Underground Railroad

Eric Foner wrote that the term "was perhaps first used by a Washington newspaper in 1839, quoting a young slave hoping to escape bondage via a railroad that 'went underground all the way to Boston'". Dr. Robert Clemens Smedley wrote that following slave catchers' failed searches and lost traces of fugitives as far north as Columbia, Pennsylvania, they declared in bewilderment that "there must be an underground railroad somewhere," giving origin to the term. Scott Shane wrote that the first documented use of the term was in an article written by Thomas Smallwood in the August 10, 1842, edition of Tocsin of Liberty, an abolitionist newspaper published in Albany. He also wrote that the 1879 book Sketches in the History of the Underground Railroad said the phrase was mentioned in an 1839 Washington newspaper article and that the book's author said 40 years later that he had quoted the article from memory as closely as he could. == Terminology ==

Members of the Underground Railroad often used specific terms, based on the metaphor of the railway. For example: • People who helped fugitive slaves find the railroad were called "agents" • Guides were known as "conductors" • Hiding places were "stations" or "way stations" • "Station masters" hid escaping slaves in their homes • People escaping slavery were referred to as "passengers" or "cargo" • Fugitive slaves would obtain a "ticket" • Similar to common gospel lore, the "wheels would keep on turning" • Financial benefactors of the Railroad were known as "stockholders" • Promised Land – code word for Canada • River Jordan – code word for Ohio River • Heaven – code for freedom or Canada The Big Dipper (whose "bowl" points to the North Star) was known as the "drinking gourd". The Railroad was often known as the "freedom train" or "Gospel train", which headed towards "Heaven" or "the Promised Land", i.e., Canada. ==Political background==

between two men confronting John P. Darg Many of the fugitive slaves who "rode" the Underground Railroad considered Canada their final destination. An estimated 30,000 to 40,000 of them settled in Canada, half of whom came between 1850 and 1860. Others settled in free states in the north. Thousands of court cases for escaping fugitive slaves were recorded between the Revolutionary War and the Civil War. Under the original Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, officials from free states were required to assist slaveholders or their agents who recaptured fugitives, but some state legislatures prohibited this. The law made it easier for slaveholders and slave catchers to capture African Americans and return them to slavery, and in some cases allowed them to enslave free blacks. It also created an eagerness among abolitionists to help enslaved people, resulting in the growth of anti-slavery societies and the Underground Railroad. With heavy lobbying by Southern politicians, the Compromise of 1850 was passed by Congress after the Mexican–American War. It included a more stringent Fugitive Slave Law; ostensibly, the compromise addressed regional problems by compelling officials of free states to assist slave catchers, granting them immunity to operate in free states. Because the law required sparse documentation to claim a person was a fugitive, slave catchers also kidnapped free blacks, especially children, and sold them into slavery. Southern politicians often exaggerated the number of escaped slaves and often blamed these escapes on Northerners interfering with Southern property rights. The law deprived people suspected of being slaves of the right to defend themselves in court, making it difficult to prove free status. Some Northern states enacted personal liberty laws that made it illegal for public officials to capture or imprison former slaves. The perception that Northern states ignored the fugitive slave laws and regulations was a major justification offered for secession. ==Routes and methods of escape==

's maroon community. Underground Railroad routes went north to free states and Canada, to the Caribbean, to United States western territories, and to Indian territories. Some fugitive slaves traveled south into Mexico for their freedom. Many escaped by sea, including Ona Judge, who had been enslaved by President George Washington. Some historians view the waterways of the South as an important component for freedom seekers to escape as water sources were pathways to freedom. In addition, historians of the Underground Railroad found 200,000 runaway slave advertisements in North American newspapers from the middle of the 1700s until the end of the American Civil War. Freedom seekers in Alabama hid on steamboats heading to Mobile, Alabama in hopes of blending in among the city's free Black community, and also hid on other steamboats leaving Alabama that were headed further northward into free territories and free states. In 1852, a law was passed by the Alabama legislature to reduce the number of freedom seekers escaping on boats. The law penalized slaveholders and captains of vessels if they allowed enslaved people on board without a pass. Alabama freedom seekers also made canoes to escape. Freedom seekers escaped from their enslavers in Panama on boats heading for California by way of the Panama route. Slaveholders used the Panama route to reach California. In Panama slavery was illegal and Black Panamanians encouraged enslaved people from the United States to escape into the local city of Panama. Freedom seekers created methods to throw off the slave catchers' bloodhounds from tracking their scent. One method was using a combination of hot pepper, lard, and vinegar on their shoes. In North Carolina freedom seekers put turpentine on their shoes to prevent slave catchers' dogs from tracking their scents, in Texas escapees used paste made from a charred bullfrog. Other runaways escaped into the swamps to wash off their scent. Most escapes occurred at night when the runaways could hide under the cover of darkness. Another method freedom seekers used to prevent capture was carrying forged free passes. During slavery, free Blacks showed proof of their freedom by carrying a pass that proved they were free. Free Blacks and enslaved people created forged free passes for freedom seekers as they traveled through slave states. == North to free states and Canada ==

Structure (photo H. B. Lindsley), . A worker on the Underground Railroad, Tubman made 13 trips to the South, helping to free over 70 people. She led people to the northern free states and Canada. This helped Harriet Tubman gain the name "Moses of Her People". abolitionist Levi Coffin and his wife Catherine helped more than 2,000 enslaved people escape to freedom. Despite the thoroughfare's name, the escape network was neither literally underground nor a railroad. (The first literal underground railroad did not exist until 1863.) According to John Rankin, "It was so called because they who took passage on it disappeared from public view as really as if they had gone into the ground. After the fugitive slaves entered a depot on that road no trace of them could be found. They were secretly passed from one depot to another until they arrived at a destination where they were able to remain free." It was known as a railroad, using rail terminology such as stations and conductors, because that was the transportation system in use at the time. The Underground Railroad did not have a headquarters or governing body, nor were there published guides, maps, pamphlets, or even newspaper articles. It consisted of meeting points, secret routes, transportation, and safe houses, all of them maintained by abolitionist sympathizers and communicated by word of mouth, although there is also a report of a numeric code used to encrypt messages. Participants generally organized in small, independent groups; this helped to maintain secrecy. People escaping enslavement would move north along the route from one way station to the next. "Conductors" on the railroad came from various backgrounds and included free-born blacks, white abolitionists, the formerly enslaved (either escaped or manumitted), and Native Americans. Believing that slavery was "contrary to the ethics of Jesus", Christian congregations and clergy played a role, especially the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers), Congregationalists, Wesleyan Methodists, and Reformed Presbyterians, as well as the anti-slavery branches of mainstream denominations which entered into schism over the issue, such as the Methodist Episcopal Church and the Baptists. The role of free blacks was crucial; without it, there would have been almost no chance for fugitives from slavery to reach freedom safely. The groups of underground railroad "agents" worked in organizations known as vigilance committees. Free Black communities in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and New York helped freedom seekers escape from slavery. Black Churches were stations on the Underground Railroad, and Black communities in the North hid freedom seekers in their churches and homes. Historian Cheryl Janifer Laroche explained in her book, Free Black Communities and the Underground Railroad The Geography of Resistance that: "Blacks, enslaved and free, operated as the main actors in the central drama that was the Underground Railroad." Laroche further explained how some authors center white abolitionists and white people involved in the antislavery movement as the main factors for freedom seekers escapes and overlook the important role of free Black communities. In addition, author Diane Miller states: "Traditionally, historians have overlooked the agency of African Americans in their own quest for freedom by portraying the Underground Railroad as an organized effort by white religious groups, often Quakers, to aid 'helpless' slaves." Historian Larry Gara argues that many of the stories of the Underground Railroad belonged in folklore and not history. The actions of real historical figures such as Harriet Tubman, Thomas Garrett, and Levi Coffin are exaggerated, and Northern abolitionists who guided the enslaved to Canada are hailed as the heroes of the Underground Railroad. This narrative minimizes the intelligence and agency of enslaved Black people who liberated themselves, and implies that freedom seekers needed the help of Northerners to escape. == Geography ==

. The Underground Railroad benefited greatly from the geography of the U.S.–Canada border: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and most of New York were separated from Canada by water, over which transport was usually easy to arrange and relatively safe. The main route for freedom seekers from the South led up the Appalachians, Harriet Tubman going via Harpers Ferry, through the highly anti-slavery Western Reserve region of northeastern Ohio to the vast shore of Lake Erie, and then to Canada by boat. A smaller number, traveling by way of New York or New England, went via Syracuse (home of Samuel May) and Rochester, New York (home of Frederick Douglass), crossing the Niagara River or Lake Ontario into Canada. By 1848 the Niagara Falls Suspension Bridge had been built—it crossed the Niagara River and connected New York to Canada. Enslaved runaways used the bridge to escape their bondage, and Harriet Tubman used the bridge to take freedom seekers into Canada. Those traveling via the New York Adirondacks, sometimes via Black communities like Timbuctoo, New York, entered Canada via Ogdensburg, on the St. Lawrence River, or on Lake Champlain (Joshua Young assisted). The western route, used by John Brown among others, led from Missouri west to free Kansas and north to free Iowa, then east via Chicago to the Detroit River. Thomas Downing was a free Black man in New York and operated his Oyster restaurant as a stop on the Underground Railroad. Freedom seekers (runaway slaves) escaping slavery and seeking freedom hid in the basement of Downing's restaurant. Enslaved people helped freedom seekers escape from slavery. Arnold Gragstone was enslaved and helped runaways escape from slavery by guiding them across the Ohio River for their freedom. William Still, sometimes called "The Father of the Underground Railroad", helped hundreds of slaves escape (as many as 60 a month), sometimes hiding them in his Philadelphia home. He kept careful records, including short biographies of the people, that contained frequent railway metaphors. He maintained correspondence with many of them, often acting as a middleman in communications between people who had escaped slavery and those left behind. He later published these accounts in the book The Underground Railroad: Authentic Narratives and First-Hand Accounts (1872), a valuable resource for historians to understand how the system worked and learn about individual ingenuity in escapes. According to Still, messages were often encoded so that they could be understood only by those active in the railroad. For example, the following message, "I have sent via at two o'clock four large hams and two small hams", indicated that four adults and two children were sent by train from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. The additional word via indicated that the "passengers" were not sent on the usual train, but rather via Reading, Pennsylvania. In this case, the authorities were tricked into going to the regular location (station) in an attempt to intercept the runaways, while Still met them at the correct station and guided them to safety. They eventually escaped either further north or to Canada, where slavery had been abolished during the 1830s. To reduce the risk of infiltration, many people associated with the Underground Railroad knew only their part of the operation and not of the whole scheme. "Conductors" led or transported the "passengers" from station to station. A conductor sometimes pretended to be enslaved to enter a plantation. Once a part of a plantation, the conductor would direct the runaways to the North. Enslaved people traveled at night, about to each station. They rested, and then a message was sent to the next station to let the station master know the escapees were on their way. They would stop at the so-called "stations" or "depots" during the day and rest. The stations were often located in basements, barns, churches, or in hiding places in caves. The resting spots where the freedom seekers could sleep and eat were given the code names "stations" and "depots", which were held by "station masters". "Stockholders" gave money or supplies for assistance. Using biblical references, fugitives referred to Canada as the "Promised Land" or "Heaven" and the Ohio River, which marked the boundary between slave states and free states, as the "River Jordan". == Traveling conditions ==

Although the freedom seekers sometimes traveled on boat or train, they usually traveled on foot or by wagon, sometimes lying down, covered with hay or similar products, in groups of one to three escapees. Some groups were considerably larger. Abolitionist Charles Turner Torrey and his colleagues rented horses and wagons and often transported as many as 15 or 20 people at a time. Free and enslaved black men occupied as mariners (sailors) helped enslaved people escape from slavery by providing a ride on their ship, providing information on the safest and best escape routes, and safe locations on land, and locations of trusted people for assistance. Enslaved African-American mariners had information about slave revolts occurring in the Caribbean, and relayed this news to enslaved people they had contact with in American ports. Free and enslaved African-American mariners assisted Harriet Tubman in her rescue missions. Black mariners provided to her information about the best escape routes and helped her on her rescue missions. In New Bedford, Massachusetts, freedom seekers stowed away on ships leaving the docks with the assistance of Black and white crewmembers and hid in the ships' cargoes during their journey to freedom. Enslaved people living near rivers escaped on boats and canoes. In 1855, Mary Meachum, a free Black woman, attempted to help eight or nine slaves escape from slavery on the Mississippi River near St. Louis, Missouri to the free state of Illinois. To assist with the escape were white antislavery activists and an African American guide from Illinois named "Freeman." However, the escape was not successful because word of the escape reached police agents and slave catchers who waited across the river on the Illinois shore. Breckenridge, Burrows and Meachum were arrested. Prior to this escape attempt, Mary Meachum and her husband John, a former slave, were agents on the Underground Railroad and helped other slaves escape from slavery crossing the Mississippi River. escaped from slavery using canoes and boats. Routes were often purposely indirect to confuse pursuers. Most escapes were by individuals or small groups; occasionally, there were mass escapes, such as with the Pearl incident. The journey was often considered particularly difficult and dangerous for women or children. Children were sometimes hard to keep quiet or were unable to keep up with a group. In addition, enslaved women were rarely allowed to leave the plantation, making it harder for them to escape in the same ways that men could. Although escaping was harder for women, some women were successful. One of the most famous and successful conductors (people who secretly traveled into slave states to rescue those seeking freedom) was Harriet Tubman, a woman who escaped slavery. Due to the risk of discovery, information about routes and safe havens was passed along by word of mouth, although in 1896 there is a reference to a numerical code used to encrypt messages. Southern newspapers of the day were often filled with pages of notices soliciting information about fugitive slaves and offering sizable rewards for their capture and return. Federal marshals and professional bounty hunters known as slave catchers pursued freedom seekers as far as the Canada–U.S. border. Freedom seekers (runaway slaves) foraged, fished, and hunted for food on their journey to freedom on the Underground Railroad. With these ingredients, they prepared one-pot meals (stews), a West African cooking method. Enslaved and free Black people left food outside their front doors to provide nourishment to the freedom seekers. The meals created on the Underground Railroad became a part of the foodways of Black Americans called soul food. == Maroons ==

The majority of freedom seekers that escaped from slavery did not have help from an abolitionist. Although there are stories of black and white abolitionists helping freedom seekers escape from slavery, many escapes were unaided. In the 1780s, Louisiana had a maroon community in the bayous of Saint Malo. The leader of the Saint Malo maroon community was Jean Saint Malo, a freedom seeker who escaped to live among other runaways in the swamps and bayous of Saint Malo. The population of maroons was fifty and the Spanish colonial government broke up the community and on June 19, 1784, Jean Saint Malo was executed. Colonial South Carolina had a number of maroon settlements in its marshland regions in the Lowcountry and near rivers. Maroons in South Carolina fought to maintain their freedom and prevent enslavement in Ashepoo in 1816, Williamsburg County in 1819, Georgetown in 1820, Jacksonborough in 1822, and near Marion in 1861. Historian Herbert Aptheker found evidence that fifty maroon communities existed in the United States between 1672 and 1864. The history of maroons showed how the enslaved resisted enslavement by living in free independent settlements. Historical archeologist Dan Sayer says that historians downplay the importance of maroon settlements and place valor in white involvement in the Underground Railroad, which he argues shows a racial bias, indicating a "...reluctance to acknowledge the strength of black resistance and initiative." == Freedom routes into Native American lands ==

From colonial America into the 19th century, Indigenous peoples of North America assisted and protected enslaved Africans journey to freedom. However, not all Indigenous communities were accepting of freedom seekers, some of whom they enslaved themselves or returned to their former enslavers. As early as 1689, enslaved Africans fled from the South Carolina Lowcountry to Spanish Florida seeking freedom. The Seminole Nation accepted Gullah runaways (today called Black Seminoles) into their lands. This was a southern route on the Underground Railroad into Seminole Indian lands that went from Georgia and the Carolinas into Florida. In Northwest Ohio in the 18th and 19th centuries, three Indigenous/Native American nations, the Shawnee, Ottawa, and Wyandot assisted freedom seekers escape from slavery. The Ottawa people accepted and protected runaways in their villages. Other escapees were taken to Fort Malden by the Ottawa. In Upper Sandusky, Wyandot people allowed a maroon community of freedom seekers in their lands called Negro Town for four decades. In the 18th and 19th centuries in areas around the Chesapeake Bay and Delaware, Nanticoke people hid freedom seekers in their villages. The Nanticoke people lived in small villages near the Pocomoke River; the river rises in several forks in the Great Cypress Swamp in southern Sussex County, Delaware. African Americans escaping slavery were able to hide in swamps, and the water washed off the scent of enslaved runaways, making it difficult for dogs to track their scent. As early as the 18th century, mixed-blood communities formed. Odawa people also accepted freedom seekers into their villages. The Odawa transferred the runaways to the Ojibwe who escorted them to Canada. == South to Florida and Mexico ==

Background ", by Lee C. Harby, The American Magazine, April 1888 edition Beginning in the 16th century, Spaniards brought enslaved Africans to New Spain, including Mission Nombre de Dios in what would become the city of St. Augustine in Spanish Florida. Over time, free Afro-Spaniards took up various trades and occupations and served in the colonial militia. After King Charles II of Spain proclaimed Spanish Florida a safe haven for escaped slaves from British North America, they began escaping to Florida by the hundreds from as far north as New York. The Spanish established Fort Mose for free Blacks in the St. Augustine area in 1738. In 1806, enslaved people arrived at the Stone Fort in Nacogdoches, Texas seeking freedom. They arrived with a forged passport from a Kentucky judge. The Spanish refused to return them back to the United States. More freedom seekers traveled through Texas the following year. At that time, Texas was part of Mexico. The Texas Revolution, initiated in part to legalize slavery, resulted in the formation of the Republic of Texas in 1836. Following the Battle of San Jacinto, there were some enslaved people who withdrew from the Houston area with the Mexican army, seeing the troops as a means to escape slavery. When Texas joined the Union in 1845, it was a slave state and the Rio Grande became the international border with Mexico. Pressure between free and slave states deepened as Mexico abolished slavery and western states joined the Union as free states. As more free states were added to the Union, the lesser the influence of slave state representatives in Congress. The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it a criminal offense to aid fleeing enslaved people in free states. Similarly, the United States government wanted to enact a treaty with Mexico to facilitate the capture and return of escaped slaves in that country. Mexico, however, continued its practice of allowing any slave who crossed its border to be free. Slave catchers, though, continued to cross the southern border into Mexico and illegally capture black people and return them to slavery. A group of slave hunters became the Texas Rangers. == Routes ==

, A Ride for Liberty – The Fugitive Slaves, oil on paperboard, 22 × 26.25 inches, , Brooklyn Museum. Depicts a family of African Americans fleeing enslavement in the Southern United States during the American Civil War. Thousands of freedom seekers traveled along a network from the southern United States to Texas and ultimately Mexico. Southern enslaved people generally traveled across "unforgiving country" on foot or horseback while pursued by lawmen and slave hunters. Some stowed away on ferries bound for a Mexican port from New Orleans, Louisiana and Galveston, Texas. There were some who transported cotton to Brownsville, Texas on wagons and then crossed into Mexico at Matamoros. Many traveled through North Carolina, Arkansas, Alabama, Louisiana, or Mississippi toward Texas and ultimately Mexico. People fled slavery from Indian Territory (now Oklahoma). Black Seminoles traveled on a southwestern route from Florida into Mexico. Going overland meant that the last 150 miles or so were traversed through the difficult and extremely hot terrain of the Nueces Strip located between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande. There was little shade and a lack of potable water in this brush country. Escapees were more likely to survive the trip if they had a horse and a gun. The National Park Service identified a route from Natchitoches, Louisiana to Monclova, Mexico in 2010 that is roughly the southern Underground Railroad path. It is also believed that El Camino Real de los Tejas was a path for freedom. It was made a National Historic Trail by President George W. Bush in 2004. == Assistance ==

Some journeyed on their own without assistance, and others were helped by people along the southern Underground Railroad. Assistance included guidance, directions, shelter, and supplies. Black people, black and white couples, and anti-slavery German immigrants provided support, but most of the help came from Mexican laborers. So much so that enslavers came to distrust any Mexican, and a law was enacted in Texas that forbade Mexicans from talking to enslaved people. Mexican migrant workers developed relationships with enslaved black workers whom they worked with. They offered guidance, such as what it would be like to cross the border, and empathy. Having realized the ways in which Mexicans were helping enslaved people to escape, slaveholders and residents of Texan towns pushed people out of the town, whipped them in public, or lynched them. Some border officials helped enslaved people crossing into Mexico. In Monclova, Mexico a border official took up a collection in the town for a family in need of food, clothing, and money to continue on their journey south and out of reach of slave hunters. Once they crossed the border, some Mexican authorities helped former enslaved people from being returned to the United States by slave hunters. Freedom seekers that were taken on ferries to Mexican ports were aided by Mexican ship captains, one of whom was caught in Louisiana and indicted for helping enslaved people escape. Knowing the repercussions of running away or being caught helping someone runaway, people were careful to cover their tracks, and public and personal records about fugitive slaves are scarce. In greater supply are records by people who promoted slavery or attempted to catch fugitive slaves. More than 2,500 escapes are documented by the Texas Runaway Slave Project at Stephen F. Austin State University. == Southern freedom seekers ==

, enslaved by General Sam Houston, ran away and joined the Mexican military. Advertisements were placed in newspapers offering rewards for the return of their "property". Slave catchers traveled through Mexico. There were Black Seminoles, or Los Mascogos who lived in northern Mexico who provided armed resistance. Sam Houston, president of the Republic of Texas, was the slaveholder to Tom who ran away. He headed to Texas and once there he enlisted in the Mexican military. One enslaved man was branded with the letter "R" on each side of his cheek after a failed attempt to escape slavery. He tried again in the winter of 1819, leaving the cotton plantation of his enslaver on horseback. With four others, they traveled southwest to Mexico at the risk of being attacked by hostile Native Americans, apprehended by slave catchers, or attacked by "horse-eating alligators". Many people did not make it to Mexico. In 1842, a Mexican man and a black woman left Jackson County, Texas on two horses, but they were caught at the Lavaca River. The wife, an enslaved woman, was valuable to her owner so she was returned to slavery. Her husband, possibly a farm laborer or an indentured servant, was immediately lynched. Fugitive slaves changed their names in Mexico. They married into Mexican families and relocated further south of the American-Mexican border. All of these factors makes it hard to trace the whereabouts of the formerly enslaved people. A database at Stephen F. Austin State University has a record of runaway slave advertisements as part of The Texas Runaway Slave Project. The Works Progress Administration during the Great Depression initiated a Federal Writers' Project to document slave narratives, including those who settled in Mexico. One of them was Felix Haywood, who found freedom when he crossed the Rio Grande. == Rio Grande stations ==

Two families, the Webbers and the Jacksons, lived along the Rio Grande and helped people escape slavery. The husbands were white and the wives were black women who had been formerly enslaved. It is not known if Nathaniel Jackson purchased the freedom of Matilda Hicks and her family, but in the early 1860s they moved to Hidalgo county, where they settled and lived as a family. He was a white southerner and she was an enslaved woman, who had been childhood sweethearts in Alabama. He was the son of her slaveholder, who helped a group of seven families in 1857 and others cross into Mexico. Silvia Hector Webber was born enslaved in West Florida and in 1819 was sold to a slaveholder in Clark County, Arkansas. The slaveholders' son, John Cryer, illegally brought Silvia to Mexican Texas in 1828, four years after Mexico had deemed the slave trade into Mexican territory against the law. Silvia, however, with the help of John Webber secured her and her 3 children's freedom papers in 1834. Together Silvia and John lived an antislavery life and often harbored fugitives from slavery in their ranch and house. Silvia was known to transport freedom seekers, on a ferry she licensed at her ranch, onto freedom in Mexico. John Ferdinand Webber, born in Vermont, lived along the Rio Grande with his wife, Silvia Hector Webber, and together were known to have helped enslaved people cross the Rio Grande. The Jacksons and Webbers, who both owned licensed ferry service, were well known among runaways. == Arrival in Mexico ==

Black freedom seekers arrived in Mexico with uncertain fates due to Mexican immigration policy. The law required that all persons entering the country and seeking to settle obtain a visa. Formerly enslaved Africans could not get a visa because the application required documentation from the country of origin. Although the visa policy did create barriers in obtaining a legal stay and increased the chances of recapture from slave catchers up until 1857, when it was eliminated, becoming members of civic society, such as joining the Mexican military, becoming godparents to Mexican children, and marrying into families, offered a unique citizenship status that the Mexican government recognized. Mexican people also helped formerly enslaved Africans by offering them “hospitality” into Mexico and protecting them from recapture. In one of many instances, Mexican officials and civilians in Piedras Negras, Mexico, rejected fugitive slave laws and “expelled” American slave catchers who attempted to recapture freed Africans. When formerly enslaved Africans could be deported or recaptured, Mexican people would rally behind them and advocate for their legal stay. In most cases, formerly enslaved Africans were recognized as citizens by the Mexican government, which allowed them to remain in Mexico at most. == Colonies ==

There were abolitionists from the north who petitioned the Mexican government to establish colonies for free and runaway blacks. Benjamin Lundy, a Quaker, lobbied for a colony to be established in what is now Texas during the early 1830s, but he was unable to do so when Texas legalized slavery when it separated from Mexico and became the Republic of Texas (1836). Black Seminoles successfully petitioned for land and established a colony in 1852. The land is still owned by their descendants. Scholarship The Texas Runaway Slave Project, located in Nacogdoches at the Stephen F. Austin State University, has researched runaway advertisements that appeared in 19,000 editions of newspapers from the mid-19th century. Alice L. Baumgartner has studied the prevalence of people who fled slavery from the Southern states to Mexico. She published South to Freedom: Runaway Slaves to Mexico and the Road to the Civil War. Roseann Bacha-Garza, of the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley, has managed historical archeology projects and has researched the incidence of enslaved people who fled to Mexico. Maria Esther Hammack completed her doctoral dissertation on the subject in 2021 at the University of Texas at Austin. == "Reverse Underground Railroad" ==

Freedom seekers were not the only black people at risk from slave catchers. With demand for slaves high in the Deep South as cotton was planted, strong, healthy blacks in their prime working and reproductive years were seen and treated as highly valuable commodities. Both former slaves and free blacks were sometimes kidnapped and sold into slavery, as in the well-documented case of Solomon Northup, a New York-born free black who was kidnapped by Southern slavers while visiting Washington, DC. "Certificates of freedom", also known as "free papers", were signed and notarized statements attesting to the free status of individual Blacks. They could easily be destroyed or stolen, so they provided little protection. Some buildings, such as the Crenshaw House in far-southeastern Illinois, are known sites where free blacks were sold into slavery, known as the "Reverse Underground Railroad". == American Revolutionary War routes (1775 to 1783) ==

During the American Revolutionary War, enslaved people escaped from bondage and fled to British forces, Canada, Florida, and Native American lands. The last Royal Governor of Virginia, Lord Dunmore, planned to weaken American colonists by issuing a proclamation in 1775 that gave freedom to the enslaved who escaped their American colonial masters and joined the British. According to a PBS and National Park Service article this proclamation resulted in an estimated 100,000 freedom seekers escaping during the war. American colonial officers received numerous requests for the return of escaped slaves. In November of 1775, Dunmore started a military unit of 300 freedom seekers in North Carolina called "the Ethiopian Regiment." In Virginia 800 freedom seekers joined the regiment. American colonists tried to deter freedom seekers from joining the British by sending slave patrols to stop runaways, and published newspapers and editorials stating the British will not act on their promise of granting freedom to runaway slaves. Thousands of free and enslaved Black people fought with the British in hopes to gain their freedom were called Black Loyalists. Black Loyalists who served with the British for one year received Certificates of Freedom and were taken to Caribbean British colonies to live as free people in the Bahamas and Jamaica, and others were taken north to Canada. Between 1783 and 1785, 3,000 enslaved and free Black Americans settled in the British colony of Nova Scotia, Canada. Other enslaved people ran away to join the Continental Army or Patriot militias. Black Americans who fought in the Continental Army were called Black Patriots, and some did earn their freedom through their military service. Some enslaved runaways took the war as an opportunity to escape using their enslaver's horse. == War of 1812 routes ==

During the War of 1812, 700 enslaved people in Maryland escaped from slavery. Before the war, freedom seekers escaped to the Michigan Territory by crossing the Detroit River. Over the years the numbers of escaped African Americans grew in the territory. Territorial governor William Hull offered Peter Denison, an enslaved man, "a written license" allowing him to form a militia company of free Blacks and escaped slaves. The men were armed and trained but Hull disbanded the militia. Some of the Black men in the militia escaped from slavery in British Canada. In the 18th century, slavery was practiced in Canada, and by 1793 it was phased out, but some Black Canadians remained enslaved. During the late 18th century and early 19th century, the route of freedom seekers went south beginning in British Canada to their final destination in free American territories in the Old Northwest. By the War of 1812, slave laws in British Canada prohibited the continuation of slavery. This changed the final destinations of freedom seekers in the United States to look north to Canada to obtain their freedom. In the summer of 1812, Hull declared that enslaved runaways and free Blacks in the Michigan Territory were free citizens, and when war broke out with Britain, Black citizens of Michigan were armed to fight against the British. After his military service, Peter Denison and his family left Michigan and relocated north to Canada. == Black Refugees ==

In April 1814, the British Army promised freedom to enslaved Black Americans who joined the British military or who choose freedom in British colonies. In the Chesapeake Region of Virginia and Maryland and coastal areas of Georgia, about 4,000 enslaved Black Americans escaped from slavery. Within the number of 4,000 freedom seekers who escaped, 2,000 sailed to Nova Scotia between September 1813 and August 1816 on naval vessels and private ships chartered by the British and were taken to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, Canada and 400 freedom seekers were taken to Trinidad in the Caribbean. The Black people who settled in British Canada are known as Black refugees who escaped slavery in the United States and sided with the British during the War of 1812. == Merikens ==