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Underground Railroad
Sign in to savenetwork of secret routes & safehouses in 19th-century U.S. used by slaves to find freedom
Key facts
- Founding location
- United States
- Territory
- United States, and routes to British North America , Mexico, Spanish Florida , and the Caribbean
- Ethnicity
- African Americans and other compatriots
- Activities
- Fleeing from slavery into the northern United States or Canada Aiding freedom-seeking slaves
- Allies
- Religious Society of Friends Congregational church Wesleyan Church Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America Vigilant Association of Philadelphia
- Rivals
- Slave catchers , Reverse Underground Railroad
via Wikipedia infobox
~40 min read
Encyclopedic overview
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The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes underground and safe houses for fugitive slaves to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada during the era of slavery in the United States. Slaves escaped from slavery as early as the 16th century; many of their escapes were unaided. However, a network of safe houses generally known as the Underground Railroad began to organize in the 1780s among Abolitionist Societies in the North. It ran north and grew steadily until President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The escapees sought primarily to escape into free states, and potentially from there to Canada.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Underground Railroad” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
Gallery (12)
On the map
10 mapped locations