Term | Definition |
Civil War | a war between the norther states and the southern states, fought from 1861-186 |
Anti-Slavery | against slavery |
Slave | a person who is owned by someone else |
Slaveholders | those who owned slaves |
Slave catcher | a person who made money by finding escaped slaves, capturing them, and returning them to their owners |
Rebellion | a fight or struggle against any kind of authority or control |
stations | hiding places on the Underground Railroad; another name for safe houses |
passengers | a code word for slaves escaping on the Underground Railroad |
spitituals | religious songs sung by the slaves to lift their spirits and relay coded information |
Stationsmasters | people who allowed runaway slaves to hide in their homes |
conductors | a code word for people who guided escapted slaves on the Underground railroad |
Safe house | a place where fleeing slaves could seek food and shelter |
Underground Railroad | a secret network of people, houses, churches, or other places that helped fugitive slaves escape to freedom |
North Star | used by slaves to find their way north and to freedom |
Drinking Gourd | code name for the Big Dipper, the group of stars runaway slaves used to locate the north star |
Emancipation Procolomation | issued by President Lincoln, this document declared that slaves in rebel states were free |
Fugitive Slave Act | law passed in 1850 requiring that escapted slaves be returned to their owners not matter where in the US they were found |
Patrollers | men who searched for escaped slaves |
Master | slave owners were called this by their slaves |
quilt | blanket made from squares of fabric that are sewn together; sometimes used to pass information to runaways |
Harriett Tubman | escaped slave and one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad; helped lead over 300 slaves to freeedom |
William Still | an escaped slave who is often referred to as "The Father of the Underground Railroad" |
load of potatoes/parcels/bundle of wood | code words for the transporting of escaping slaves on the Underground Railroad |
code | a system of words, phrases, and symbols used to communicate secret messages |
Promise Land | a code name for Canada during the time of the Underground Railroad |