The ideas, thoughts, and words on this non-profit page were compiled from the excellent PBS site, Africans in America, which chronicles America's journey through slavery .  For further study of this pivotal topic, this site is among the best resources.  Some wording and phrases from the original source have been slightly edited / modified for middle school use by Sam Greene.  To view the source articles, navigate to the following links:  http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/home.html or http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html  Additional sites used in compiling this article:  http://www.okbu.edu/academics/natsci/planet/shows/gourd.htm 

Prior to reading this passage, make sure you've previewed the questions to focus your reading of this article.  This is a reading strategy you can and should use in all your classes.

Underground Railroad Questions

The Underground Railroad, a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. Rather, it consisted of many individuals -- many whites but predominantly black -- who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives and not of the overall operation. Still, it effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year -- according to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850.

An organized system to assist runaway slaves seems to have begun towards the end of the 18th century. In 1786 George Washington complained about how one of his runaway slaves was helped by a "society of Quakers, formed for such purposes." The system grew, and around 1831 it was dubbed "The Underground Railroad," after the then emerging steam railroads. The system even used terms used in railroading: the homes and businesses where fugitives would rest and eat were called "stations" and "depots" and were run by "stationmasters," those who contributed money or goods were "stockholders," and the "conductor" was responsible for moving fugitives from one station to the next. 

For the slave, running away to the North was anything but easy. The first step was to escape from the slaveholder. For many slaves, this meant relying on his or her own resources. Sometimes a "conductor," posing as a slave, would enter a plantation and then guide the runaways northward. The fugitives would move at night. They would generally travel between 10 and 20 miles to the next station, where they would rest and eat, hiding in barns and other out-of-the-way places. While they waited, a message would be sent to the next station to alert its stationmaster. 

Vigilance committees sprang up in the larger towns and cities of the North, most prominently in New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. In addition to soliciting money, the organizations provided food, lodging and money, and helped the fugitives settle into a community by helping them find jobs and providing letters of recommendation. 

Harriet Tubman is perhaps the most well-known of all the Underground Railroad's "conductors." During a ten-year span she made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom. And, as she once proudly pointed out to Frederick Douglass, in all of her journeys she "never lost a single passenger."

Tubman was born a slave in Maryland's Dorchester County around 1820. At age five or six, she began to work as a house servant. Seven years later she was sent to work in the fields. While she was still in her early teens, she suffered an injury that would follow her for the rest of her life. Always ready to stand up for someone else, Tubman blocked a doorway to protect another field hand from an angry overseer. The overseer picked up and threw a two-pound weight at the field hand. It fell short, striking Tubman on the head. She never fully recovered from the blow, which subjected her to spells in which she would fall into a deep sleep. 

Tubman returned to the South again and again. She devised clever techniques that helped make her "forays" successful, including using the master's horse and buggy for the first leg of the journey; leaving on a Saturday night, since runaway notices couldn't be placed in newspapers until Monday morning; turning about and heading south if she encountered possible slave hunters; and carrying a drug to use on a baby if its crying might put the fugitives in danger. Tubman even carried a gun which she used to threaten the fugitives if they became too tired or decided to turn back, telling them, "You'll be free or die." 

By 1856, Tubman's capture would have brought a $40,000 reward from the South. On one occasion, she overheard some men reading her wanted poster, which stated that she was illiterate. She promptly pulled out a book and feigned reading it. The ploy was enough to fool the men.

Tubman had made the perilous trip to slave country 19 times by 1860, including one especially challenging journey in which she rescued her 70-year-old parents. Of the famed heroine, who became known as "Moses," Frederick Douglass said, "Excepting John Brown -- of sacred memory -- I know of no one who has willingly encountered more perils and hardships to serve our enslaved people than [Harriet Tubman]."
And John Brown, who conferred with "General Tubman" about his plans to raid Harpers Ferry, once said that she was "one of the bravest persons on this continent."

During the Civil War Harriet Tubman worked for the Union as a cook, a nurse, and even a spy. After the war she settled in Auburn, New York, where she would spend the rest of her long life. She died in 1913.

Music and the Underground Railroad

Prior to the Civil War, slaves escaped from southern plantations and made their way to the Underground Railroad by means of the Big Dipper (Drinking Gourd) and North Star. A carpenter called Peg Leg Joe traveled from farm to farm and plantation to plantation, teaching slaves a song that would cryptically remind them of his instructions to find their way northward.  Read through the lyrics of the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd" and see if you can spot some of the "cryptic" messages hidden within it.

When the Sun comes back
And the first quail calls¹
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
For the old man² is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the Drinking Gourd.

The riverbank³ makes a very good road.
The dead trees will show you the way.
Left foot, peg foot, traveling on,⁴
Follow the Drinking Gourd.

The river ends between two hills
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
There's another river on the other side⁵
Follow the Drinking Gourd.

When the great big river meets the little river⁶
Follow the Drinking Gourd.
For the old man is a-waiting for to carry you to freedom
If you follow the drinking gourd.

NOTES:

1. On the winter solstice the Sun rises in the southeast. In the months after the December solstice the Sun rises more northerly and ascends higher in the sky each day. Migratory quail winter in the south.  Return to Song
2. Peg Leg Joe.  Return to Song
3. Tombigbee River, leading northward from the Gulf of Mexico toward Tennessee.  Return to Song
4. Dead trees were used as markers with charcoal and mud drawings of a peg leg and a foot.  Return to Song
5. Tennessee River, which flows northward across Tennessee and Kentucky.  Return to Song
6. That is, at the confluence of the Tennessee River and the Ohio River (over 800 miles north of Mobile), where Underground Railroad guides would meet fugitive slaves on the northern bank and transport them to safer regions. A slave who left a farm or plantation in southern Alabama or Mississippi in the winter (see note 1) would arrive at the Ohio river about a year later--the best time to cross, when one could simply walk across the ice.  Return to Song