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The Myth of the Underground
Railroad
In the popular imagination, the Underground Railroadsug-
gests a subway moving masses of slaves out of the South.
But the metaphor is deceptive. The Underground Railroad
was neither as organized nor as extensive as legend sug-
gests, nor did it exist in any slave state.
Each year tens of thousands of slaves fled, often from
wrathful masters and overseers, by running into the swamps,
hills, woods, or cities of the South. Few had any hope of mak-
ing it to a free state, much less Canada. Few received help
from abolitionists or anyone else. Of the nation’s 4 million
slaves, probably no more than several thousand a year
escaped to a free state. Only a handful of slaves in the Cotton
Belt of South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, and Mississippi
made it out of the South. Moreover, runaways in Texas and
Louisiana did not go north to Canada, but west to Mexico,
where nothing could be done to recover them.
The Underground Railroad endangered slavery not by
enabling large numbers of slaves to escape, but by posing an
explicit challenge to the South. Southern politicians insisted
on passage of the Fugitive Slave Act to reaffirm their right to
their “property” in slaves.
Actual Slave Escapes
The map of escape itineraries underscores the fact that few run-
away slaves had much chance of making their way to freedom
in the North. The map shows that the greatest concentrations of
slaves were in South Carolina, Georgia, and the lower Mississippi
valley. Most successful runaways lived near free states, and those
who managed to escape possessed exceptional skills, cunning,
or luck, and usually a combination of all three.
The experience of William and Ellen Craft, slaves in
Georgia, is illuminating. William, a cabinetmaker, worked
evenings as a waiter and saved some money; his wife,
Ellen, a seamstress, made a pair of men’s trousers. Their
master gave them a pass to visit relatives for Christmas and
they used this occasion to escape. Ellen, who was light-
skinned, put on men’s clothing and green eyeglasses; to
conceal her inability to write, she put her arm in a sling
and, as further disguise, wrapped a bandage around one
side of her face. She claimed to be a white gentleman trav-
eling to Philadelphia to see an eye doctor, accompanied by
her “servant”—William. With the money he had saved they
bought train tickets in Macon and went to Savannah. Then
they took several short boat trips: to Charleston and then
to Wilmington, North Carolina, and again by train through
Virginia and Maryland. They arrived at Philadelphia on
Christmas Day, 1848.
Frederick Douglass escaped from Baltimore, Maryland,
in 1838, disguised as a sailor, and with borrowed seaman’s
papers. He traveled by train to Wilmington, Delaware, by boat
MAPPING THE PAST
Runaway Slaves: Hard
Realities
This shows Ellen Craft, a slave, without disguise.In this illustration Ellen Craft is disguised “as a distinguished looking
gentleman” in order to escape. The deceit was possible, Craft wrote,
because she was “almost white” in appearance.