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The Origins of the Underground Railroad
from Part I - Origins to 1838
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2019
The chapter covers the period prior to the assassination of Elijah Lovejoy in 1838. It begins with a fugitive’s eye view of the journey through the North. It then discusses both the motivations that spurred enslaved men and women to make the journey in the first place and the enormous risks that they faced. The chapter then turns to Underground activists and the experiences that moved them to assist fugitives in defiance of slave catchers, the law, and often their own communities. The emergence of free black communities in the North and the arrival of escapees on the doorsteps of sympathetic whites sparked the creation of the first embryonic networks for the assistance of fugitives. Finally, the chapter surveys early fugitive slave rescues, including some that display geographically distinct reactions to the intrusion of slave catchers into Northern communities.
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