The Underground Railroad was a network of people, African American as well as white, offering shelter and aid to escaped enslaved people from the South. It developed as a convergence of several different clandestine efforts. The exact dates of its existence are not known, but it operated from the late 18th century to the Civil War, at which point its efforts continued to undermine the Confederacy in a less-secretive fashion.
The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century, and used by enslaved African-Americans to escape into free states and Canada.[1] The scheme was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees.[2] The enslaved who risked escape and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the "Underground Railroad".[3] Various other routes led to Mexico,[4] where slavery had been abolished, or overseas.[5] An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession (except 1763–83), existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790.[6][7] However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad was formed in the late 1700s. It ran north and grew steadily until the Civil War began.[8] One estimate suggests that, by 1850, 100,000 enslaved people had escaped via the network.[8]
Answer:The northern economy relied on manufacturing and the agricultural southern economy depended on the production of cotton. The desire of southerners for unpaid workers to pick the valuable cotton strengthened their need for slavery.
