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Underground Railroad
Underground Railroadn.1. a. A series of escape routes and hiding places that fugitive slaves used to escape the South before and during the Civil War.b. A secret cooperative network of people who helped and hid such fugitive slaves.2. underground railroad A secret cooperative network engaged in the clandestine movement and housing of fugitives, such as children removed illegally from the custody of a parent charged with child abuse.underground railroad n (Historical Terms) (often capitals) (in the pre-Civil War US) the system established by abolitionists to aid escaping slaves un′derground rail′road
n. (often caps.) (before the abolition of slavery in the U.S.) a system for helping fugitive slaves escape into Canada and other places of safety. [1825–35] Underground RailroadAn escape route for southern slaves to Canada frequently opposed by white workers fearful for their own jobs.Thesaurus| Noun | 1. |  Underground Railroad - secret aid to escaping slaves that was provided by abolitionists in the years before the American Civil WarUnderground Railway |
underground railroad
underground railroad1. capitalized An organized network of secret workers, routes, and safe houses used to ferry escaped African-American slaves to free states or present-day Canada. A former slave herself, Harriet Tubman was an instrumental figure in the Underground Railroad, saving roughly 70 people from slavery over the course of 13 rescue missions.2. By extension, any network of people working together secretly to help fugitives escape to places of safety and freedom. The human rights organization has begun operating an underground railroad in the third-world country to help human trafficking victims escape from bondage. A former slave herself, Harriet Tubman was an instrumental figure in the Underground RailroadSee also: railroad, undergroundunderground railroadA secret network for moving and housing fugitives, as in There's definitely an underground railroad helping women escape abusive husbands. This term, dating from the first half of the 1800s, alludes to the network that secretly transported runaway slaves through the northern states to Canada. It was revived more than a century later for similar escape routes. See also: railroad, undergroundUnderground Railroad
Underground Railroad, in U.S. history, loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionistsabolitionists,
in U.S. history, particularly in the three decades before the Civil War, members of the movement that agitated for the compulsory emancipation of the slaves.
..... Click the link for more information. , both white and free blacks. The metaphor first appeared in print in the early 1840s, and other railroad terminology was soon added. The escaping slaves were called passengers; the homes where they were sheltered, stations; and those who guided them, conductors. This nomenclature, along with the numerous, somewhat glorified, personal reminiscences written by conductors in the postwar period, created the impression that the Underground Railroad was a highly systematized, national, secret organization that accomplished prodigious feats in stealing slaves away from the South. In fact, most of the help given to fugitive slaves on their varied routes north was spontaneously offered and came not only from abolitionists or self-styled members of the Underground Railroad, but from anyone moved to sympathy by the plight of the runaway slave before his eyes. The major part played by free blacks, of both North and South, and by slaves on plantations along the way in helping fugitives escape to freedom was underestimated in nearly all early accounts of the railroad. Moreover, the resourcefulness and daring of the fleeing slaves themselves, who were usually helped only after the most dangerous part of their journey (i.e., the Southern part) was over, were probably more important factors in the success of their escape than many conductors readily admitted. In some localities, like Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Wilmington, Del., and Newport, Ind. (site of the activities of Levi CoffinCoffin, Levi,
1798–1877, American abolitionist, b. North Carolina. In 1826 he moved to the Quaker settlement of Newport (now Fountain City), Ind., where he kept a store until 1847.
..... Click the link for more information. ), energetic organizers did manage to loosely systematize the work; Quakers were particularly prominent as conductors, and among the free blacks the exploits of Harriet TubmanTubman, Harriet,
c.1820–1913, American abolitionist, b. Dorchester co., Md. Born into slavery, she escaped to Phildelphia in 1849, and subsequently became one of the most successful "conductors" on the Underground Railroad.
..... Click the link for more information. stand out. In all cases, however, it is extremely difficult to separate fact from legend, especially since relatively few enslaved blacks, probably no more than between 1,000 and 5,000 a year between 1830 and 1860, escaped successfully. Far from being kept secret, details of escapes on the Underground Railroad were highly publicized and exaggerated in both the North and the South, although for different reasons. The abolitionists used the Underground Railroad as a propaganda device to dramatize the evils of slavery; Southern slaveholders publicized it to illustrate Northern infidelity to the fugitive slave lawsfugitive slave laws,
in U.S. history, the federal acts of 1793 and 1850 providing for the return between states of escaped black slaves. Similar laws existing in both North and South in colonial days applied also to white indentured servants and to Native American slaves.
..... Click the link for more information. . The effect of this publicity, with its repeated tellings and exaggerations of slave escapes, was to create an Underground Railroad legend that represented a humanitarian ideal of the pre–Civil War period but strayed far from reality. Bibliography W. Still's The Underground Railroad (1872) contains the narratives of slaves who escaped the South through Philadelphia. See also W. H. Siebert's pioneering though somewhat misleading The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898, repr. 1968); for extensively revised accounts, see L. Gara, The Liberty Line (1961), D. Blight, ed., Passages to Freedom (2004), F. Bordewich, Bound for Canaan (2005), and E. Foner, Gateway to Freedom (2015). Underground Railroad the name of a secret system for the organization of escapes by Negro slaves from the southern slaveholding states of the USA; it existed until the Civil War of 1861–65. The Underground Railroad had “stations,” or stopping places en route at homes of citizens who sympathized with the escapees, and “conductors,” of leaders of groups of escapees. The routes of the Underground Railroad ran from the states of Kentucky, Virginia, and Maryland to the northern states and Canada. The chief organizers of the Underground Railroad were free Negroes, participants in the abolitionist movement, and Quakers. Between 1830 and 1860 about 60,000 slaves found freedom by means of the Underground Railroad. REFERENCEFoster, W. Z. Negritianskii narod v istorii Ameriki. Moscow, 1955. Pages 175–78. (Translated from English.)Underground Railroadsystem which helped slaves to escape to the North. [Am. Hist.: EB, X: 255]See: Antislavery
Underground Railroadeffective means of escape for southern slaves. [Am. Hist.: Jameson, 514]See: FreedomAcronymsSeeURRUnderground Railroad
Related to Underground Railroad: Harriet TubmanSynonyms for Underground Railroadnoun secret aid to escaping slaves that was provided by abolitionists in the years before the American Civil WarSynonyms |