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... Maryland in order to save slaves. She never lost one slave. There were many other influential women that played a role in the Underground Railroad and the fight for equality among blacks. Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton were fighting the twin fight for women's suffrage and Negro emancipation.
Jane Lewis from New Lebanon, Ohio found her way to the river and rowed runaways from the far side of the Ohio River to the Ohio freedom. Calvin Fairbanks was one of the first of the abolitionists to assume the task of going into the South and assisting slaves at the very start of their flight. He became a master in this dangerous business. On one trip into Kentucky he brought out seven children whose mother wanted them free, and on another occasion he rescued a girl from an attic room. He depended mostly on simple disguises- men in women's clothes and women in men's. He bought out fugitives on foot and on horseback, in buggies, carriages, and wagons.
No fugitive of his was ever captured. When the worst came, it was he himself taken, and he served five years in the Kentucky penitentiary. John Mason was another influential person. He was a Kentucky runaway. He assisted 265 slaves to Canada, then was captured and sold back into slavery. However he managed to escape again.
He led over 1, 000 slaves to freedom. William Still and Robert Purvis were famous abolitionists from Philadelphia. Still wrote down the story of every fugitive who passed through the line. Over their lifetimes Still and Purvis helped some 1, 000 fugitives along the Underground Railroad up Pennsylvania to freedom. Other major people and events that were involved were Frederick Douglass (signed the slips for fugitives to go to various "stations" and a very powerful speaker), Sojourner Truth, Lucretia Mott, Congressman Thaddeus Stevens, Solomon North, Josiah Henson, Benjamin Lay, Dred Scott case, Nat Turner, Garrison, the Vigilance Committee, and Elijah Lovejoy.
These are just a few out of the many people, organizations, and events that helped with the Underground Railroad. Slaves followed different paths, usually north to Canada, but sometimes south to Mexico, Haiti, and the Caribbean. There were ten to twenty miles between each underground stop. The runaway line of escape ran its winding course through every state from Alabama to the Canadian border.
The first goal in most cases was either Ohio or Pennsylvania. The Underground Railroad never really functioned in the south because it was too dangerous. Those slaves from the Deep South, who could stow away on a Mississippi River boat, might, with good luck, find themselves on the Ohio River. There were hundreds of conductors in Ohio alone. Because Ohio was just across the river from the slave states of Kentucky and Virginia, it had the most active and numerous Underground Railroad routes. Ohio had been settled by New Englanders in the northern part and by Southerners in the southern part.
But many of these Southerners were men and women who had left their homes because they hated slavery, and the fugitive found helpers at almost any point along the shore. As we have seen with our friend Jeb, he would be passed from house to house until he would reach the wilderness of central and western Ohio. Next in importance to Ohio was Pennsylvania, and runaways coming from Virginia and North Carolina found in the Quakers quick and ready friends who would hurry them into the northwest tip of the state from which the final plunge could be taken. Whether the escape route lay through Ohio or Pennsylvania, Indiana, or New England- the goal was Canada. In Canada the Negro found safety, opportunity, and self-respect.
However it is true that many fugitives went no farther than New York or Boston, where they got work and settled down to live as freemen. When escaping through the Underground Railroad everything was done as secretly and confusing as possible. Pathways might zigzag and cut through steams and even double back on themselves. Routes were often changed at the last moment, just in case word got out. There were even "wild-goose chase" routes, where a person would tell the slave catcher that the fugitive went one way, when in actuality they had went the opposite way days earlier.
Information was passed along by "underground telegraph", which is by word of mouth or by mail from one conductor to the next. Runaways were referred to as packages or merchandise. According to Virginia Hamilton (pg. 88), a conductor or stationmaster who had a message that stated "by Tuesday you should receive a shipment of four large kegs of dark ale and one small one" would prepare for the arrival of four adults and a child. Running away took courage because of the repercussions. One man named Henry "Box" Brown sealed himself in a carton and had himself mailed from Richmond to Philadelphia. Twenty-eight other slaves formed funeral processions and others traveled in wagons.
These are just a few examples of what some slaves did to get to safety, so they could get one step closer to freedom. Messages were always in code such as song lyrics. According to Virginia Hamilton, the song "Swing Low Sweet Chariot" coming forth to carry me home meant that a conductor of the railroad was in the area and that an escape was due soon. The Spiritual "Wade in the Water" was a code instructing slaves to wade in rivers and streams so that dogs tracking them could not pick up their scent. The spiritual "Follow the Risen Lord, Follow the Drinking Gourd", instructed slaves to follow the North Star to safety (pg. 90). Most common messages were passwords- secret words that let runaways and conductors recognize each other when they had never met before.
There were code names for towns and people. There were also discreet signals: a light in a specific window of a station, or a cloth or flag hanging in a certain place, would reassure a fugitive that it was safe to come in the door. Or sometimes runaways might be told to announce their presence with a special knock or bird call. All of these songs, passwords, and signals were used to bring fugitives to safety and freedom. The Underground Railroad has always interested me so I did look deeper into the history, the influential people, and the actual journey of the Underground Railroad. When I did my research for this paper I was astonished by the information that I found out.
I can say that now I know a little bit more about my history. Like many other fugitives "Jeb went through five days of hazard and hardship, of tenderness, care and brotherly love. Finally the wide expanse of Lake Erie danced in the Sunlight. When he got on land he was a free man" (Buck master). Jeb is just one person out of the many that had a story to tell. His experience encouraged other slaves to take a chance to get their freedom.
Slaves were tired of belonging to someone else, getting abused for not responding correctly, and doing hard labor. They wanted to know how it felt to be called Mr. or Mrs. , own a house and bed, and not worry about their master whipping them. They longed for freedom, they could taste it, and night after night they probably dreamed about it. This desire for freedom sent more than two thousand slaves out of the south every year. The slaves that got away had a chance to start their life over.
Even though they will not ever forget the harsh treatment, the labor, the heartaches, and pain they could die knowing that they were no longer in bondage, but free.
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