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Underground Railroad

network of secret routes & safehouses in 19th-century U.S. used by slaves to find freedom

Key facts

Founding location: United States
Territory: United States, and routes to British North America , Mexico, Spanish Florida , and the Caribbean
Ethnicity: African Americans and other compatriots
Activities: Fleeing from slavery into the northern United States or Canada Aiding freedom-seeking slaves
Allies: Religious Society of Friends Congregational church Wesleyan Church Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America Vigilant Association of Philadelphia
Rivals: Slave catchers , Reverse Underground Railroad

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The Underground Railroad was an organized network of secret routes underground and safe houses for fugitive slaves to escape to the abolitionist Northern United States and Eastern Canada during the era of slavery in the United States. Slaves escaped from slavery as early as the 16th century; many of their escapes were unaided. However, a network of safe houses generally known as the Underground Railroad began to organize in the 1780s among Abolitionist Societies in the North. It ran north and grew steadily until President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863. The escapees sought primarily to escape into free states, and potentially from there to Canada.