Words and Explanations

• Abolitionists--Individuals who believed that slavery should be abolished and were willing to express their views through political movements, newspapers and journals.

• Amendment--A change for the better. Amendments have been made to the United States Constitution which have affected people who were held as slaves. Amendment 13 freed the slaves. Amendment 14 gave all Americans certain civil rights. Amendment 15 guaranteed the right to vote for Americans of any race, including those who had been slaves.

• Constellation--A pattern formed by a group of stars. Specific patterns have been recognized since ancient times (see an astronomy text in your library). The slaves who fled to freedom in the North often followed the constellation named the "Big Dipper" which is in the northern sky.

• Emancipation Proclamation--A decree by President Abraham Lincoln on January 1, 1863, which declared that all slaves in the states or parts of states that were in rebellion against the United States were free. The proclamation applied only to the Confederate States where it could not be enforced until the Civil War ended. Lincoln also urged the loyal border states which had slavery but were not in rebellion to voluntarily free their slaves.

• Fugitive Slave Law--A law passed in 1850 that said that a runaway slave could be arrested and returned to his or her owner anywhere in the United States, even in states where slavery was not allowed. Also those who helped slaves escape could be penalized. There had been other slave laws prior to this, dating back to the 1700s, but they had not been widely enforced. The 1850 law was part of the Compromise of 1850 which settled disputes between the North and South about slavery in the western part of the United States, as well as other matters.

• Fugitive--A person who is running away. Fugitive slaves were running away from slavery to freedom in the North or in Canada.

• Humanitarian--A person who is consistently helpful to other people in a real and caring way.

• Prejudice--An opinion formed without taking the time or having the concern to judge fairly. Many individuals have prejudice toward people who are different, without really understanding those people.

• Quakers--The popular name for members of the "Religious Society of Friends," a Christian denomination. Among other things, Quakers believe in humanitarian activities. They do not go to war and they believe in peace. Quakers of Harriet Tubman's time helped widely in the Underground Railroad and the abolitionist movement.

• Slavery--The practice of making one person the property of another. In the slavery of the early years of United States history, Africans were made slaves, and were bought and sold like any piece of property

• Suffrage--The right to vote. The women's suffrage movement of the 1800s and early 1900s was the political push to give women the right to vote. It was not until the ratification of the nineteenth amendment to the Constitution in 1920 that women gained full suffrage in the United States.

• Tolerance--The willingness to let other people do as they feel best. The attitude of being understanding and considerate toward people who are different.

• Unalienable-Inseparable--Unalienable rights are rights from which we can never be separated. They cannot be taken away.

• Underground Railroad--A loose network of homes, churches, individuals and institutions in the North and South that helped runaway slaves escape to freedom. It was underground in the sense that it was secretive--very few knew of the places where fugitive slaves hid and the routes they traveled. It was a railroad in the sense that it was a transportation route. Slaves traveled along routes of the Underground Railroad from Texas to the East Coast. Harriet Tubman operated between Maryland, Philadelphia, New York and Canada. Other runaways traveled through the Midwest--up the Mississippi, across Ohio and Michigan, and other states. Slaves went from Georgia into Florida and the Caribbean. In Texas, slaves ran to Mexico.

  Many terms were used to describe the Underground Railroad. Stations on the Railroad were houses or churches where fugitive slaves took shelter. An agent was the owner of a station. Passengers were the fugitive slaves who were escaping. Conductors were individuals who guided groups of slaves between stations and eventually to freedom. Harriet Tubman was a conductor on her many trips to bring slaves back from the South.