Underground Railroad

:This page is for the U.S. slave escape route. For railroads elsewhere built underground, see Metro and London Underground.

Terminology

The Underground Railroad developed its own jargon, which continued the railway metaphor:

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• people who helped slaves find the railroad were "agents"
• guides were known as "conductors"
• hiding places were "stations"
• escaped slaves were referred to as "passengers" or "cargo"
• slaves would obtain a "ticket"

William Still, often called "The Father of the Underground Railroad," helped hundreds of slaves to escape (as many as 60 slaves a month), sometimes hiding them in his Philadelphia home. He kept careful records, including short biographies of the people, that contained frequent railway metaphors. Still maintained correspondence with many of them, often acting as a middleman in communications between escaped slaves and those left behind. He then published these accounts in the book The Underground Railroad in 1872, after Abolition.

Related Topics:
William Still - Abolition

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Messages often were encoded so that only those active in the Railroad would fully understand their meanings. For example, the following message, "I have sent via at two o'clock four large and two small hams," clearly indicated that four adults and two children were sent by train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. However, the addition of the word via indicated that they were not sent on the regular train, but rather via Reading. In this case, the authorities went to the regular train station in an attempt to intercept the runaways, while Still was able to meet them at the correct station and spirit them to safety, where they eventually escaped to Canada.

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Slaves escaped bondage with and without outside assistance as early as the 1600s, long before the railroads were developed beginning in the 1820s. Coincidently, the nation's first commercial railroad, the east-west Baltimore & Ohio line, operated in Maryland and Ohio, which intersected the northbound path of the Underground Railroad.

Related Topics:
1600s - Railroad - 1820 - Baltimore & Ohio - Maryland - Ohio

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The name underground railroad is alleged to have originated with the 1831 escape of Tice Davids from a Kentucky slaveowner. Davids fled across the Ohio River to Ripley, Ohio, where he may have taken refuge with Rev. John Rankin, a prominent white abolitionist whose hilltop home could be seen from the opposite shore (see photo). The slaveowner, in hot pursuit, remarked that Davids had disappeared as if through an "underground road". Rankin's influence in the abolitionist movement would account for the rapid adoption of the term.

Related Topics:
1831 - Ohio River - Ripley, Ohio - John Rankin

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