During the era of slavery, the Underground Railroad was a network of routes, places, and people that helped enslaved people in the American South escape to the North. The name “Underground Railroad” was used metaphorically, not literally.
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The Underground Railroad went north to freedom. Sometimes passengers stopped when they reached a free state such as Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Ohio. After 1850, most escaping enslaved people traveled all the way to Canada. They had to go to Canada to make sure they would be safe.
Underground Railroad routes went north to free states and Canada, to the Caribbean, into United States western territories, and Indian territories. Some fugitive slaves traveled south into Mexico for their freedom.
The majority of slaves attempting to escape from the South went to the North and many continued to Canada. Some runaways returned to their masters and others were caught by bloodhounds and slave patrols, accidents and informants.
Underground Railroad, in the United States, a system existing in the Northern states before the Civil War by which escaped slaves from the South were secretly helped by sympathetic Northerners, in defiance of the Fugitive Slave Acts, to reach places of safety in the North or in Canada.
The Underground Railroad was secret. Nothing was written down about where to go or who would help. So once enslaved people decided to make the journey to freedom, they had to listen for tips from other enslaved people, who might have heard tips from other enslaved people.
President Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863, as the nation approached its third year of bloody civil war. The proclamation declared that all persons held as slaves within the rebellious states are, and henceforward shall be free.
Many workers contributed to the construction of railroads. On the East Coast, Native Americans, recently freed black people, and white laborers worked on the railroads. On the West Coast, many of the railroad workers were Chinese immigrants.