How did slaves know about the Underground Railroad?

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.



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Freedom seekers that were captured were sent back into slavery and severely punished—some were even sold away from their families. These reasons and more made secrecy about this activity absolutely essential. It's because of this secrecy that we know very little about most freedom seekers and conductors.

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In the 1700 and 1800s, major rivers were known as Freedom Roads, and if you explore the Roanoke River in Halifax County, you'll find pieces of the Underground Railroad's history still standing today.

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The Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway recounts the life story of Harriet Tubman – freedom seeker, Underground Railroad conductor, abolitionist, suffragist, human rights activist, and one of Maryland's most famous daughters.

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First off, let's talk percentages - if the numbers in the question are correct, we're talking 1000004000000=2.5% of all slaves escaped - which is an incredible percentage. This wasn't just a few people - this is a significant percentage of people held as slaves that managed to escape.

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In these accounts, travelers on the Underground Railroad eat whatever they can carry, beg, forage, or filch. Some common dishes enslaved people ate on plantations became staples of the journey.

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According to some estimates, between 1810 and 1850, the Underground Railroad helped to guide one hundred thousand enslaved people to freedom. As the network grew, the railroad metaphor stuck. “Conductors” guided runaway enslaved people from place to place along the routes.

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7 Facts About the Underground Railroad
  • The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. ...
  • People used train-themed codewords on the Underground Railroad. ...
  • The Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 made it harder for enslaved people to escape. ...
  • Harriet Tubman helped many people escape on the Underground Railroad.


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While most of the buildings in the Village of Mt. Pleasant Historic District are private, the Mt. Pleasant Historical Society offers Underground Railroad walking tours which include tours of several houses within the district.

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Contrary to popular belief, the Underground Railroad was not a series of underground tunnels! While some people did have secret rooms in their houses or carriages, the vast majority of the Underground Railroad was people, like Harriet Tubman, secretly helping enslaved people seeking freedom however they could.

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The end of the Civil War brought emancipation and the end of the Underground Railroad. As the Underground Railroad was composed of a loose network of individuals – enslaved and free – there is little documentation on how it operated.

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Peterson of Brigham Young University, Korea has the longest unbroken chain of slavery of any society in history (spanning about 1,500 years), which he attributes to a long history of peaceful transitions and stable societies in Korea.

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