Data Bases • Custom Term Papers • Free Term Papers • Free Research Papers • Free Essays • Free Book Reports • Plagiarism? Links • Top 100 Term Paper Sites • Top 25 Essay Sites • Top 50 Essay Sites • Search 97,000 Papers @ DirectEssays.com • Search 101,000 Papers @ ExampleEssays.com • Search 90,000 Papers @ MegaEssays.com Free Essays • Term Paper Sites • Chuck III's Free Essays • Free College Essays • TermPaperSites.com • My Term Papers • Get Free Essays • Essay World • Planet Papers	Search Lots of Essays Back to Subjects - American History The Underground Railroad Flight to Freedom The Underground Railroad Flight to Freedom Flight Along the Underground Railroad The Underground Railroad was perhaps the most active and dramatic protest action against slavery in United States history and as we look at the Underground Railroad in North Carolina we will focus on the Quakers, Levi Coffin’s early years, and the accounts of escaped slaves from North Carolina. The unique blend of southern slave holder and northern abolitionist influences in the formation of North Carolina served to make the state an important link in the efforts to end slavery inside and outside of North Carolina borders. Although not "underground" nor a "railroad," this informal system became a loosely constructed network of escape routes that originated in the South, intertwined throughout the North, and eventually ended in Canada and other places where runaways were safe from being recaptured. From 1830 to 1865, the Underground Railroad reached its peak as abolitionists who condemned human bondage aided large numbers of slaves to freedom. They not only called for an end to slavery, but acted to assist its victims in securing freedom. Unlike other organized activities of the abolition movement that primarily denounced human bondage, the Underground Railroad secretly resisted slavery by aiding runaways. Because the Underground Railroad had a lack of formal organization, its existence often relied on the efforts of many people from many different aspects of life in North Carolina who helped slaves to escape. Accounts are limited of individuals who actually participated in its activities. Usually conductors hid or destroyed their personal journals to protect themselves and the runaways. However some first hand accounts from runaway slaves were recorded. The shortage of evidence suggests that significance of the Underground Railroad may never be fully realized. However, the few journals and records that have survived over time seem to show that the true heroes of the underground were not the abolitionists or sympathizers, but those runaway slaves who were willing to risk their lives and leave those they loved to gain freedom. Levi Coffin was born on October 28, 1798 on a farm in New Garden, North Carolina, the only son of seven children born to Quaker parents, Levi and Prudence (Williams) Coffin. Because his father needed him to work on the farm, young Levi received the bulk of his education at home. His home schooling proved to be a good education. As a young boy growing up in North Carolina in the early 1800's, Levi saw firsthand the reality of slavery. One day while he was out with his father helping to chop wood by the roadside, a group of slaves, handcuffed and chained together, passed by on their way to be sold in Georgia, Alabama, and Louisiana. When Levi’s father asked them why they were chained, one of the men sadly replied: "They have taken us away from our wives and children, and they chain us lest we should make our escape and go back to them."1 After the group of slaves had gone, young Levi wondered to himself how he would feel if his father were taken away from him. The incident by the side of a Guilford County road marked the first stirring of Levi Coffin's sympathy for the oppressed. Together with a strong hatred of oppression and injustice in any form, Coffin later said these "were the motives that influenced my whole after-life."2. He shared with his relatives an abhorrence for slavery. Both Coffin’s parents and grandparents were opposed to slavery, and actively aided those that came to them for help. While he was still a teenager, Coffin had his first opportunity to offer assistance to a slave. Attending a corn husking, the fifteen-year-old Coffin noticed a group of slaves brought to the husking by a local slave dealer named Stephen Holland. While the other in his party ate, Coffin remained behind to talk with the slaves and to "see if I could render them any service."3 He learned that one of the slaves, named Stephen, was freeborn and a former indentured servant to Edward Lloyd, a Philadelphia Quaker, but had been kidnaped and sold into slavery. Coffin acting to free him arranged with Tom a "trusty negro, whom I knew well,"4 to take Stephen the next night to his father's house. After learning the details of Stephen’s case, the elder Coffin wrote Lloyd of his former servant's plight and after six months and a trip to court, eventually Stephen was liberated from slavery in Georgia. Coffin, aided by his older cousin, Vestal Coffin, helped many slaves to hide on his Father’s farm as they journeyed north. The two young men provided food and sought to free kidnaped blacks through legal means. Levi Coffin, his family, and the Quaker community continued to defy the laws of North Carolina that made helping a runaway slave very dangerous and costly in an effort to fight the injustice and oppression of blacks. However, like anyone else in North Carolina that sought to change the system that protected and prospered the elite rich white slave holders, Coffin and his family left North Carolina for Indiana. There he became known as the “President of the Underground Railroad” and went on and boldly fought to help slaves escape to Canada where they were beyond the reach of the fugitive slave laws. Another aspect of the Underground Railroad’s North Carolina legacy are the first person narratives of slaves that escaped from there. In these narratives and published reward posters we see the bravery and desperation that sent these people into the swamps, through freezing weather, and many times with no food in search of freedom. One of the narratives is of a North Carolina slave named Harry that escaped from his owner. Harry survived eighteen months in the swamps and later was assisted, along with two other slaves from North Carolina, by a man named Captain Fountain. Fountain took them to the home of Thomas Garrett, a friendly stop along the railroad. Garrett penned a letter telling these men’s story. Harry ran away after his owner had stabbed him in the neck and planned to “ tie him up and cut him all to pieces for nothing.”5 Harry left a wife and eight children behind in order to save his own life. Another escaped slave, named Edward Lewis, from Franklin County, NC., tells of the abuse he suffered at the hands of his owner “a common farmer”6 named Carter Gay. Gay placed a $100 reward ad for Edward (called Edgar) in southern papers making him an even more hunted man. Through reminiscences, documents, reward ads, and narratives a picture of North Carolinians emerges. That picture shows the abolitionist influence that made many, like the Quakers, take an active role in undermining the oppression and sale of human beings as property. The portrait also displays “man’s inhumanity to man”7 with the slave holders view of all blacks as merely property and passage of laws to protect their interests in that property while punishing anyone who would interfere. Finally the portrait shows the sacrifices, horrors and courage of the black North Carolinians that had to flee along the Underground Railroad for their lives and freedom. 1. Levi Coffin(1789-1877) , Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (New York: Arno Press, 1968) , 13 5. William Still(1821-1902) , The Underground Railroad (New York, Arno Press, 1968) , 424 Bibliography: Bibliography Levi Coffin(1789-1877) , Reminiscences of Levi Coffin (New York: Arno Press, 1968) Curtis, Anna Louise (1882-) Stories of the underground railroad, by Anna L. Curtis; foreword [by] Rufus M. Jones, illustrated by William Brooks Publisher New York, The Island Workshop Press Co-op, 1941 The Underground railroad, official map and guide [Washington, D.C.?] : National Park Service, U.S. Dept. of the Interior, [1996] William Still(1821-1902) , The Underground Railroad (New York, Arno Press, 1968) The Fugitive Slave Law ,US Congress, 1793 US Historical Documents Archive, http://w3.one.net/~mweiler/ushda/fugslave.htm Fugitive Slave Act 1850 ,The Avalon Project, Yale Law School http://www.yale.edu/lawweb/avalon/fugitive.htm Word Count: 1245
Copyright © 2005 College Term Papers, INC All Rights Reserved.