How many states did the underground railway go through?
Data Scavenger Hunt
Find answers to the following questions using the visual above:
The Underground Railroad was the network used by enslaved black Americans to obtain their freedom in the 30 years before the Civil War (1860-1865). The “railroad” used many routes from states in the South, which supported slavery, to “free” states in the North and Canada. Identify the slave states the Underground Railroad went through.
Identify the free states the Underground Railroad went to.
Identify the countries outside the United States that enslaved people were taken to for their freedom.
Were there more free or slave states in America at the time of the map above?
Was the nation’s capital free or slave?
Big Brain Questions
Answer these questions by yourself using your brain and the links below:
According to some estimates, between 1810 and 1850, the Underground Railroad helped to guide one hundred thousand enslaved people to freedom. As the network grew, the railroad metaphor stuck. “Conductors” guided runaway enslaved people from place to place along the routes, often with 10–20 miles between each stop. Lanterns in the windows welcomed them and promised safety. If caught, fugitive enslaved persons would be forced to return to slavery. People caught aiding escaped enslaved people faced arrest and jail. If you had been enslaved, deprived of freedom, forced to work, treated inhumanely, would you have risked fleeing slavery?
Sometimes, routes of the Underground Railroad were organized by abolitionists, people who opposed slavery. More often, the network was a series of small, individual actions to help fugitive enslaved persons. Imagine that someone was trying to escape persecution today, explain whether you would be an organizer to help persecuted people, an individual offering a small action to help, someone who didn’t get involved, or someone who tried to stop the persecuted person from fleeing.
Some would claim that undocumented immigrants fleeing persecution in their home countries deserve our help in guiding them to new homes in the United States. How do you respond to this argument.
The great American author William Faulkner wrote, "The past is never dead. It's not even past." Whether you agree with Faulkner or not, the past certainly echoes in our world today. Explain the connection between the visual above and life in America today.
Escaping to a border state more than a couple of days’ walk away was impractical, since the most that anyone could travel was 20 miles in one night. “Without a proper pass or permission to go a very long distance through the Deep South, you risk being stopped and challenged and recaptured,” according to Timothy Walker, a professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth. In the early 1800s, shipyards in Alexandria, Norfolk, Charleston and as far south as coastal Florida became hotbeds of escape. For many escapees, the underground railroad was more of an underground sea route. But the risks for maritime escapes were great. A 1793 law — a precursor to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 — prohibited aiding anyone who escaped by boat. One notable maritime escape occurred in 1796 in Philadelphia, then the nation’s capital, where a news bulletin called for information about “a mulatto woman named Ona Judge” enslaved by President George Washington. Washington brought Judge back-and-forth between Philadelphia and his estate at Mount Vernon in Virginia. Before one return trip to Virginia, Judge boarded a ship and fled. George Washington owned his first human at age 11. Upon his death, George Washington held 317 enslaved people. Why do you think Washington enslaved people?
Write and Discuss
Take ten minutes to write about the question at the top of the page and then discuss with your classmates.
Act on your Learning
There is no national underground railroad museum. Contact your Congressional Representatives and Senators or call your president and let your representatives know what you think.
White House
1-202-456-1414 (Switchboard)
1-202-456-1111 (Comments)
Get Creative
Even before the Railroad was created, my state, North Carolina had gained a reputation as "The Runaway State," where slaves looking for freedom could flee to blend in with free Black populations, and The Great Dismal Swamp near the Virginia border was well known across the country as a safe haven for escaped slaves, Native Americans, and Whites. Quaker communities were the most active in the Underground Railroad, and the Society of Friends in Guilford County, North Carolina helped slaves as early as 1809. Find out if the underground railroad was active in your state then share that story with your classmates. If there was no connection to the Underground Railroad in your state (hello Hawaii and Alaska) then pick another state like Indiana and focus in on what the Railroad was like there.