Underground Railroad

8 Pages 1901 Words

The Underground Railroad
The idea of freedom is as old as American slavery itself. The desire for freedom was in the mind of almost every slave. Freedom was always the dream at the back of every slaves mind; is it possible? What would it be like? Finally, how can I obtain it? For the great majority of the enslaved, hope lied northward. The passion to be free grew so strong in many slaves, that they risked their lives to find it. Not only did they want it for themselves, but for all who were held captive by slavery. Many ex-slaves, who had made it to freedom, returned to the south to help guide other slaves to the promise of freedom. Blacks and whites working together created a system of moving slaves to freedom called the Underground Railroad.
Slavery in America developed as a response to economics. The major crops and exports of the southern states were tobacco, rice, cotton, and sugar. These crops required longs hours of hard work in the hot sun, time consuming, backbreaking labor, and a cheap source of laborers. Slavery was the answer to all of these problems. From the very beginning, people tried to escape from slavery with varying degrees of success. By the early 19th century, white and black abolitionists, African American Slaves, American Indians, and members of religious groups including Quakers, Methodists, and Baptists were involved in the abolitionist movement. These groups established a fluid and informal system of aiding escapees that came to be called the Underground Railroad
The Underground Railroad was a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada. It 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.
This organized system to assist runaw...