Read complete books and articles on: Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad - in U.S. history, loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists, both white and free blacks. The metaphor first appeared in print in the early 1840s, and other railroad terminology was soon added. The escaping slaves were called passengers; the homes where they were sheltered, stations; and those who guided them, conductors. This nomenclature, along with the numerous, somewhat glorified, personal reminiscences written by conductors in the postwar period, created the impression that the Underground Railroad was a highly systematized, national, secret organization that accomplished prodigious feats in stealing slaves away from the South. In fact, most of the help given to fugitive slaves on their varied routes north was spontaneously offered and came not only from abolitionists or self-styled members of the Underground Railroad, but from anyone moved to sympathy by the plight of the runaway slave before his eyes. The major part played by free blacks, of both North and South, and by slaves on plantations along the way in helping fugitives escape to freedom was underestimated in nearly all early accounts of the railroad. Moreover, the resourcefulness and daring of the fleeing slaves themselves, who were usually helped only after the most dangerous part of their journey (i.e., the Southern part) was over, were probably more important factors in the success of their escape than many conductors readily admitted. In some localities, like Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Wilmington, Del., and Newport, Ind. (site of the activities of Levi Coffin), energetic organizers did manage to loosely systematize the work; Quakers were particularly prominent as conductors, and among the free blacks the exploits of Harriet Tubman stand out. In all cases, however, it is extremely difficult to separate fact from legend, especially since relatively few enslaved blacks, probably no more than a few thousand a year between 1840 and 1860, escaped successfully. Far from being kept secret, details of escapes on the Underground Railroad were highly publicized and exaggerated in both the North and the South, although for different reasons. The abolitionists used the Underground Railroad as a propaganda device to dramatize the evils of slavery; Southern slaveholders publicized it to illustrate Northern infidelity to the fugitive slave laws. The effect of this publicity, with its repeated tellings and exaggerations of slave escapes, was to create an Underground Railroad legend that correctly represented a humanitarian ideal of the pre–Civil War period, but that strayed far from reality. The pioneer study is W. H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898, repr. 1968); for an extensively revised account, see Larry Gara, The Liberty Line (1961).

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10 of the Best Books and Articles on: Underground Railroad

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

The Underground Railroad in Connecticut » Read Now
by Horatio T. Strother. 264 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD IN CONNECTICUT The Underground Railroad in Connecticut By HORATIO T. STROTHER Wesleyan...Caulkins of Waterford, Connecticut 191 2. Underground...
2.

Escape Betwixt Two Suns: A True Tale of the Underground Railroad in Illinois » Read Now
by Carol Pirtle. 148 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

Presents one of the few cases to document the operation of the Underground Railroad in southern Illinois.
3.

The Great Silent Army of Abolitionism: Ordinary Women in the Antislavery Movement (Discussion of the underground railroad begins on p. 180) » Read Now
by Julie Roy Jeffrey. 328 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

This is an exploration of the involvement of ordinary black and white women in the antislavery movement. Drawing on a variety of sources, Jeffrey uses the words of real women to illuminate the meaning of abolition in their lives.
4.

Antislavery: The Crusade for Freedom in America (Chap. 40 "Here the Slave Found Freedom") » Read Now
by Dwight Lowell Dumond. 422 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...William Whipper 340 Negro population in southwestern Ontario 341 Underground railroad routes into Canada 342 Bill of sale 347 Reading the Emancipation Proclamation...
5.

History of Black Americans: From the Compromise of 1850 to the End of the Civil War (Chap. 4 "Black Resistance to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850") » Read Now
by Philip S. Foner. 540 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...others associated with the Underground Railroad made it difficult for them...a leading station on the Underground Railroad. The Crosswhites settled...famous fugitive slave...
6.

The Town That Started the Civil War (Chap. One "The Slave and the Student") » Read Now
by Nat Brandt. 318 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

...Wellington Ohio --History. 3. Underground railroad--Ohio. 4. Fugitive slaves...college to the support uv the underground railroad-- . . . " Oberlin," continyood...what...
7.

The History of Quakerism (Chap. 27 "The Anti-Slavery Work of Friends") » Read Now
by Elbert Russell. 586 pgs.

Collections: Religious Studies, History, Entire Library

...THE HISTORY OF QUAKERISM THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA...
8.

Bloody Dawn: The Christiana Riot and Racial Violence in the Antebellum North (Discussion of the underground railroad begins on p. 187) » Read Now
by Thomas P. Slaughter. 258 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

When four young men, slaves on Edward Gorsuch's Maryland farm, escaped to rural Pennsylvania in 1849, the owner swore he'd bring them back. Two years later, Gorsuch lay dead outside the farmhouse in Christiana where he'd tracked them down, as his federal posse retreated pell-mell before the armed...
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When four young men, slaves on Edward Gorsuch's Maryland farm, escaped to rural Pennsylvania in 1849, the owner swore he'd bring them back. Two years later, Gorsuch lay dead outside the farmhouse in Christiana where he'd tracked them down, as his federal posse retreated pell-mell before the armed might of local blacks--and the impact of the most notorious act of resistance against the federal Fugitive Slave Law was about to be felt across a divided nation. Bloody Dawn vividly tells this dramatic story of escape, manhunt, riot, and the ensuing trial, detailing its importance in heightening the tensions that led to the Civil War. Thomas Slaughter's engaging narrative captures the full complexity of events and personalities: The four men fled after they were detected stealing grain for resale off the farm; Gorsuch, far from a brutal taskmaster, had pledged to release all his slaves when they reached the age of twenty-eight, but he relentlessly pursued the escapees out of a sense of wounded honor; and the African-American community in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania that provided them refuge was already effectively organized for self-defense by a commanding former slave named William Parker. Slaughter paints a rich portrait of the ongoing struggles between local blacks and white kidnapping gangs, the climactic riot as neighbors responded to trumpet calls from the besieged runaway slaves, the escape to Canada of the central figures (aided by Frederick Douglass), and the government's urgent response (including the largest mass indictment for treason in our history)--leading to the trial for his life of a local white bystander accused of leading the rioting blacks. Slaughter not only draws out the great importance given to the riot in both the North and the South, but he uses legal records reaching back over half a century to uncover the thoughts of average people on race, slavery, and violence. The Whiskey Rebellion, Slaughter's previous work of history, received widespread acclaim as "a vivid account" (The New York Times) and "an unusual combination of meticulous scholarship and engaging narrative" (The Philadelphia Inquirer). It was a selection of the History Book Club, and won both the National Historical Society Book Prize and the American Revolution Round Table Award. In Bloody Dawn, he once again weaves together the incisive insights of a professional historian with a gripping account of a dramatic moment in American history.
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9.

"The Jordan Is a Hard Road to Travel": Hoosier Responses to Fugitive Slave Cases, 1850-1860, in International Social Science Review » Read Now
by Dean J. Kotlowski. 18 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...at Skunk River, a nearby Underground Railroad station. He eventually arrived...became conductors on the Underground Railroad. Indiana conductors took...assisted them. The...
10.

Runaway Slaves: Rebels on the Plantation » Read Now
by John Hope Franklin, Loren Schweninger. 460 pgs.

Collections: History, Entire Library

From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their...
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From John Hope Franklin, America's foremost African American historian, comes this groundbreaking analysis of slave resistance and escape. A sweeping panorama of plantation life before the Civil War, this book reveals that slaves frequently rebelled against their masters and ran away from their plantations whenever they could. For generations, important aspects about slave life on the plantations of the American South have remained shrouded. Historians thought, for instance, that slaves were generally pliant and resigned to their roles as human chattel, and that racial violence on the plantation was an aberration. In this precedent setting book, John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger demonstrate that, contrary to popular belief, significant numbers of slaves did in fact frequently rebel against their masters and struggled to attain their freedom. By surveying a wealth of documents, such as planters' records, petitions to county courts and state legislatures, and local newspapers, this book shows how slaves resisted, when, where, and how they escaped, where they fled to, how long they remained in hiding, and how they survived away from the plantation. Of equal importance, it examines the reactions of the white slaveholding class, revealing how they marshaled considerable effort to prevent runaways, meted out severe punishments, and established patrols to hunt down escaped slaves. Reflecting a lifetime of thought by our leading authority in African American history, this book provides the key to truly understanding the relationship between slaveholders and the runaways who challenged the system--illuminating as never before the true nature of the South's "most peculiar institution."
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