Underground Railroad

Underground Railroad in U.S. history, is a loosely organized system for helping fugitive slaves escape to Canada or to areas of safety in free states. It was run by local groups of Northern abolitionists , both white and free blacks. The metaphor first appeared in print in the early 1840s, and other railroad terminology was soon added. The escaping slaves were called passengers; the homes where they were sheltered, stations; and those who guided them, …

…publicized it to illustrate Northern infidelity to the fugitive slave laws . The effect of this publicity, with its repeated tellings and exaggerations of slave escapes, was to create an Underground Railroad legend that correctly represented a humanitarian ideal of the pre-Civil War period, but that strayed far from reality. The pioneer study is W. H. Siebert, The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom (1898, repr. 1968); for an extensively revised account, see Larry Gara, The Liberty Line (1961).