Answer:
The Underground Railroad was the term used to describe a network of meeting places, secret routes, passageways and safe houses used by slaves in the U.S. to escape slave holding states to northern states and Canada. Established in the early 1800s and aided by people involved in the Abolitionist Movement, the underground railroad helped thousands of slaves escape bondage. By one estimate, 100,000 slaves escaped from bondage in the South between 1810 and 1850. Aiding them in their flight was a system of safe houses and abolitionists determined to free as many slaves as possible, even though such actions violated state laws and the United States Constitution.
The Underground Railroad was established to aid enslaved people in their escape to freedom. The railroad was comprised of dozens of secret routes and safe houses originating in the slaveholding states and extending all the way to the Canadian border, the only area where fugitives could be assured of their freedom. Shorter routes led south from Florida to Cuba or from Texas to Mexico. The Underground Railroad also included the smuggling of fugitive slaves onto ships that carried them to ports in the North or outside the United States.
Explanation:
Before 1800s, a system to abet runaways seems to have existed. George Washington complained in 1786 that one of his runaway slaves was aided by "a society of Quakers, formed for such purposes." Quakers, more correctly called the Religious Society of Friends, were among the earliest abolition groups. Their influence may have been part of the reason Pennsylvania, where many Quakers lived, was the first state to ban slavery.
Two Quakers, Levi Coffin and his wife Catherine, are believed to have aided over 3,000 slaves to escape over a period of years. For this reason, Levi is sometimes called the president of the Underground Railroad. The eight-room Indiana home they owned and used as a "station" before they moved to Cincinnati has been preserved and is now a National Historic Landmark in Fountain City near Ohio’s western boundary. Among the slaves who hid within it was "Eliza," whose story formed the basis for the character of the same name in the abolitionist novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin.
Owen Brown, father of the radical abolitionist John Brown, was active with the Underground Railroad in New York state. A story claims "Mammy Sally" marked the house Abraham Lincoln’s future wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, lived in while growing up was a safe house where fugitives could get meals, but the story is suspect
The term Underground Railroad began to be used in the early 1830s. In keeping with that name for the system, homes and businesses that harbored runaways were known as "stations" or "depots" and were run by "stationmasters." "Conductors" moved the fugitives from one station to the next. The Underground Railroad’s "stockholders" contributed money or goods. The latter sometimes included clothing so that fugitives traveling by boat or on actual trains wouldn’t give themselves away by wearing their worn work clothes. Once the fugitives reached safe havens—or at least relatively safe ones—in the far northern areas of the United States, they would be given assistance finding lodging and work. Many went on to Canada, where they could not legally be retrieved by their owners.
A trip on the Underground Railroad was fraught with danger. The slave or slaves had to make a getaway from their owners, usually by night. "Keep your eye on the North Star" was the watchword; by keeping that star ever in front of them, the runaways knew they were headed north.
The Underground Railroad gave freedom to thousands of enslaved women and men and hope to tens of thousands more. Those who escaped became human witnesses to the slave system with many of them going on the lecture circuit to explain to Northerners the horrors of the servile institution. Others became members and supporters of the Underground Railroad. In both cases the success of the Underground Railroad hastened the destruction of slavery
