![]() This also helped to keep the public and slaveholders in the dark. ![]() Railroad terminology and symbols were used to mask the covert activities of the network. Methodists, Baptists, inhabitants of urban centre and farmers, men and women, Americans and Canadians. Their ranks included free Black people, fellow enslaved persons, White and Indigenous sympathizers, Quakers, The network was maintained by abolitionists who were committed to human rights and equality. It was a complex, clandestine network of people and safe houses that helped personsĮnslaved in Southern plantations reach freedom in the North. The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad and it did not run on railway tracks. By then, an informal covert network to help fugitive slaves had already taken shape. Within a few decades, it had grown into a well-organized and dynamic network. The Underground Railroad was created in the early 19th century by a group of abolitionists based mainly in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It empowered slaveĬatchers to pursue fugitives in Northern states. ( See The Coloured Corps: Black Canadians and the War of 1812.)Īrrivals of freedom-seekers in Upper Canada increased dramatically after 1850 with the passage of the American Fugitive Slave Act. That there were free “Black men in red coats” in British North America. The enslaved servants of US military officers from the South brought back word Word that freedom could be had in Canada spread further following the War of 1812. ![]() This encouraged a small number of enslaved African Americans in search of freedom to enter Canada, primarily without Who reached Upper Canada became free upon arrival. This applied to people living in states that supported slavery as well as those living in free states.A provision in the 1793 Act to Limit Slavery stated that any enslaved person People caught aiding escaped enslaved people faced arrest and jail. If caught, fugitive enslaved persons would be forced to return to slavery. Very few people kept records about this secret activity, to protect homeowners and the fugitives who needed help. Establishing stations was done quietly, by word-of-mouth. If a new owner supported slavery, or if the site was discovered to be a station, passengers and conductors were forced to find a new station. Using the terminology of the railroad, those who went south to find enslaved people seeking freedom were called “ pilots.” Those who guided enslaved people to safety and freedom were “ conductors.” The enslaved people were “ passengers.” People’s homes or businesses, where fugitive passengers and conductors could safely hide, were “ stations.” Stations were added or removed from the Underground Railroad as ownership of the house changed. More often, the network was a series of small, individual actions to help fugitive enslaved persons. Sometimes, routes of the Underground Railroad were organized by abolitionists, people who opposed slavery. The “railroad” used many routes from states in the South, which supported slavery, to “free” states in the North and Canada. ![]() 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).
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