Underground+Railroad

**Underground Railroad**



This system helped many runaway slaves escape Southern plantations for the Freedom of the North. The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad underground its was a vast network of people who helped fugitive slaves escape to the North and to Canada, was not run by any single organization or person. It was rather many whites but predominently black who knew only of the local efforts to aid fugitives and not of the overall operation. It still very effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward to places like Canada, New York, Philadelphia, and Boston. According to one estimate the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850. The organized system to assist runaway slaves seems to have begun towards the end of the 18th century. There were some people who made many very daring rescues like Levi Coffin, a Quaker who assisted more than 3,000 slaves, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom.