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The Underground Railroad was not an actual railroad but rather a network of clandestine routes, often informal and impromptu, by which black slaves were able to escape the southern United States and reach freedom either in states that protected fugitive slaves, or in Canada. The Underground Railroad consisted of secret safe houses and other facilities owned by anti-slavery sympathizers, and operated much like any other large-scale widespread resistance movement, with independent cells that only knew of a few of their neighbours. Escaped black slaves would pass from one way station to another, making their way north step by step. The main operators of the Railroad were free blacks, Quakers, and Wesleyans, who had a strong religious objection to slavery.

The Underground railroad was a major cause of friction between the North and South in the United States. Many northerners sympathized with those who helped bring black slaves to safety. Southerners for many years pushed for strong laws that would force the recapture of escaped black slaves, and in 1850 Congress passed a law mandating the capture of fugitive slaves. This prevented black slaves from settling in free states and forced them to escape to Canada.

The main destination of the escapees was southern Ontario around the Niagara peninsula and Windsor, OntarioHeader Format Coat of Arms| Motto The river and the land sustain us. Latitude Longitude 42º 18' N83º 01' W| Altitude ? | Time zone EST| Postal Code N9(A-J), N8(N-Y)| website | Population 208,402¹307,877¹| Population description City Population ( 2001)Metr. About 30,000 individuals successfully escaped to Canada. This was an important population increase to the still underpopulated Canadian colonies and these settlers formed the basis of the black population throughout Ontario.

1 See also

• Harriet TubmanHarriet Tubman ( 1820 in Dorchester County, Maryland March 10, 1913 in Auburn, New York), also known as Black Moses was an African-American freedom fighter. An escaped slave, she worked as a guerrilla, farmhand, lumberjack, laundress and cook, refugee org
• Levi CoffinLevi Coffin (Born: October 28, 1798 in Greensboro, North Carolina, USA- September 16, 1877 in Cincinnati, Ohio, USA) was an American educator and abolitionist. In 1821, he wanted to start a school for slaves, however, their owners refused to allow them to
• Calvin FairbankCalvin Fairbank ( November 3, 1816 October 12, 1898) was an abolitionist minister who spent more than 17 years in prison for his anti- slavery activities. Born in what is now Wyoming County, New York, he grew up in in an intensely religious family environ
• List of African-American abolitionistsHenry Highland Garnet Charles Lenox Remond Samuel Cornish Martin R. Delany Frederick Douglass Robert Purvis William Still William Whipper James W. Pennington James Forten Theodore S. Wright James McCune Smith Harriet Tubman Gabriel Prosser Frances Harper
• Slavery in CanadaSlavery in Canada was first practised by the aboriginal nations, who routinely captured slaves from neighbouring tribes as part of their accepted laws of war. Among the European settlements, slavery appeared soon after the colonies were founded in the ear
• National Underground Railroad Freedom CenterThe National Underground Railroad Freedom Center is a museum in downtown Cincinnati, Ohio based on the history of the Underground Railroad. The Center also pays tribute to all efforts to "abolish human enslavement and secure freedom for all people. Billed
• Westfield, IndianaWestfield is a town located in Hamilton County, Indiana. As of the 2000 census, the town had a total population of 9,293. Geography Westfield is located at 40°1'56" North, 86°7'44" West (40. 032266, -86. According to the United States Census Bureau, the t