Slavery: The Underground Railroad In The United States

In the 1800s the United States of America had high tensions on slavery. In the northern states slavery was completely illegal. Although it was very unethical, slavery was a key component in southern business. Its existence greatly influenced culture and the social structure of not just the South but also the North to an extent. Slaves themselves mostly had to deal with labor intensive work and the racial hierarchy. Many slaves were worked to death, some slaves got released eventually, and majority of slaves seemed to accept their place in society. Yet there were always the rebel slaves that ran away from their owners to seek freedom in the North. This eventually paved The Underground Railroad. Runaway slaves were a constant problem in southern
The nickname of the various routes came to be because these dangerous activities had to be done in darkness (like underground), and it was operated similar to a rail system. Stops along the route were referred to as “stations,” guides were called “conductors,” and the conductors charges were known as “freights.” The convoluted routes strung through 14 states and lead to the “Promise Land” or Canada which was beyond slaves hunters reach.
Slaves that were pursuing Northern freedom had to trek through treacherous and unfamiliar land with the added trouble of land owners hunting them down. Many slaves died trying, and many were caught and brought back to their owners land. Yet there was one slave that stood out from the rest, and for good reason. This slave's name was Harriet Tubman. Probably the most famous slave “conductor” was Harriet Tubman. Tubman was born around 1820 in Maryland. Born as a slave she began work as a house servant and by 1844 she married another slave by the name of John Tubman. With the fear of her and her husband being sold and separated, Tubman and a handful of other slaves decided to runaway from their plantation. These were the unofficial founders of the Underground
One year later Tubman returned to Maryland to escort her sister, and her sister's two children to freedom. She also rescued her brother with two other men, and on her third trip Tubman pursued her husband. Unfortunately, John Tubman had remarried to another woman. Nonetheless Harriet Tubman continued to find runaway slaves seeking freedom and escorted them to the Northern states. She eventually made nineteen trips to the South and gathered a $40,000 bounty over her head. Although Tubman seemed as if she was the only one with all of her success, there were many other conductors that escorted slaves through the routes. Conductors themselves had to be able to pretend they were part of the targeted plantation and sneak in without being noticed. Once they were part of the plantation, they would then escort the runaway slaves to the North. Every night the slaves and their conductor would travel 10 to 20 miles from station to station. While they rested, the “station master” sent a message to the next station that they had refugees on their