y rebelled or acted up, they would be either beaten very badly with whips, punished by starving in the basement, or just shot. I am sure they all wanted to rebel, but they saw what happened to the ones who did rebel so most of them decided not to. As time went on, slaves were getting smarter and were learning how to read and write. They started learn that not all black people in the country were enslaved. By word of mouth or by reading, they started to learn that slavery did not exist up north. Then they started to learn that not every white person was out to get them if they knew that they were planning to escape. This was a very dangerous plan though. Some white people would actually help some slaves escape. This was called the Underground Railroad. Underground because it was kept a big secret from everyone because nobody could trust anybody back then because you would never know who would snitch and who wouldnt. The railroad part was a string of houses of white people who would hide runaway slaves for the day so they could continue to head towards the northern states during the night for their freedom. This was the only way a slave could gain his or her freedom. One slave that had escaped was Fredrick Douglas. This man, instead of getting his freedom and forgetting about his past, wanted to help his people. What he did was prepare a speech for a huge audience of white people and tell them what was going on down south. This was a well- spoken b...
