New York’s prosperity before the Civil War was closely tied to slavery and the Cotton South. But it was only in the southern states, where the economy was based on the plantation agriculture, that slavery was legal. Slavery had been ended in the northern states where industrialisation did not require cheap labour. Thus the northern states supported the abolitionist movement eg the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery was established in 1775.
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A network of people taking slaves from the southern states (grey)
to freedom in the northern U.S (blue) and Canada.
Credit: National Geographic
The reason many escapees headed to Canada was the Fugitive Slave Act 1793. This draconian Act allowed local U.S governments to apprehend and extradite escaped slaves from within the borders of free states, back to their origin home. And to punish helpers! In the deep South, this Act even made capturing slaves a lucrative business.
The “Underground Railroad” apparently operated from the early C19th. The Quaker Abolitionists were the first organised group to actively help escaped slaves. In the early 1800s, Quaker abolitionist Isaac Hopper set up a network in Philadelphia that helped slaves on the run. Then in North Carolina. And the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816) also helped ex-slaves.
The term Underground Railroad came in 1831 when slave Tice Davids escaped from Kentucky and his owner blamed an underground railroad for taking him. Vigilance Committees, created to protect escaped slaves from bounty hunters in New York in 1835, then expanded. The escaped slave-cum-merchant Robert Purvis formed Philadelphia’s Vigilance Committee in 1838.
The term Underground Railroad soon went into the language. It was a clandestine network of people, African American & white, offering protection to escaped slaves from the South, so they could move to free northern states and to Canada. In their terminology, those who sought slaves seeking freedom were pilots. Those who guided enslaved people to safety and freedom were conductors. The escapees were passengers. People’s homes-businesses-churches, where fugitives and conductors could hide, were stations. Those operating the stations were the stationmasters and those who provided supplies were the stockholders.
If caught, fugitive slaves were forced to return home. People caught aiding escaped slaves faced arrest & gaol, whether they were living in slave-states or in free-states. Thus very few people kept records about this secret activity, to protect homeowners and fugitives.
By 1837 Rev Calvin Fairbank helped slaves escape from Kentucky into Ohio. In 1844 he partnered with Vermont school-teacher Delia Webster and was arrested for helping escapees. He was pardoned in 1849, but was re-arrested and spent another 12 years in gaol. New York City-based escaped slave Louis Napoleon’s occupation, as listed on his death certificate, was Underground RR Agent! He guided fugitives he found on docks and train stations.
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Safe house, provided by Quaker abolitionist Levi Coffin,
in Cincinnati, Ohio.
National Geographic
Some Northern states tried to combat the Fugitive Slave Acts with Personal Liberty Laws, struck down by the Supreme Court 1842. The southerners were angry and had the Fugitive Slave Act updated in 1850 to create harsher penalties on escaped slaves and their helpers. Not surprisingly, the 1850 Act led to the Railroad reaching its peak (see map above).
Most of the slaves helped by the Underground Railroad escaped via border states eg Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland. There were many well-used routes stretching west through Ohio to Indiana and Iowa. Others headed north through Pennsylvania and into New England or through Detroit on route to Canada.
Meanwhile Canada offered blacks the freedom to live and work where they wanted, and extraditions had largely failed. Some Underground Railroad operators based themselves in Canada and worked to help the arriving fugitives settle in. Others, eg ex-slave and famed writer Frederick Douglass hid fugitives in his Rochester NY home, helping 400 escapees make their way to Canada. Rev Jermain Loguen in neighbouring Syracuse helped 1,500 ex-slaves.
Araminta Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor for the Underground Railroad. This slave escaped a plantation in Maryland with two of her brothers in 1849. She travelled to Pennsylvania, then returned to the plantation to rescue family members, but her husband wouldn’t leave. Distraught, Tubman joined the Under-ground Railroad & began guiding other escaped slaves northwards. Tubman regularly took groups of escapees to Canada.
William Still, born to fugitive slave parents in New Jersey, became a prominent Philadelphia citizen. An associate of Tubman’s, Still kept an invaluable record of his activities in the Underground Railroad and kept it safely hidden. It was published after the Civil War.
Abolitionist John Brown was a conductor on the Under-ground Railroad into Canada. But Brown created an armed force that made its way into the south and freed slaves by gun-point. Brown was hanged for treason in 1859. Charles Torrey, who had once worked as an abolitionist newspaper editor in Albany NY, was imprisoned for 6 years in Maryland for helping slave families escape.
By 1860, the Railroad had freed c100,000 enslaved people. And because it was at the heart of the abolitionist movement, the Railroad heightened divisions between the North and South, setting the stage for the Civil War. The Railroad closed in c1863, then its work moved up as part of the Union effort against the Confederacy.
![]()
Credit: National Geographic
The reason many escapees headed to Canada was the Fugitive Slave Act 1793. This draconian Act allowed local U.S governments to apprehend and extradite escaped slaves from within the borders of free states, back to their origin home. And to punish helpers! In the deep South, this Act even made capturing slaves a lucrative business.
The “Underground Railroad” apparently operated from the early C19th. The Quaker Abolitionists were the first organised group to actively help escaped slaves. In the early 1800s, Quaker abolitionist Isaac Hopper set up a network in Philadelphia that helped slaves on the run. Then in North Carolina. And the African Methodist Episcopal Church (1816) also helped ex-slaves.
The term Underground Railroad came in 1831 when slave Tice Davids escaped from Kentucky and his owner blamed an underground railroad for taking him. Vigilance Committees, created to protect escaped slaves from bounty hunters in New York in 1835, then expanded. The escaped slave-cum-merchant Robert Purvis formed Philadelphia’s Vigilance Committee in 1838.
The term Underground Railroad soon went into the language. It was a clandestine network of people, African American & white, offering protection to escaped slaves from the South, so they could move to free northern states and to Canada. In their terminology, those who sought slaves seeking freedom were pilots. Those who guided enslaved people to safety and freedom were conductors. The escapees were passengers. People’s homes-businesses-churches, where fugitives and conductors could hide, were stations. Those operating the stations were the stationmasters and those who provided supplies were the stockholders.
If caught, fugitive slaves were forced to return home. People caught aiding escaped slaves faced arrest & gaol, whether they were living in slave-states or in free-states. Thus very few people kept records about this secret activity, to protect homeowners and fugitives.
By 1837 Rev Calvin Fairbank helped slaves escape from Kentucky into Ohio. In 1844 he partnered with Vermont school-teacher Delia Webster and was arrested for helping escapees. He was pardoned in 1849, but was re-arrested and spent another 12 years in gaol. New York City-based escaped slave Louis Napoleon’s occupation, as listed on his death certificate, was Underground RR Agent! He guided fugitives he found on docks and train stations.
Most operators were normal farmers, business men or ministers, although some wealthy people were involved eg millionaire Gerrit Smith. In 1841, Smith bought an entire family of slaves from Kentucky and set them free. Former railroad operator Josiah Henson created the Dawn Institute in 1842 in Ontario to help escapees in Canada learn work skills.
in Cincinnati, Ohio.
National Geographic
Some Northern states tried to combat the Fugitive Slave Acts with Personal Liberty Laws, struck down by the Supreme Court 1842. The southerners were angry and had the Fugitive Slave Act updated in 1850 to create harsher penalties on escaped slaves and their helpers. Not surprisingly, the 1850 Act led to the Railroad reaching its peak (see map above).
Most of the slaves helped by the Underground Railroad escaped via border states eg Kentucky, Virginia and Maryland. There were many well-used routes stretching west through Ohio to Indiana and Iowa. Others headed north through Pennsylvania and into New England or through Detroit on route to Canada.
Meanwhile Canada offered blacks the freedom to live and work where they wanted, and extraditions had largely failed. Some Underground Railroad operators based themselves in Canada and worked to help the arriving fugitives settle in. Others, eg ex-slave and famed writer Frederick Douglass hid fugitives in his Rochester NY home, helping 400 escapees make their way to Canada. Rev Jermain Loguen in neighbouring Syracuse helped 1,500 ex-slaves.
Araminta Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor for the Underground Railroad. This slave escaped a plantation in Maryland with two of her brothers in 1849. She travelled to Pennsylvania, then returned to the plantation to rescue family members, but her husband wouldn’t leave. Distraught, Tubman joined the Under-ground Railroad & began guiding other escaped slaves northwards. Tubman regularly took groups of escapees to Canada.
William Still, born to fugitive slave parents in New Jersey, became a prominent Philadelphia citizen. An associate of Tubman’s, Still kept an invaluable record of his activities in the Underground Railroad and kept it safely hidden. It was published after the Civil War.
Abolitionist John Brown was a conductor on the Under-ground Railroad into Canada. But Brown created an armed force that made its way into the south and freed slaves by gun-point. Brown was hanged for treason in 1859. Charles Torrey, who had once worked as an abolitionist newspaper editor in Albany NY, was imprisoned for 6 years in Maryland for helping slave families escape.
By 1860, the Railroad had freed c100,000 enslaved people. And because it was at the heart of the abolitionist movement, the Railroad heightened divisions between the North and South, setting the stage for the Civil War. The Railroad closed in c1863, then its work moved up as part of the Union effort against the Confederacy.
The Railroad became a mainstay of both national history and local lore, and is now in the popular American literature. Eric Foner showed that the Underground Railroad was not hidden; abolitionist groups made little secret about their assisting runaways.