The Abolishment of Slavery in American and Canadian History Essay Sample

Abolishing the act of slavery is a significant point in both American and Canadian history. The circumstances in which slaves lived were inadequate, especially with a lack of nutrition and work conditions. They were beaten, burned, imprisoned, sold, and killed when they didn’t meet the standard expectations of their owners or when a slave was to run away. This sparked the organization of the Underground Railroad by Quaker Abolitionists. When they did push for slavery to end, not many things changed. The obvious: fugitives were free and America became more wealthy. But identifying how the Underground Railroad worked and began with all the different components is a big concept to understand. In this paper, you will read how it was developed and the process fugitives, organizers, and guides went through to abolish the act of subjugation. 

Isaac T. Hopper was the first reported person to start the Underground Railroad in 1787 (J. Simkin, 1997). These accusations arose when Hopper would aid and hide fugitives in his home. In 1790, he began to develop the Underground Railroad. At the time relatively few slaves were taking off, however the rising development of required slaves started not excessively lengthy after Hopper began sorting out the railroad. This was because the oldest crops in America (tobacco) were dropping in value and the rise of the cotton economy was in demand. Therefore, more slaves were needed to pick the cotton after growing so much of it (H.L. Gates Jr.,2013). After this, runaways began to increase rapidly, and the Fugitive Slave Law was enacted in 1793. If a slave were to run away and be found they had to be captured and taken back to their owner, where they would face punishment. This included the citizens, it was their responsibility to help return the slaves to their masters. This also meant that anyone who has helped the slave in any way was going to face consequences.

The Underground Railroad is a code name. This was developed because there were many components to describing the people who helped liberate slaves and the meeting spots such as Conductors, Safehouses, Depots, and more (C. Waggoner, 2009). People who helped the fugitives were free-born Blacks, Native Americans, and Black and White abolitionists (C. Waggoner, 2009). Conductors were people who guided the escaping slaves. Some well-known Conductors were Harriet Tubman, William Still, Thomas Garret, John Brown, and more. Churches, schools, attics, cellars, and individual homes were common areas fugitives would seek aid and hide. The people who ran these places were called stationmasters. Many slave owners would have no idea what these codes were, but it was this way that enslaved individuals were taught to flee. Quakers and escaping slaves would communicate through songs, which are known as Negro Spirituals (H. L. Gates Jr., 2013). These were usually inspired by biblical scriptures as metaphors to guide and explain to other slaves if one were to run away. Wade In The Water, Nobody Knows The Trouble I've Seen, Sometimes I Feel Like A Motherless Child, and more are songs that may be recognizable. Stationmasters would make “freedom quilts” and hang them up at their windows to alert the passengers that they were on the route. (H. L. Gates Jr, 2013).

There were many dangerous obstacles that slaves went through to run away. Not only was it a big risk to be in trouble or even killed but it was also illegal. The physical strength of running away was too much of a burden, so most of the slaves who ran away were young men (N. Blumberg, 2014). From the perspective of a slave, a lucky escape would be extremely difficult, if not impossible. The secret routes that were longer would lead the slaves to the Canadian border, where slaves could be declared officially free. Cuba, Florida, Texas, and Mexico would've been shorter routes (C. Waggoner,2009). To escape, the slaves would hide during the day in the woods and swamps, then continue their travel through the night. They would traverse bridges and, on rare occasions, boats if they were present. The slaves would survive off rationed wild fruits and when they were official fugitives (as in escaped and labeled free) they would look very drained, skinny, and gaunt (J. Simkin, 1997). Another obstacle runaways would face was slave catchers. Slave catchers were known to be an early function of policing. After the fugitive slave act was added as a law, slave catchers were officially legal, making it an actual job. They would track their targets with dogs, specifically bloodhounds. These dogs were great for hunting because it was easy for them to sniff and search for any evidence of runaways. Slave caters would make around $5 ($112.59 today), which depended on if they captured the slave (D.J. Sharfstein, 2011). Probably the earliest discussion about the Underground Railroad was in 1831 when a slave owner had faulted the Underground Railroad for assisting his slave to Ohio from Kentucky. Because of this incident, the job of helping people escape became harder as slave hunters were on the lookout for runaway slaves.

Before the act of slavery could end a Civil War between the American states took place. After many altercations between the Southern (Confederate) and Northern (Union) states it finally broke out into the Civil war. The Northern states didn’t believe in the act of slavery because they knew how to handle their lands and agriculture as for the Southern states, mainly depended on the labor of black enslavement. The Civil War was mainly fighting over the right to vote if a state wanted to be a slave state or a free state and political state rights (K.Hickman, 2020). This resulted in the Confederates leaving America and over 2.3 million people dying.

On December 18, 1865, Article 13 was amended. President Abraham Lincoln declared slavery officially abolished. He wrote, "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." The Underground Railroad had helped over 70,000 enslaved people escape their labor and allowed them to be free walking humans with rights and privileges like many others before. These events remain forever engraved in American history but also an example to show how if you stand for something you will do everything you can to change it and make it right.