Underground Railroad During the Civil War Research Paper

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Underground Railroad was the single most important nonviolent political protest movement in nineteenth century America. Slave rebellions did help to rally the cause for self-empowerment and abolition, but the Underground Railroad led to meaningful, tangible results. The descendants of former slaves who made it to Canada have shaped the fabric of that nation, while the descendants of the former slaves to achieved liberty in their lifetime and lived to tell their stories have left an indelible mark on American history. In many ways, the Underground Railroad signified the stirrings of Civil War. Dissent among slaves created problems for slave owners, who clung ever tighter to their traditions.

In 1850, Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Act, which criminalized aiding and abetting escaped slaves on the grounds that escaped slaves were recognized as stolen property. Tightening the noose on slavery with the Fugitive Slave Act, the federal government lost a considerable amount of legitimacy in the years prior to the Civil War. Harriet Tubman would write a letter to President Lincoln in 1862, in the midst of the Civil War, urging the President to reconsider his weak stance on slavery. Tubman, a self-liberated slave, understood that waiting for the white government to take the initiative for emancipation was futile. It was more important to forge a more meaningful pathway to freedom: a pathway that led to Canada, the Caribbean, Europe, and anywhere else slavery had ceased to be an issue. The United States remained tied to white supremacist policies that enabled southern landowners to govern their properties with impunity. Without help from the federal government, slaves took any chance possible to escape. A vast network of individuals who pooled human and financial resources became the American Underground Railroad.

Historical events like the Dred Scott decision and the Fugitive Slave Act provided the initial impetus for the upsurge in Underground Railroad activity in the decade prior to the Civil War. The Underground Railroad had already been operating, but there was a newfound political power behind it due to the overarching power of the federal government to prosecute anyone aiding and abetting a fugitive slave. Many abolitionists viewed the Fugitive Slave Act as an incursion on their rights, and participated in the Underground Railroad with verve and passion. Abolitionists and slaves together created a grand, multi-state, and multi-national network to facilitate the trafficking of escapees. Because the Underground Railroad was politically and socially subversive, participants risked their lives and livelihoods. None risked as much as the slaves, because being caught entailed brutal punishment.

Because of the underground nature of the Underground Railroad project, contemporary primary sources are scarce. Many primary sources were composed after the fact, written retrospectively. This in no way means that the first hand accounts like those of William Still cannot be taken seriously; only that there are few details as to exactly how the Underground Railroad functioned, who was involved, and how many people were transported. Still was an escaped slave who kept meticulous records of passages on the Underground Railroad, and published his report later in an autobiographical document.

The activities of the Underground Railroad and the participants in the network also safeguarded their secrets while they were engineers and conductors, because written records would have been incriminating evidence used to implicate any person involved. However, some contemporary and retrospective documentary evidence does exist. Much of the documentary evidence is contained in the autobiographies of slaves. Some of the most renowned slave narratives like that of Frederick Douglass include overt and covert references to the Underground Railroad. Douglass describes how Underground Railroad meetings were held "often by night, and on every Sunday," (109). In his autobiography, Douglass describes some of the core methods used by slaves to organize, disseminate information, and encourage slaves to escape to freedom. Douglass states that their meetings were politically subversive, "the meetings of the revolutionary conspirators in their primary condition," (110).

Slaves had mixed feelings about their passage on the Underground Railroad. They were at times "confident, bold, and determined," but at other times, "doubting, timid, and wavering" at the fear of getting caught (Douglass 110). The penalties for escaping were grim, but Douglass claims that their doubts had more to do with a sense of resignation that often slipped into the consciousness of the slave who had lost all hope. "At times we were almost tempted to abandon the enterprise, and to try to get back to that comparative peace of mind which ever a man under the gallows might feel when all hope of escape had vanished," (Douglass 110). Douglass's narratives reveal many of the motives for risking escape, and also the motives of those who helped fugitive slaves discover and use the Underground Railroad.

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If slaves were recognized as stolen property under the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, then Congress underscored the normative belief that slaves did not think and act for themselves. It was implied that slaves played a passive role in the Underground Railroad, and that it was the white abolitionists who were the primary actors. The prevailing narrative espoused by the dominant culture stresses white supremacy, albeit inadvertently. Therefore, it is critical to reframe the Underground Railroad experience from a more historically, socially, and culturally accurate perspective. While white abolitionists did indeed form the backbone of the "conduction" of the Underground Railroad, it was slaves who were the primary engineers and overall managers of the project. Slaves masterminded their own escapes, personally overcoming the attempts at intimidation by slave owners. As Douglass puts it, "slaveholders sought to impress their slaves with a belief in the boundlessness of slave territory, and of their own limitless power," (110). Yet even without maps and clear knowledge of the great distances they would be traveling, slaves overcame all matter of fear. The distance was not the issue, notes Douglass. The issue was that "hired kidnappers" working for bounty under the Fugitive Slave Law would be lurking at the borders (110).

Methods of escape and transport varied widely, depending on the geographical, climatic, and social conditions. Most methods were conveyed via word-of-mouth methods, as well as through slave stories, folktales, and songs. Songs that would become part of the American vernacular musical culture like Swing Low, Sweet Chariot, Brother Moses Gone to de Promised Land, Wade In The Water and Follow the Drinkin' Gourd served as directions for fugitives to follow (Lancaster County). In addition to embedding messages and meaning into the lyrics, slaves would also look to the nighttime skies for physical guidance during their treks northward. Slaves used extensive knowledge of the local landscape to their advantage, by hiding in swamps, forests, and convenient places ("Underground Railroad: American Civil War"). This meant also that slaves were exposed constantly to the elements, and grappled with basic survival issues as well as the risk of being caught. In his autobiography The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass, Frederick Douglass wrote extensively about his experiences on the Underground Railroad. He writes, "Prudent as we were, I can see we that did many silly things well calculated to awaken suspicion," (109). Singing, while it was a respite from emotional pain and a source of comfort and social bonding, also increased the risk of being heard and captured.

Douglass also describes the Underground Railroad as being essentially a South to North movement of people. When singing about the proverbial Canaan in "O Canaan, sweet Canaan, / I am bound for the land of Canaan," the runaways referred specifically to Canada. It may be no coincidence that Canaan and Canada have similar sounding names. Douglass states, "the only real Canaan of the American bondman" was Canada (110). The free states did not offer sufficient safety from bounty hunters, as bounty hunters were protected under federal law. Douglas continues, "We meant to reach the North, and the North was our Canaan," (109). The north was Canada, though, not the northern states. Although the Underground Railroad usually referred to a northerly journey, there were other destinations including the Caribbean and Europe ("Underground Railroad: a Path to Freedom").

The Underground Railroad became a serious threat to the political, social, and economic order of the South. For one, the Underground Railroad empowered slaves. Its very existence was a symbol of the potential for freedom and emancipation, which shifted slave collective consciousness from submission to hope and determination. "The Underground Railroad was more than a means of escaping slavery. With the aid of a diligent community of white northerners, it was an overall resistance movement of African-Americans against an oppressive society," (Teter and Johnson). As a resistance movement, the Underground Railroad can be viewed historically in context as one of the first exhibitions of nonviolent civil disobedience programs in the United States. A century before the Civil Rights movement and Dr. Martin Luther King, heroes of the Underground Railroad like Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman promoted a non-violent form of protest against the institution of slavery. The slaves simply walked away from their situation, rather than taking up arms. This is true….....

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