Slavery was gradually outlawed in the years following the American Revolution in the northern states. However, in the southern states, where agricultural interests dominated the economy, slavery continued and expanded.
The enslaved people resisted their bondage and committed acts of defiance, refused to work, sabotaged, poisoned, committed arsons and violence against those who had them in bondage. Some attempted to run from their bondage. It was illegal for slaves to run from their masters and those who did became known as fugitives from the law.
By the late 1700s, communities, individuals, and small groups of like-minded people committed themselves to help end slavery. The name ?Underground Railroad? first appeared in the early 1830s with the arrival of rail transportation. However, the secret networks to freedom had long been in operation.
Those who participated in the illegal secret networks to freedom were called agents, conductors, engineers, and stationmasters. These terms mirrored positions on actual railroads. These people guided freedom seekers, hid them on their property, made arrangements for their next safe place to stay, purchased train or boat tickets for them, hid them away inside cargo areas, and transported them in wagons or in the hulls of ships.
The slaves of Maryland were commonly sold to people in the Deep South as Maryland's agriculture shifted from tobacco to grain. This shift in crops created the need for fewer laborers.
The threat of sale far away from family and friends, which separated parents from young children as well, motivated many of these people held in bondage, to seek freedom through running away. Others were motivated by the harsh treatment and an intense desire for freedom.
The freedom seekers faced enormous obstacles. Slave catchers, armed with guns, knives and whips, and hunted them down with vicious attack dogs.
Newspaper ads and wanted posters promised various rewards for the capture of the runaway slaves. Many people were tempted to inform on the runaways. Once captured, the runaway slaves often received horrible physical punishment. They were whipped, branded with the letter ?R? for ?runaway, and mutilated.
As a means to prevent potential financial loss of a slave escaping again, slaveholders would sell captured runaways to slave traders in the Deep South.
When Congress passed ?The Fugitive Slave Act? in 1850, the safety of security of runaway slaves living in the North diminished greatly. As the result of this law, northern police had to capture and return any suspected runaway within their area. Citizens were also required to inform authorities about runaways. The fugitive slaves hiding in the North had become most vulnerable to capture, so many of them fled to Canada where slavery was illegal. At the same time, Abolitionist and Underground Railroad activist worked harder to liberate slaves. Committees in northern cities coordinated elaborate communication and relief networks to help fleeing slaves. There became more and more slave escapes.
The southern slaveholders became more and more frustrated over their increasing losses in Border States like Maryland and Virginia and tightened their grip on both free and enslaved African Americans.
Slaveholders were fully aware of the Underground Railroad as the Civil War approached, but were unsure of the actual operations. Slaveholders thought white abolitionists enticed slaves to run away and did not acknowledge that slaves themselves might want to be free. Some came to suspect free blacks as the most dangerous threat to the slave system.
In Maryland and elsewhere in the South, local governments enforced laws to keep African Americans under the tightest of control. The freedom seekers then became very cautious. Escapes were stopped by the betrayal of friends, family and vigilant whites after the high rewards offered.
These activities continued to draw the nation closer to conflict. The Civil War brought an end of slavery and the need for the Underground Railroad.
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The Underground Railroads last stop in the slave-holding state of Delaware was located on Shipley Street in Wilmington at the home of a Quaker merchant named Thomas Garrett. Over 2,700 runaway slaves were given safe harbor there before making their way to the free states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey.
Garretts passionate commitment to the abolition of slavery would cost him a great deal over the course of his life. Maryland authorities went so far as to offer $10,000.00 for his arrest. In 1848 federal court fines bankrupted him, forcing him accept the charity of his abolitionist friends to stay in business. During the Civil War his life was in constant danger so that he had to be guarded by African-American volunteers. But throughout his trials, Garrett never wavered from his principled stand again the evils of slavery.
Though Thomas Garret is today recognized as one of Delawares most honored citizens, he was in fact born in Upper Darby Pennsylvania in August of 1789. Garretts parents instilled in him a respect for human freedom at an early age by hiding runaway slaves on the family farm. When Garrett was a young man a family servant was kidnapped and forced into slavery. Garrett managed to track the familys friend and employ down and affect an escape, but the incident left an indelible impression.
He moved to Wilmington, Delaware in 1822, but his personal convictions and deep commitment to his Quaker religious beliefs put him at odds with the states pro-slavery stance. It was only a few years before Garrett once again resumed his efforts to aid escaped slaves. For the next 40 years he did everything in his power to do so.
In 1848 Garrett and fellow abolitionist John Hunn were convicted of aiding the Hawkins family in their escape from slavery in Maryland. The sentence, a bank-breaking fine that would leave both men virtually penniless, was handed down in the New Castle, Delaware courthouse by US Chief Justice Roger Taney. After the sentence was read and unrepentant Garrett gave an impassioned speech so moving that even a slave-holding juror offered him his hand, I say to thee and to all in this court room, that if anyone knows a fugitive who wants shelter he said send him to Thomas Garrett and he will befriend him."
Garrett continued to fight against inequality even after the end of the Civil War, acting as an advocate for the rights of former slaves. When the 15th Amendment was passed in 1870, giving African-Americans the right to vote, Garrett was paraded through the streets by his grateful supporters. Some went as far as to refer to him as out Moses.
On January 25th of 1871 Thomas Garrett died. His funeral, attended by friends from all walks of life, including many he aided in their fight for freedom. Garrett's coffin was borne from shoulder to shoulder to his final resting place in the cemetery at the Wilmington Friends Meeting House at 4th and West Streets in Quaker Hill.
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