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What was the Underground Railroad?

It was not an actual railroad, and it was not one single national organization. Some people hid freedom seekers in homes or churches. Others provided food, money, transportation, legal help, directions, or introductions to the next trusted person. In some communities the help was repeated and organized. In other situations it may have been spontaneous.

Words such as conductor, station, and route were often used like railroad terms, but the real Underground Railroad did not operate exactly the same way everywhere.

What was abolitionism?

Abolitionists believed slavery should be abolished, or ended. They did not all work in the same way. Some wrote books and newspaper articles. Some gave speeches, preached sermons, signed petitions, organized antislavery societies, or worked through churches and politics. Some also helped people escaping slavery.

What does antebellum mean?

When this website describes an antebellum church, antebellum railroad, or antebellum building, it means that the place or structure existed before the Civil War and may have been part of the landscape during the Underground Railroad era.

What was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850?

The law applied even in free states such as Ohio. It required federal officials to assist in the capture process and punished people who knowingly helped accused freedom seekers escape. It also created a legal process in which alleged freedom seekers had very limited protections.

What was the Emancipation Proclamation?

The final proclamation took effect on January 1, 1863. It was a major turning point in the Civil War, but it did not immediately end slavery everywhere in the United States. It applied to areas under Confederate rebellion, not every place where slavery still existed.

Slavery throughout the United States was later abolished by the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865.

View all five original pages at the National Archives →

What were U.S. marshals, deputy marshals, and posses?

Marshals and deputies served federal court papers, made arrests, transported prisoners, and carried out orders of the federal courts. During the era of the Fugitive Slave Act, federal officers could also become involved in attempts to capture people accused of escaping slavery.

What was a probate court?

In nineteenth-century Ohio, probate judges also had certain legal powers beyond the kinds of estate matters people usually associate with probate courts today. That helps explain why a probate judge could become involved when attorneys sought habeas corpus review.

What were conductors, stations, and routes?

Did reaching Ohio mean a freedom seeker was safe?

Ohio was a free state, meaning slavery was not legal there in the same way it was in slave states such as Kentucky. But federal laws, especially the Fugitive Slave Act, allowed people accused of escaping slavery to be pursued and captured in free states. That meant crossing the Ohio River could be an important step toward freedom without guaranteeing legal safety.

How do we know what happened?

Underground Railroad history can be difficult to reconstruct because people helping freedom seekers often had good reasons not to leave detailed records. Historians may have to compare newspapers, court records, letters, church records, maps, property records, photographs, later recollections, and family stories.