No man in America has ever stood up so
persistently and effectively for the dignity of human nature. . . ."
John Brown was hanged on December 2, 1859.
| AAASM Director Stacey F. Johnson |