underground railroad. vocabulary abolition: the movement to end slavery abolitionist: a person who...
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Vocabulary
Abolition: the movement to end slavery
Abolitionist: a person who believed and worked for the abolishment (end) of slavery
The Underground Railroad
Above-ground series of escape routes for slaves traveling North
Consisted of “stations” or safe houses owned by abolitionists
“Conductors” were people who led the runaways to freedom (like guides)
Harriet Jacobs
Hid in a crawl space in her grandmother’s attic for seven years
Finally escaped to Philadelphia by boat in 1842
Wrote a novel Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, which was one of the first autobiographical accounts of the struggle for freedom and the sexual abuse endured by many female slaves
Frederick Douglass
Escaped slave, social reformer, orator, writer, and statesman
Leader of the abolitionist movement
Known for his dazzling oratory and incisive antislavery writing
Acted as a living counter-example to slaveholders’ arguments that slaves did not have the intellectual capacity to function as free American citizens
Would you take the risk?
If slaves were caught, they were sold or beaten with a whip; sometimes they were lynched (hung)
Harriet Tubman
Born a slave in Maryland
Escaped using the Underground Railroad
She made 19 journeys from the South to the North as a Conductor on the Underground Railroad
Harriet TubmanSouthern plantation owners offered $40,000 for her capture
She was never caught.
Spirituals
Many spirituals referred directly to the Underground Railroad
Singing as an expression of values
Singing as a source of inspiration or motivation
Singing as an expression of protest
Singing as a communication tool
Chorus:Swing low, sweet chariot,Comin' for to carry me home!
I looked over Jordan and what did I see,Comin' for to carry me home!A band of angels comin' after me,Comin' for to carry me home!
Chorus:
If you get there before I do,Comin' for to carry me home,Jess tell my friends that I'm acomin' too,Comin' for to carry me home.
Chorus:
I'm sometimes up and sometimes down,Comin' for to carry me home,But still my soul feels heavenly boundComin' for to carry me home!
Quilts
During the time of the Underground Railroad fugitive slaves would use quilts as a means of communication.
Quilts were used by conductors to help fugitive slaves flee the South and arrive safely in the North.