Talk:Underground Railroad/Archive 1

Archive 1

License violation

Contributors to this page may wish to know someone has stolen the content without credit, violating our license. See Wikipedia:Copies of Wikipedia content (low degree of compliance), section Civil-War.ws. You may wish to contact the site at info@civil-war.ws to voice a complaint. Derrick Coetzee 00:40, 23 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Seems kind of hard to believe that something written as poorly as this article still is was ever in a published book or article but who knows, naive me, it could happen! lol Jaberwocky6669 06:25, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Wesleyan

Hi, your "Wesleyan" link goes to a Disambig page, so I piped it to "Methodism" (there are currently no pages on the Wesleyans as a group). If I misinterpreted your usage, feel free to pipe it to something else.
--Asbestos 01:13, 4 Nov 2004 (UTC)

The link has been redirected from Methodism to Wesleyan Church on Dec 12, 2004.

Niagara

Hello, "Niagra Peninsula" should be spelled "Niagara Peninsula."

Cheers.

Re-write

Hi, I tried to smooth out the sentence structure. It seemed a little too piled on top of its self. If you feel I made any edits which are bad then feel free to change them and I'll try not to cry! =) Jaberwocky6669 03:06, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Wow, so many great edits in so little time. I remember just as if it were last night when this article was a retarded jumpble of awkward sentences LOL! Jaberwocky6669 18:36, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

Resistance movement

I rewrote the sentence "The Underground Railroad consisted of secret safe-houses and other facilities owned by anti-slavery sympathizers, and operated in much the same as any other large-scale resistance movement, with independent cells that only knew of a few of their neighbours". The Underground Railroad does not appear the meet the definition of resistance movement as described in Resistance movement; "any irregular armed force that rises up against an enforced or established authority, government, or administration". Anyone knowing better is free to change it back. Frank101 16:06, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Good point Frank. I think the article correctly defines the UR not as a movement but a network of routes (could add that the term is a type of "euphamism"). Maybe should discuss the difference in the intro then mention some events that more accurately meet the description. --Rj 19:11, Dec 13, 2004 (UTC)

The flaw is not in this article, but in the narrow (and somewhat POV) definition of resistance movement in that article. Social activism which involves breaking laws is generally considered a resistance movement; an armed force as above is considered an insurgency. I'll have to look over there and see what happened; it needs fixing. --Dhartung | Talk 18:20, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Christiana Tragedy

No mention yet of the Christiana Tragedy? It's one of the best documented parts of the underground railroad movement. It'd be nice to see at least a paragraph or two about what happened and what effects it had on the movement. --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918 _talk]] 18:24, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Christiana (September 11, 1851) and Boston (1854) --Rj 04:55, Dec 20, 2004 (UTC)

Pictures

Public domain art and photos here. Also do a search on that site for more besides the two pages listed. --[[User:Brian0918|brian0918 _talk]] 16:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Mason-Dixon Line

Just curious, is that worth mentioning? -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:14, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Good point; it should be worked in somewhere. You said Mason-Dixie but the name Dixie derives from the Mason-Dixon Line. --Dhartung | Talk 18:17, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Metro

Why is the article link "Metro" present? -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:20, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I think that the reference is there because some people might interpret "Underground Railroad" to mean "Subway" (North American sense). --Big_Iron 17:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

This is more confusing than a proper disambiguation. It should probably reference the best-known subway with that name, the London Underground. I'll try to improve it. --Dhartung | Talk 18:15, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Why have it there at all, if it's completely unrelated? Why not a disambiguation page? (But I'm a newbie. What am I not getting?) deeceevoice 10:34, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

See Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Types_of_disambiguation, where it notes "Primary topic" disambiguation: if one meaning is clearly predominant, it remains at "Mercury", the general title. The top of the article provides a link to the other meanings, or if there are a large number, to a page named "Mercury (disambiguation)". For example: the page Rome has a link at the top to a page named "Rome (disambiguation)" which lists other cities named Rome. The page Cream has a link to the page Cream (band) at the top. I think this is clearly one of these cases, and I don't think it's likely we'll have an edit war over the point with any of the trainspotting ;-) crowd (which would necessitate a separate disambig page). --Dhartung | Talk 17:17, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Opening paragraph

I added the following text: The Underground Railroad's importance is in its connection to the abolitionist movement; the Railroad was a radical direct action which created moral conflict for Northern whites, constructed a defining myth for a national political movement, and built moral justification for the Civil War. I believe this is salient but it may be too much for the opening paragraph, and it sounds a bit POV even to me. I'd like to rework it into a whole section on the cultural place of the UR, but I don't want to overlap too much with the abolitionism article, either. If someone wants to take this ball, be my guest. --Dhartung | Talk 18:26, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

The second paragraph is a mess; it just doesn't make sense. It talks about how many blacks traveled the Railroad during the peak years (giving dates) and then says that number was merely a fraction of the number who did so during the same period. What? As an African American, I'm thinkin', "Naw, the importance of the Railroad is that a whole buncha black folks made it out of slavery!" You're correct the statement about the importance of the Railroad is POV. Further, moral justification for abolitionism existed without the Railroad -- in fact, moral outrage is what built the thing in the first place. Virtually the entire paragraph needs to be rewritten. deeceevoice 17:24, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Just reread that fist sentence in a more leisurely manner (I'm not on a deadline now) -- and it makes perfect sense about "during the same period." My concerns about the rest of the paragraph remain. No time to fix, but I'm sure others will contribute. Peace. Happy holidays. deeceevoice 22:08, 17 Dec 2004 (UTC)

"Importance" is the wrong word; "historical prominence" comes a bit closer. It's like a Hollywood movie about apartheid with a white star -- the whites were involved in this fractional number of escapes, so they have outsized publicity. I'll have to think about it a little more. --Dhartung | Talk 02:55, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I came back to this and, since I couldn't figure out how to fix it and keep it, I simply deleted it. I think it's terrible. It bugs the hell outta me. Sorry.

• "The Underground Railroad's importance is in its connection to the abolitionist movement; the Railroad was a radical direct action which created moral conflict for Northern whites, constructed a defining myth for a national political movement, and built moral justification for the Civil War."

deeceevoice 15:56, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fair enough, but in the interest of continuing improvement to the article, I think there does need to be some political context -- at a more personal level than reciting the various Fugitive Slave acts. I'll consider it some more; maybe it just won't work without its own section. --Dhartung | Talk 18:53, 18 Dec 2004 (UTC)

what does pov mean?!?

POV stands for "Point of View" as in "Neutral Point of View" (NPOV), which is one of the goals of wikipedia. The express everything with a little bias as possible. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) - Talk 04:24, 19 Feb 2005 (UTC)

Ontario's Black Population

The article states, "Approximately 30,000 slaves successfully escaped to Canada. Fugitive slaves were a significant presence in the then underpopulated Canadian colonies and formed the basis of the present-day black population throughout Ontario." To my knowledge, the majority of black residents of Ontario are of Caribbean origin, making this statement a little misleading. I don't want to change anything, as my knowledge of the subject matter isn't great, but are there any Ontarians who can verify this? 64.231.191.236 04:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)

im not sure of anything else sorry —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.40.205.195 (talk • contribs)

Cut

I removed the lyrics to Follow the Drinkin' Gourd as they can be found in that article. Seemed redundant to have them here too. B00P 11:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)

Terminology

Why has all the information about the terminology been moved? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.173.169.249 (talk • contribs)

Good question. I hadn't noticed it was missing. I've restored it from an older version of the page. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 13:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

20,000 or 30,000?

There appears to be a discrepency in this article. In one section it says that 30,000 slaves escaped to Canada, yet later in the article it says 20,000. Which is correct? Please confirm to maintain accuracy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by [[User:{{{1}}}|{{{1}}}]] ([[User talk:{{{1}}}|talk]] • [[Special:Contributions/{{{1}}}|contribs]]) .

This appears to be a difference between an estimate for all of Canada vs. Upper Canada alone (i.e. just Ontario). I've clarified the one figure to help the reader.--Dhartung | Talk 18:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Statistic Quote

To say 30,000 to 100,000 blacks used the railroad to freedom is a worthless statistic. The margin of error is so huge it doesn't qualify as meaning anything, especially when the census is quoting 6,000. This needs to be cleaned up or cited, as it stands it has no meaning —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.142.141.203 (talk • contribs) .

I agree that the estimates are insufficiently cited, but I disagree that they have "no meaning" -- they're just different estimates. I'm not sure why there should be a margin of error when they come from different sources, methods, etc. The true figure will never be known. It's clear that Canada believes five times as many blacks reached Canada alone compared with the official census figure. --Dhartung | Talk 11:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

Odd name for a portal...

I'm not exactly sure, but I think the portal link in the article has been vandalized (or badly misspelled). Right now it says "Africansex American Portal". The link doesn't actually go anywhere, so I put it through google to check and see if it was actually something. I got about ten links, 7 of which were about porn and animal sex. As I'm not exactly Wiki-literate, I'll let someone else take care of that. 70.113.79.34 05:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

Good for you for doing some research and checking. Just so you know, if you had checked the article history, too, you would have seen that it was vandalized about four hours before you viewed the page. Someone else fixed it shortly after you posted here. --Dhartung | Talk 06:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)

Capture & return of fugitives

I tend to agree with Dhartung, those edits also strike me as somewhat dubious, but... they're not so implausible that they require immediate deletion. I think, in the interest of following a more open process, that there's sufficient uncertainty to leave them for the time being -- with the "dubious" tags -- in hopes that the questions can be resolved. Obviously, I'm open to other views on this. Comments? Cgingold 11:56, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I agree. Liberated slaves were pursued by all manner of people, including patrols ("pattyrolls"). What was the official status of the patrols? Were they "police officers"? I think the statement about the police should stay, or be modified to refer to the patrols.

The whole article is written without references. I would remove the statements about bonuses (for judges and police), but I would not put any "fact" or "dubious" tag on the statement about police. It's not on any other assertion in the article. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 16:30, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

The main point of my reversion wasn't the participation of police per se. I'm sure they did in many cases under the Fugitive Slave Acts, but non-participation was why those acts were passed in the first place, and there were many parts of the North where the police had utter contempt for the law and treated escaped slaves the same as freedmen. This wasn't an appropriately comprehensive treatment of the issue. The flag for me was the claim that judges were paid to find slaves "guilty" of escaping. That isn't the reading of the act that I have. Not 1793, not 1850. The latter act speaks $10 and $5 fees for the marshals in the event of a successful delivery -- not the same thing as a judge being paid by the verdict at all. Given that particular inaccuracy I felt the entire edit was grossly misleading. That said, I'm sure the editor who added that didn't make it up themselves -- that sort of misinformation is obviously out there.--Dhartung | Talk 18:59, 5 March 2007 (UTC)

I think the problem with those edits comes from the way the anon. editor threw a bunch of things in together, some of which comport pretty well with the facts, but mixed in with other things which are dubious or confused at best. For instance, when he says that "police officers" pursued fugitives as far as Canada, that doesn't make sense, since local police would be highly unlikely to cross into other jurisdictions. Looks to me like he confused "police" with "Federal marshalls", who did have authority to cross county and state lines in pursuit of fugitives. (Just like he apparently confused judges with marshalls, as you pointed out.) I'm going to take a shot at re-writing his edits, so we can get rid of those "dubious" tags -- I think they've already served their purpose. Cgingold 11:00, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for that improvement. I went a bit further, expanding on the point that slave catchers were not treated sympathetically in all places. Ultimately I think this is better treated in detail in the other articles. --Dhartung | Talk 21:07, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Good addition, and I hope you don't mind my modification. Stating that "the Fugitive Slave laws were necessary" is extreme POV, though probably unintentional. Stating that "Congress believed the Fugitive Slave laws were necessary" is a fact. — Malik Shabazz | Talk 21:30, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

No problem. I actually meant something like "politically necessary", so your wording is better. --Dhartung | Talk 22:43, 6 March 2007 (UTC)

Notable Locations

The "Notable Locations" section is entirely irrelevant. It is just an arbitrary list of cities and towns. I propose that the section be removed. --Janus Shadowsong | contribs 16:49, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I agree that the current section is a mere list of towns, but there were certain "notable" locations, such as Philadelphia, Wilmington, etc. Perhaps we could define some sort of criteria for what makes a location "notable"? The list should include those that were major hubs in the network, but not necessarily every safe house. We could instruct people to add the "Underground Railroad locations" category to the article rather than add it to the list. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 18:43, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

One possibility would be to look through the articles for a section which references the Underground Railroad. If there is none, then we could make sure the article has the right category and then take it off the list. Also the list could be made into a few columns to take up less vertical space. I'm willing to do the work if other people agree that this is fair. –Taranah 18:58, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I went ahead and reformatted the section into columns to see how it looks. I may reformat the notable people list similarly. I think I prefer the columns, in general, though it is a bit harder to add new information to the list. Thoughts? –Taranah 20:48, 6 June 2007 (UTC)

I've been doing that for a while now. Each time an entry gets added to either location or people, I check the article for mention of Underground Railroad. However, that can still turn into a list of all locations, which is too much. That is why I favor some criteria to what makes a location notable for the Underground Railroad. Certainly Philadelphia (where Still operated) and Wilmington were major locations. Some on the list were way stations, but not necessarily notable.

I think you will quickly find that the multi-column format will be difficult to maintain. Each time you add an entry in the middle, you have to shift one entry to the next column for all the remaining columns. I would prefer that we trim down the list, and add an HTML comment that people should add the category to the article rather than adding a link to the article in the list. Before they add, they should discuss it first on the talk page. That way, if somebody adds an entry, we can simply revert the add with a reference to the guidelines. -- wrp103 (Bill Pringle) ^(Talk) 04:31, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Yeah, if the list changes frequently, multiple columns doesn't really work. I also agree that some criteria would be a good idea. I question, however, whether it makes sense to link to "notable" places if the article doesn't mention the Underground Railroad. What's the point? For example, I am actually *not* well-versed in the history of the railroad, and although I see that you mention Wilmington as important, it is neither mentioned in the Wilmington article nor in this article. For an average encyclopedia user, looking to learn about the Underground Railroad, why would a link to Wilmington be helpful? Whereas Oberlin, for example, has a section about the UR and links to further articles about its role. Perhaps an annotated list where there is a short explanation of why each location is notable? In combination with criteria for inclusion, I could see that being quite useful. –Taranah 17:02, 7 June 2007 (UTC)

Tubman

On the Wiki Tubman page it says she made 13 trips back to the south to free "over 70 enslaved friends and family members", but on this page it says 19/300. It's a pretty big disparity. 66.57.224.120 03:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)

experience in canada

can someone edit this and tell me how the black slaves settled into canada, and how succesful were they in the long run?

Estimates

The introduction estimates 6,000 slaves at a lower bound, but the Canada section states a minimum of 30,000 escaping to Canada only. 128.208.1.238 —The preceding signed but undated comment was added at 02:52, August 24, 2007 (UTC).

Sorry about that, didn't realise I wasn't logged in. laddiebuck 18:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

The introduction indicates that there were an estimated 100,000 slaves that escaped on the railroad, but that the US census only accounts for 6,000 of those slaves; that there was a minimum estimated 30,000 that escaped to Canada is entirely consistent with the article. scatter98 11:11, 20 Sep 2007

WP:Spotlight

"Upon arriving at their destinations, many fugitives were disappointed. While the British colonies had no slavery, discrimination was still common. Many of the new arrivals had great difficulty finding jobs, and overt racism was common." - where's the citation? Upon what source is this statement based? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.161.173 (talk) 04:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)

link to spam site

Ontario's Underground Railroad -`this link goes to a site that is definately not what the link states. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ringwall (talk • contribs) 22:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC) .

Who the heck screwed up this page?

Must I repeat? Who the heck screwed up this page?!!!!? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkwinders (talk • contribs) 14:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)

Number estimates

Unless valid source can be found to support the claim that 100,000 slaves were helped, this information will be removed. The previous source used in the introduction merely restated the claim. Anyone have a better source? Matt Gerber (talk) 17:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Africville, Nova Scotia; Vancouver Island

The links between the Underground Railroad and Africville in Nova Scotia or Vancouver Island are not clear to me (and there is no reference cited). Was the Halifax region in fact a terminus of the Underground Railway? Given the geography it seems very unlikely. As for Vancouver Island, the discussion of settlement by African Americans invited by Governor Douglas should be discussed in relation to the articles on Vancouver Island, Saltspring Island, James Douglas,Black Canadians etc., but I don't know of any evidence that the colony of Vancouver Island was a terminus on the Underground Railroad per se. Again geography alone would have made it unlikely. If someone could provide references in relation to these two issues, please do. Otherwise they don't seem pertinent to the subject of the article. Corlyon (talk) 23:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

Folklore missing word

If this page were not locked I would have fixed it myself...

"The quilts were placed one at time on a fence ..." should be "The quilts were placed one at _a_ time on a fence ..." --41.245.145.197 (talk) 18:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 18:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)

How many people did Tubman rescue?

There is an inconsistency in this statement "made 19 trips back to the South and helped free over 300 people" in the Notable People section does not match the figure of 70 given earlier in the article (photo caption) and sourced in the Tubman article. Can someone more knowledgeable than myself rectify the inconsistency? Dave (talk) 20:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)

On PBS.org and in my history book, it clearly says that Harriet Tubman made 19 trips to the South, helping to free over 300 people. Shelby 8:07, 17 May 2010

Name origin

How and when did this system get its name? I understand why the metaphor is apt, so I know why the name stuck, but that dones't really give its etymology. Given that the system was at its peak from 1810 to 1850 (according to the article) and the first steam locomotive operated in the United States in 1830, I think it unlikely that the terms of railroad operation like "conductor" would have been familiar enough to get adapted before perhaps 1840. So, if I am correct, the name came rather late in the operation. Was it something applied towards the end? After the fact by historians? Paulc206 (talk) 14:50, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

Heh, I guessed well. According to http://www.answers.com/topic/underground-railroad the term was first used in 1842. Of course that's the first KNOWN use, and the documentation on the page seems weak, so I'm not quite ready to footnote the main article yet. Sorry for not finding this before I wrote the above question. Paulc206 (talk) 15:01, 27 December 2008 (UTC)

I was watching a video that said it was used by a plantation owner. He was chasing an escaping slave when the slave disappeared. The owner said it was as if the slave disappeared to an underground railroad. It may have been used around 1810 when railroads first began being built, or later. 96.248.98.212 (talk) 00:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Railroads were not being built in 1810. If you have the name of the video, that would help. Paulc206 (talk) 07:58, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

I see no problem here. Nobody's saying that the railroad terms were in use from day one, but as ralroad terminology entered into vernacular speech the Undergoround Railway adopted it. Incidentally, railroad development in the US was indeed underway in 1810, see Leiper_Railroad. The use of wagons running on or guided by wooden or metal rails in mines (true underground railroads) predates that era. -- Timberframe (talk) 12:44, 17 November 2009 (UTC)

Sources

The article cites work by Larson, David Potter (1976), David Blight (2005), Fergus Bordewich (2005) and Ozella McDaniels Williams (1999) but does not cite the specific works, therefore none can be verified. I note that works by some of these authors, some with the same years, are listed in Sources and Further reading, but it's not clear whether these are the same works that the article cites. (Although this is a reasonable guess for titles under Sources it's not for those under Further reading. The refs in the article to David Blight (2005) may be typo errors as a 2001 work by David Blight is detailed in the Sources section.) Can anyone supply the titles of the works? I'd then be happy to amend the article to make unambiguous references to the works which have been used as sources for the article. -- Timberframe (talk) 11:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)

I added the Potter source and filled in some page numbers on one of the footnotes. Can't help with the others. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 15:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)

Route section -- this sentence was deleted because incomprehensible to me

"Because of this, the number of former slaves who owed their freedom at least in part to those who operated the Underground Railroad was greater than the many thousands who actually traveled its secret routes."

Because of WHAT? Please clarify if you re-insert.

Bellagio99 (talk) 02:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

See here, here, and here for the edit mini-skirmish over the content of that paragraph. May be worth discussing further. Fat&Happy (talk) 03:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)

Misinfo.

Harriet Tubman led 19 trips from the south to canada and helped free over 300 slaves including her parents!! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrs.Cloud (talk • contribs) 02:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)

Eastman Johnson painting

I adjusted the recently added image of this work a bit, mostly to reduce the amount it dominated the page at 350px, but question whether it belongs in this article at all. Not every runaway slave was shepherded by members of the Underground Railroad. The description of the work on the Brooklyn Museum site says

Eastman Johnson ... claimed to have based the subject on an actual event he had witnessed near the Manassas, Virginia, battlefield on March 2, 1862, just days before the Confederate stronghold was ceded to Union forces. In this powerfully simplified composition, a family of fugitive slaves charges for the safety of Union lines in the dull light of dawn.

This seems to indicate a spur-of-the-moment decision to escape to troops in the field rather than any planned attempt to follow the drinking gourd or any other reliance on the UR organization. Fat&Happy (talk) 16:46, 23 March 2011 (UTC)

The Number of Slaves Escaped?????

Under the picture of Harriet Tubman, it says there were about 300 slaves that were escaped. Also, at the top of the page, it says there were about 30,000 slaves escaped. Whoever wrote this got the numbers confused and I don't know how many people exactly were escaped. Please fix this. Cookie Monster (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)

The caption clearly says that Harriet Tubman helped free about 300 people, and the article says the Underground Railroad may have helped over 30,000 people escape. Tubman was only one "conductor" on the Railroad. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 03:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

I agree with the above..Harriet Tubman alone accounted for aiding approximately 300 who escaped; many others were instrumental in the operations of the "Underground Railroad" and aiding in the escape of thousands of people. Modernist (talk) 14:04, 6 November 2008 (UTC)

The Harriet Tubman article states the following: "After escaping from captivity, she made thirteen missions to rescue over seventy slaves". The claim is made in the first paragraph. I uncovered this discrepancy while doing a school project. My history book ("The American Pageant", 12th ed.) states that "During nineteen forays into the South, she (Harriet Tubman) rescued more than three-hundred slaves..." Personally, I would regard this as the most accurate source of information. Morganismysheltie (talk) 02:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

My history book agrees with the current information in this article, but not the Harriet Tubman article, which was a featured article. That's pretty sad, if you ask me. Morganismysheltie (talk) 02:08, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

It says that she made 13...she actually made 19 and helped free over 300 blacks including her parents. Mrs.Cloud (talk) 02:37, 1 December 2010 (UTC)Mrs.Cloud

The article currently describes Harriet Tubman as an "abductor;" should be edited to say "conductor." — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.151.253.3 (talk) 17:10, 7 January 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for catching that. I just fixed it. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 05:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)

It turns out we were wrong. According to this and similar articles, an abductor was a person on the Underground Railroad who went south to rescue blacks, whereas a conductor provided food and shelter along the journey. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 03:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)

When did it start?

The article says the Railroad was "[c]reated in the early 19th century", yet the article on Richard Allen has him operating a station as early as 1797. Neither seems to be documented. I doubt the term "railroad" was in use in 1797, but obviously the system could have been. --Haruo (talk) 11:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)

According to this Associated Press piece, a network aiding escaped slaves operated for over a century, roughly between 1670 and 1790. The main escape route went to Florida, then under Spanish control. — Dale Arnett (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2012 (UTC)

File:UndergroundRailroadmonumentWindsor.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

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Please Maintain Arrangement of Photos in Article

Whomever is editing this article and rearranging text and/or photos, please be mindful of the changes you are making as it is making the photos and article appear disorganized. Daniellagreen (talk) 05:00, 28 November 2013 (UTC)

Category question

Include or exclude? - Slavery in the United States (−) (±)...Modernist (talk) 23:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)

• Exclude, unless some compelling reason is presented to ignore WP:SUBCAT, which has not been the case so far. 2600:1006:B11A:ED71:14E8:C473:9B00:7111 (talk) 04:42, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
• Include seems logical...Modernist (talk) 11:57, 1 August 2015 (UTC)
  • How is this inclusion more logical than any other parent category for any other article? In fact, the "logical" category is the specific abolition-related one already included, not the broader category of slavery in general. 2600:1006:B11A:ED71:14E8:C473:9B00:7111 (talk) 00:31, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

WP:UCS The article essentially exists because of 'Slavery in the United States (−) (±)'...Modernist (talk) 12:19, 2 August 2015 (UTC)

Political background

I have rewritten the sentence about the responsibilities of "officials of slave-holding states". The original sentence was incorrect in that officials of slave-holding states were not responsible for recovering runaway slaves. Rather, it was the slaveholders, in person or via their agents. My change of that sentence to refer to "officials of free states" was therefore correct. Furthermore, it was necessary in order to fit with the next part of the sentence, which is about how the citizens and governments of free states often ignored their obligation to return slaves. That part made no sense in the version of the sentence that referred to slave-holding states. However, it is true that the obligation of the free states was not to capture runaway slaves but only to enforce their return once the slaveholder or his agent had located and recaptured them, so I have modified the sentence accordingly.Bill (talk) 17:08, 10 April 2016 (UTC)

The statement as you amended it reads:

"Under the original Fugitive Slave Act of 1793, officials from free states were required to assist slaveholders or their agents who recaptured runaway slaves, but citizens and governments of many free states ignored the law, and the Underground Railroad thrived."

I believe the only requirement placed on any officials was for an appropriate court to rule when a slavecatcher appeared before him with a captured slave -- the statement suggests officials other than judges were required to take action. The most serious problems came when judges, sometimes acting under state personal liberty laws, required strong proof that the subject was actually a slave (the Act only required that the alleged owner or his agent stated that the subject was a slave). This was complicated further by the Prigg decision, police and judicial actions against slavecatchers as kidnappers, and general interference with the slavecatchers. It was not so much that the Act was ignored but that it was actively resisted. Some of this is covered in the 2nd paragraph but the whole section should probably be reworked. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 01:25, 11 April 2016 (UTC)

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Historical novel

The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead may be worth notice. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.124.242 (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2016 (UTC)

Whitehead's historical novel really has no place in a history article, except perhaps in the "Further reading" section (where it should be clearly marked as fiction). — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 17:08, 6 August 2016 (UTC)

People of African descent

Was the underground railway limited to slaves that were of African descent? Were non-Africans not allowed to use it?203.80.61.102 (talk) 04:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

The Underground Railroad was a means to help enslaved Africans—who, beside Native Americans, were the only people enslaved in the United States during the 19th century. The Underground Railroad, as the first sentence of this article says, help escaped Africans find their way North to free states and Canada, but (as the second sentence of this article says) it was made up of people of all races. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 05:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)

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Map

Just a note that the map of underground railroad routes omits the route most used by Harriet Tubman (prominently mentioned in the article), across the DelMarVa peninsula to Philadelphia. It's not clear how that can be fixed, but it's a notable omission. Thosem (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2017 (UTC)

I know, I wish there was something more complete. It misses routes through Michigan as well.–CaroleHenson (talk) 23:27, 2 March 2022 (UTC)

List of Underground Railroad sites

I have been cleaning up the List of Underground Railroad sites page and have a question on the talk page about what should be included in the list (official stations, on the NPS Network to Freedom list, another qualification). Input is greatly appreciated!–CaroleHenson (talk) 15:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)