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For the slaves, running away to the north through the Underground Railroad was very hard. It was hard because southerners kept an eye out for the slaves. The first step for the slaves was to escape from their owners. The slaves had to take all their belongings and their children and would escape at night. The slaves would travel 10 or 20 miles to the next station. A station was place for the slaves to rest and eat. They got to the stations by following the station owner’s directions. While they waited, a message would be sent to the next station to alert its station owner that the slaves were on their way, so the station owner would start getting the food and hideout ready. The slaves would also travel by train or by boat, which sometimes had to be paid for. Money was also needed improve and rebuild some parts of the Underground Railroad such as the stations’ walls and flooring.
Harriet Tubman Harriet Tubman was a very important woman before the Civil War. Harriet Tubman made 19 trips to the south with the Underground Railroad and freed a total of 300 people and never lost one passenger.
Around 1844 Harriet married a free black man named John Tubman and took his last name. Then, she was going to be sold to a different owner in 1849. Harriet planned to run away because she didn’t want to be sold. She escaped to Philadelphia. In Philadelphia she worked and saved her money. The next year she went back to Maryland and helped her sister and her sister’s two children escape. After she got back to Philadelphia with them, she went back and saved her brother and his two friends. Never giving up, she went back to Maryland 16 other times, saving a total of 300 people. During the Civil War, Harriet Tubman worked for the Union Army as a cook, nurse, and even a spy. After the war, she traveled to Auburn, New York. In Auburn she lived the rest of her life and died at the age of 93.
Levi Coffin Levi Coffin was an important man before the Civil War and even after it. He and his family helped more than 2,500 slaves escape to the north. He also raised $100,000 for the Western Freedman’s Aid Society. Levi Coffin was born on a farm in New Garden, North Carolina on October 28, 1798. While he was still little, he started to abolish slavery. He hated slavery and he wanted to help slaves. One day when he was seven years old chopping wood beside the road with his father, a group of slaves walked by with chains connecting them with handcuffs. Levi’s father asked one of the slaves why they were chained. The slave told him that their owners took them away from their wives and children. It was that day when Coffin learned what slavery was all about. He thought of how he would feel if his father was taken away from him. When Coffin grew older, he helped several slaves to freedom. In 1818, he helped organize Sabbath Schools, and after a year it was open. In 1826, Coffin and his family moved to Newport, Indiana. In Newport, Coffin opened up a merchandise store. He and his children worked in the store while his wife cooked and worked hard around the house. Coffin and his family stayed at Newport for twenty years. During the twenty years, the Coffins were able to help more than 2,000 slaves escape to the north, and slave owners never caught them. In 1847, Coffin moved to Cincinnati, Ohio. In Cincinnati, Coffin opened up a warehouse that handled cotton goods, sugar, and spices made by free labor. During his time in Ohio, he helped even more slaves escape to the north with the Underground Railroad. After the Civil War, millions of slaves that were freed still didn’t have homes, food, and education. Then an organization that Coffin volunteered to help in called Western Freedmen’s Aid Society, helped slaves by giving them homes, clothing, food, education, and jobs. This organization needed a lot of money to do that, so Coffin went to England and other parts of Europe and raised more than $100,000. In 1867, he was honored by serving as a representative to the International Anti-Slavery Conference in Paris. When he was 76 years old, Coffin died. Levi Coffin was an amazing person to the end. The Underground Railroad, Harriet Tubman, and Levi Coffin were all very important to the slaves in the south. They all helped slaves escape to the north on the Underground Railroad.
Bibliography: PBS Online. Judgment Day. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html Last Visited: February 23, 2002. Indiana State Museum and Historic Sites. North Star. www.state.in.us/ism/sites/levicoffin/tour/bio.html Last Visited: March 7, 2002. |
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The Underground Railroad was a system to help free slaves from the south and
escape to the North or Canada. It began at the end of the 18th
century. The Underground Railroad wasn’t underground and it wasn’t a
railroad. It was made up of houses and buildings all the way to the north. The
Underground Railroad was built by thousands of people. This system helped get
hundreds of slaves to the north every year because it made secret routes and
hideouts for the escaping slaves. Overall, the Underground Railroad helped free
about 100,000 slaves from the south from 1810 to 1850.
Harriet Tubman was born in Maryland as a slave around 1820. When she was 5 or
6 years old she started to work as a servant. After seven years she was sent to
the fields to work. While she was still in her early teens, she had a bad injury
that would last all her life. Her owner injured her when he picked up a
two-pound weight and threw it at her hand.