Underground Railroad

Confronting the Difficulty

However, to comprehend the mission to aid fugitive slaves that was shared by participants in the Underground Railroad, as well as the true impact of their efforts, it is necessary to first know something of the realities of slavery. In slavery, the enslaved experience how degrading it is for one race to be bound in servitude to another. For enslaved Africans, there were daily reminders that as property without legal rights, all the decisions about their lives were made by the slaveholders who owned them. Being auctioned away from family and friends at a human market for the master's profit was a constant threat. There was also the harsh reality that any act perceived by the slaveholder as disobedience brought physical abuse, public humiliation, and savage beatings. However, although the bodies of Africans were enslaved, their minds longed for freedom. The mission of the Underground Railroad was to help enslaved Africans escape the horrors of slavery into northern, free territories.

Below the Mason-Dixon line, enslavement of black men, women, and children for whites’ social and economic comfort was a way of life, and any haphazard attempts to alter or restrict the slaveholders’ system of labor was dangerous. All phases of the Underground Railroad were carefully planned, because it had to be a well concealed and protected network of people, codes, and places—without flaws. All messaging within the Underground Railroad had to be of a serious nature, whereby the escapees could travel north through a tunnel of trust and charity. Failure to follow instructions or any misinterpretation of directives along the way could mean hanging or some other harsh punishment for the recaptured as well as for those dedicated to helping.

In the colonies, land was plentiful and cheap, but labor was scarce. Consequently, slave labor was a vital element in agricultural development in Southern states, and the slaveholders spared no expense in the employment of bounty hunters, bloodhounds, and printed notices to hunt down runaways to maintain their economic development. However, the tenacious and inhumane treatment of the slaves by these slaveholders fueled the commitment of those sympathetic to the plight of enslaved Africans. Ironically, in the folklore of the time, the first use of the term underground railroad is attributed to a frustrated and embarrassed slaveholder whose slave, Tice Davids, vanished into thin air right under his master's nose; to save face, his master told everyone that Tice had escaped on a mysterious “underground railroad.”

...