How the Underground Railroad Worked

The Underground Railroad may have saved as much as 100,000 slaves. Tune into to this HowStuffWorks podcast to learn how the passage of the Fugitive Slave Act and a secret network of abolitionists led to the creation of the Underground Railroad.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class from how
Stuff Works dot Com. Hello, and welcome to the podcast.
I'm editor Candis Gibson, joined by staff writer Jane McGrath Saylor.
Jane has a very coffey smile on her face. I
wonder why, Well, I was just thinking, Candids, have you

(00:23):
ever seen the Saturn Live skit with Michael Myers where
he plays Linda Richmond in coffee Talk. Yeah, it's one
of my favorites. I love it. Yeah, well it's so Afroca.
For a topic that we're going to discuss today, the
Underground Railroad neither underground, no road discuss discott that's right,

(00:43):
it's and he's he would be right if he said that, because, um,
the Underground Railroad is a pretty fascinating UH network. It's
a secret network that exists in the nineteenth century in
America to help African American slaves escape from slavery. And
so much about the Underground rail Road remains a secret
because the origins are very murky and there were no

(01:04):
written records about it at the time to protect the
secrecy of the network. So things that we know come
from accounts of people who made it through the underground
railroad or people who served it. And I actually learned
some pretty interesting things about the underground railroad when I
was doing some research on it. And I guess the
first one is that it was really really expensive, and

(01:27):
it makes sense, but I'd never really thought about it before.
But we're talking about fugitive slaves who would have to
be clothed and fed and hidden and provide it with transportation,
sometimes for day, sometimes for weeks on end. That's right.
And because it was so dangerous, all these precautions were
very necessary. And again because of the danger, a lot
of people um abolitionist phil anthropists, they were called stockholders.

(01:50):
They would raise money to contribute to the people who
ran the underground railroad so that they could pay bribes
to people who might squeal. And the reason that squealing
was such a big deal was because of something called
fugitive slave acts. That's right. And to give you some context,
if you go back to the Constitution, as we all know,
much of the Constitution was a compromise when it came
to when it came to slavery, because the North and
the South disagreed about it, um. But in order to

(02:12):
make a union, they had to they had to compromise,
and so they had this clause where they said fugitives
of labor who escaped into a different state had to
be returned. And although the Constitution didn't really say how
to enforce this, it did say that needed to happen,
and so uh. A few years later they had the
Fugitive Slave Act of seventeen ninety three, which basically made

(02:33):
it a federal crime to assist escape slaves. Uh. And
it was still relatively murky even after this act because
it left it up to the local courts to decide
how to enforce it, and so there were basically loopholes
that both abolitionists and pro slavery um authorities took advantage of.
And so in eighteen fifty it was reinforced. All these

(02:54):
divisions sent into place high fines for people who aided
and abetted fugitive slaves. And also these people could receive
present time, they could even be executed, and any black
person living in the North could actually be sought after
and said to be a slave, even if that were untrue.
That's ready to go back to the South. Yeah, it

(03:14):
made it very easy for for slave hunters, basically bounty
hunters too to lure um free black children for instance,
and to bring them into slavery. And it's a horrific
uh situation that happened. It was actually the Fusiitive Slave
Act of eighteen fifty was part of another compromise, if
you ever heard the Compromise of eighteen fifty. And in
return for this uh this given conceding to the South,

(03:39):
they let California in as a free state. Um. But
what's interesting about this law, I think is that it
basically legislated a bribe where magistrates were given fees of
five dollars if they if they stopped a slave hunter
from bringing back a slave, but the fee got raised
to ten dollars if they allowed the slave hunter to
take the slave away. And so ultimately, the North responded

(04:02):
to the Fugitive Slave Act, and they were visions by
saying that slavery was being pushed upon them even though
it was something that they did not condone. In the North.
There was an institution that the majority of the North
frowned upon. But because people who wanted to speak out
against slavery had essentially been muzzled, they felt like it
was time to do something that's right. So even though

(04:22):
it was much more dangerous after the Act of eighteen fifty,
it also provoked the anti slavery movement exactly. And if
you look at the time before eighteen fifty UM, for example,
the early eighteen hundreds, we see that there are sort
of a network of kind strangers who would help fugitive
slaves get to the North. There about fourteen states in
the North that were safe for fugitive slaves or to Canada,

(04:44):
which was an even more popular choice because they couldn't
be touched by the fugitive slave acts there. And then
by the eighteen twenties there was a little bit more
organization with anti slavery groups helping to shuttle along the
fugitive slaves. And by eighteen forty there was almost a
full underground network there to help, and that was the
underground railroad, that's right. And it was largely unprecedented, I

(05:05):
mean it was based. It was completely unprecedented because obviously
the slaves have existed throughout history and there have been
um like even ancient room, they had problems with run
run away slaves, but never before had there been such
a sophisticated network for helping them escape and that's what
makes the underground railroad so special. And what's wow do
is that it really spread by word of mouth. And

(05:25):
we said before it had to be secretive, you know,
by its by its sole existence. That was the only
way it could survive. And we should go over the
terms or the terminology for the underground railroad, and I
think that that will help you understand why even though
it was neither underground nor railroad, it was called the
underground railroad. So there roots of escape that the fugitive
slaves would follow were called lines like of anound road line.

(05:49):
And then the different pit stops or safe places or
you know, high out that they would visit were called stations.
The people who volunteered and helped the slaves along we're
called conductors, and a few sitives themselves were called packages
or freight. And historical records are unclear about how many
slaves actually made it through the underground railroad. There are
some very low estimates that put that number at around

(06:11):
two thousand. Some are more generous, saying about forty thousand,
others say a couple hundred thousand. But no matter what, um,
we know for sure that Ohio was one of the
most active states, and that the most success stories come
from the border states like Maryland, Kentucky, and Virginia, and
that if you were in the Deep South you neither
had a chance at all of getting up to the north,

(06:32):
or if you did, you were incredibly lucky, or you
escaped to Spanish controlled territories like Florida or Mexico. That's right.
And if you were lucky and you made it to
one of the northern states, often they would have vigilance
committees there that would basically help you start a new life,
that would get you a shelter work and protect you
from slave hunters. So there was hope and it was

(06:52):
obviously a risk worth undertaking, especially when the underground railroad
was more established. At the beginning, you primarily saw a
single men going through on their own, and then as
more confidence was instilled in the underground railroad, uh more
passengers would come through and even sometimes families. And that
was what was so tricky about the underground railroad was

(07:13):
that someone would be commissioned by either a newly freed
slave or an abolitionist, and as commissioned field agent would
go down to different plantations to make contact with the
slave and he might pose as a doctor or a
census taker, and it would take a while to get
the slaves trust. That's right. It was difficult because obviously

(07:34):
slaves were skeptical of people helping them, like maybe they
were just learning them away to get you know, a
bounty on them. Uh, So they often would only trust
other African Americans or um. They eventually started trusting Quakers
UM as well because they were more recognizable and they
were known for being anti slavery. Right, So, once the
field agent had gained the slaves trust, he would help

(07:57):
convey him to a conductor, and the conductor would help
the slave on the first leg of the journey to
the very first station, and in the safe house, and
they're a station master would feed and clothe the slave
and prepare the slave for the next leg of his journey.
And oftentimes the station masters would equip slaves with disguises.
It was not uncommon at all for a male slave

(08:18):
to be disguised as a female. I think you even
seen an instance of this, and Harriet Beecher stairs Uncle
Tom's cabin. It's been a while since I've read it,
but I'm pretty sure there is an instance of that occurring,
and um, there's one famous case of a black slave
woman being disguised as a white woman and even being
given a white baby to use as a very convincing
prop that's right. And there are places you can go

(08:40):
do today where these stations were and find hidden passageways
and hidden hiding places for these slaves, to say, even
in Pennsylvania, as we mentioned, Pennsylvania was one state that
wanted to much of it wanted to help slaves escape.
And so I think there was one station near Getty's Burg, Pennsylvania,
which you can go and visits now a restaurant, and

(09:01):
you can go see a hiding place where the bookshelf moves,
and it's it's wild the lengths that the abolitionists and
these philanthropists went to to help fugitive slaves. And even
though there were that many people helping, it was still
a very very dangerous journey. And uh they would travel
at night under the cover of darkness, following the North Star,
and during the daytime the slaves would hide in caves

(09:23):
and underbrush and thickets and just hope and pray that
no man stumbled upon them. As written, this was often
difficult because I don't know if you mentioned this, Candice,
but the lines, as you mentioned, were often very zig
zagged in order to throw off slave hunters, and these
often worked against the slaves sometimes if they if they
were not able to get a guide, and so they

(09:45):
would often get lost and it would take them years
to get out of this railroad. And so we see
that it was not impossible but very very dangerous to
do the trip on your own, and if they were
lucky enough to have a guide like Jane mentioned, you know,
success was much more guaranteed. And one of the most
famous guides was Harriet Tubman, that's right, and she herself

(10:06):
had been a slave and had escaped. She was in
a slave in Maryland and she had escaped to Pennsylvania,
and when she returned she had married earlier, a free
uh black, and when she returned she noticed or she
found out that her um free husband had married again
and wasn't willing to go with her, and Tubman took
members of her family back to Pennsylvania. And one historian

(10:27):
Fergus M. Borda, which suggests that it was this experience
where her husband, you know, remarried and didn't want to
come with her that really hardened her and really made
her a tough lady. To say the least. She was tough,
like Jane said, And I think that there's that age
old scenario where people ask if if you were hiding
and they were enemies approaching and there was a baby
in your group and a cried out would would you

(10:48):
suffocate it? And you know, it's sort of a more
morality debate and the answer is hard to say, but
a lot of people would argue yes, to spare the
lives of the group, you would let one person go.
And I think Tubman really lived by this notion to you,
and she would often threaten to kill slaves if one
of them was getting scared and making too much noise.
You know, it was for the good of the group,
and it worked because she made about thirteen trips on

(11:09):
the underground railroad, taking about seventy slaves to either New
York and Canada. It must have taken some really hard
nerves to do what she did, so it's good for her. Um. Also,
you mentioned Harriet Peature still earlier, the author of Uncle
Tom's Cabin. It's interesting because she is often criticized as
like never having really been in the South and having
experienced slavery, but she got her knowledge about slavery through

(11:32):
her word of mouth contact with Underground Railroad and the
members of it. And so whether or not still witnessed
firsthand the perils of the Underground Railroad or saw firsthand
the atrocities of slavery, I think it's a point because
the novel really moved people, and it's a very emotional read.
It's a very long novel, but it will make you cry,
especially the character of Uncle Tom. I was within tears

(11:54):
when I finished. But and it made a huge impact
at the time, so like it was just sort of
like the ripples of the Underground reil Road had were
very bad. Yeah, I made a huge emotional appeal. And UM,
I think one of the saddest stories to come out
of the Underground Railroad is one that involves Levi Coffin,
who was um I believe he was a Quaker, and
he wrote a treatise about his experience with the Underground Railroad,

(12:17):
and um he mentioned that there was one party of
twenty eight that came through from Kentucky and there was
a baby and the group and they got to a
certain place and they had to stop and they were
hiding in the thicket, and Levi Coffin arranged for abolitionists
in the community to bring them clothes and choose because
it was incredibly cold, hot coffee and food, and everyone

(12:40):
was wondering, how are we going to convey this huge
group of people through to the next station, and Coffin
came up with the idea that they should all act
like they're in a funeral procession and just walk very
solemnly and slowly along the road, and no one questioned them,
and it worked. But when they arrived at the next
safe house, they realized it wasn't just to pretend funeral
process and the baby had actually died from malnutrition in

(13:02):
the cold, So it's an actual, real feneral procession story.
It's very sad, and I think that there are so
many accountless more like that, and send many legends about
the Underground Railroad than we may never know are true.
We we hear stories about quilt patterns being secret codes
to slaves, whether or not a house was saved, or
that there was a bounty hunter on the lookout, And

(13:23):
there are so many stories like this about the Underground Railroad.
So we would urge you guys to hear. Check out
the article on the Underground Railroad, as well as information
on historical figures like Harriet Tubman on how stuff works
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Doesn't how stuff works dot com. Let us know what
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(13:45):
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