So once enslaved people decided to make the journey to freedom, they had to listen for tips from other enslaved people, who might have heard tips from other enslaved people.
Nothing was written down about where to go or who would help. Often called “agents,” these operators used their homes, churches, barns, and schoolhouses as “stations.” There, fugitives could stop and receive shelter, food, clothing, protection, and money until they were ready to move to the next station. Many were members of organized groups that helped runaways, such as the Quaker religion and the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The operators of the Underground Railroad were abolitionists, or people who opposed slavery. The phrase wasn’t something that one person decided to name the system but a term that people started using as more and more fugitives escaped through this network. “Underground” implies secrecy “railroad” refers to the way people followed certain routes-with stops along the way-to get to their destination. No one knows exactly where the term Underground Railroad came from.
#Underground railroad story answerr free#
It was a network of people, both whites and free Blacks, who worked together to help runaways from slaveholding states travel to states in the North and to the country of Canada, where slavery was illegal. The Underground Railroad was not underground, and it wasn’t an actual train. How the Underground Railroad startedĪmericans had been helping enslaved people escape since the late 1700s, and by the early 1800s, the secret group of individuals and places that many fugitives relied on became known as the Underground Railroad. It became known as the Underground Railroad. As more and more people secretly offered to help, a freedom movement emerged. Not everyone believed that slavery should be allowed and wanted to aid these fugitives, or runaways, in their escape to freedom. To be captured would mean being sent back to the plantation, where they would be whipped, beaten, or killed.
Leaving behind family members, they traveled hundreds of miles across unknown lands and rivers by foot, boat, or wagon. Many fled by themselves or in small numbers, often without food, clothes, or money. It required courage, wit, and determination. According to the law, they had no rights and were not free.Įscaping to freedom was anything but easy for an enslaved person. They had been kidnapped from their homes and were forced to work on tobacco, rice, and indigo plantations from Maryland and Virginia all the way to Georgia.
In 1619, the first enslaved Africans arrived in Virginia, one of the newly formed 13 American Colonies.
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