Underground ailroad was the single most important nonviolent political protest movement in nineteenth century America. Slave rebellions did help to rally the cause for self-empowerment and abolition, but the Underground ailroad led to meaningful, tangible results. The descendants of former slaves who made it to Canada have shaped the fabric of that nation, while the descendants of the former slaves to achieved liberty in their lifetime and lived to tell their stories have left an indelible mark on American history. In many ways, the Underground ailroad signified the stirrings of Civil War. Dissent among slaves created problems for slave owners, who clung ever tighter to their traditions.
In 1850, Congress enacted the Fugitive Slave Act, which criminalized aiding and abetting escaped slaves on the grounds that escaped slaves were recognized as stolen property. Tightening the noose on slavery with the Fugitive Slave Act, the federal government lost a considerable amount of…...

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References

Bordewich, Fergus M. Bound for Canaan. New York: Harper Collins, 2005.

Coffin, Levi. Reminiscences of Levi Coffin: The Story of Jack Barnes. Retrieved online:  http://www.learnnc.org/lp/editions/levi-coffin/5356 

"Colored Troops, Under General Wild, Liberating Slaves in South Carolina," Harper's Weekly 7, no. 369 (23 January 1864): 52.

Douglass, Frederick. The Life and Times of Frederick Douglass. Courier Dover Publications, 2003.

underground railroad, harriet tubman involved underground railroad. history underground railroad state Indiana (Terre Haute).
A Run through the Underground Railroad

Slavery is one of the most important issues that helped shape American cultural identity, and, throughout time, there have been many famous people who helped slaves escape the terror in the South and reach Free states in the North of the United States of America or even in Canada.

Everything started at the end of the 18th century, when George Washington complained about how one of his slaves was assisted in escaping by a society of Quakers, which, according to what Washington said, was formed solely for this purpose: to help slaves escape the terror of their slaveholder. ut this happened in 1786. More important things were still to come with the new century.

Throughout the United States of America there were many people who were against slavery and who wanted to do anything…...

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Bibliography

1. Buckmaster, Henrietta. Let My People Go: The Story of the Underground Railroad and the Growth of the Abolitionist Movement. Retrieved from  http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Underground_Railroad.aspx 

2. Clinton, Catherine. Harriet Tubman: The Road to Freedom. Boston.

3. Dunn, Jacob Piat. Indiana and Indianans. Chicago & New York: The American Historical Society

4. Levi Coffin, Reminiscences of Levi Coffin. Retrieved from  http://www.pbs.org /wgbh/aia/part4/4h2946t.html

The Underground Railroad was an informal network of aide and assistance for those who would escape the bondage of slavery and seek freedom. Besides the Underground Railroad made famous by American History, other such systems have offered similar services. Until all persons in the world are free, Underground Railroads will operate in order to bring freedom and liberty to all human beings.

Anyone who as read Anne Frank's diary knows that an Underground Railroad similar to the one that existed in the United States helped Jews escape Nazi horrors during World War Two. Like the many men and women who risked their lives by helping the black slaves in the antebellum South run toward freedom, conductors of the Underground Railroads in Europe risked their lives helping Jews and others who were persecuted by the Nazis. In both cases, the conductors and others who participated were putting their lives and reputations on…...

Credibility
hat are the signs that a website has credibility and value to the researcher? hat specific information in a website's presentation lets the researcher know that this information is valid and verified? This portion of the paper explores the way in which websites are best evaluated and tested for validity.

ebsite Review and Evaluation

hen a researcher goes to Google and types in "evaluating website checklist," Google reports (in less than 2 seconds) that there are "About 760,000 results," or links, to sites that relate to that topic. Anyone that has used Google knows full well that all 760,000 of those links are not necessarily useful; and indeed there are bound to be repeat links among the 760,000 sites.

The shortest criterion for evaluating websites was put online by Avon Public Schools in Connecticut. There are eight ways to check information on websites (note: some schools spell it "web site" and others…...

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Works Cited

Avon Public Schools. (2000). Here are eight ways of checking information on web sites.

Retrieved February 28, 2013, from http://www.avon.k12.ct.us.

History. (2008). Underground Railroad. Retrieved February 28, 2013, from  http://www.history.com .

KCET. (2004). The Underground Railroad. Retrieved February 28, 2013, from  http://www.pbs.org .

What is the purpose of Foner’s introduction “Rethinking the Underground Railroad”? Brief background on Foner reveals he is a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian. The reason for the book is to relay the intense story of fugitive slaves along with the antislavery activists who went against the law to assist in helping the slaves find freedom. The introduction then helps explain this by talking about Frederick Bailey. Frederick Bailey and four of his friends, created and implemented a plan to abscond via canoe to make their way up north. Although they were caught, arrested, and then sent back to their owners, he began to plot his escape again. The initial failure led to the beginnings of what was the fight for freedom for slaves as Bailey became Frederick Douglass and led the cause for abolition in the United States.
Who are the Quakers and what was their involvement in the Underground Railroad?
Quakers at one-point…...

Underground Railroad Functioned and Assess Its Significance
During the 1850s, slaves had few alternatives in life --a slave could remain on the plantation of his/her master, come to terms with the idea of a life filled with frequent cruel physical punishments and grueling labor, and the possibility of one's family getting separated, (accompanied by the pain of watching family members being sold away). hile this wasn't necessarily the fate all slaves met, they could expect it, if they remained enslaved. The idea of escape was fraught with uncertainty. The slaves would be hunted either by the master himself or by cruel, professional slave hunters. If a runaway slave was caught, he was nearly always put to death; further, the other slaves (i.e., his coworkers in the plantation) were also punished and were, normally, made to witness the defiant slave's execution. Moreover, a run-away life wasn't at all easy. Even in…...

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Works Cited

Connors, Tiffany. "How the Underground Railroad Worked." HowStuffWorks. 28 Feb. 2008. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

Tubman, Harriet. "Underground Railroad."Underground Railroad. Web. 16 Oct. 2015.

d.). Therefore, the strength of his convictions and the acceptance of sacrifice create indeed a vivid impression of the character. Moreover, he openly admits the challenges facing his business and his ability to support his family, yet "yet my faith was not shaken, nor my efforts for the slaves lessened"(Coffin, n.d.). The power the belief in a higher authority that offered the blessing on the affairs he conducted represented the main argument which drove him forward and enabled him to make the efforts to set in place and conduct the Underground Railway.
The financial support he was able to have at his disposal was an essential element in the entire success of the initiative. This can be seen from the perspective of the system his partners and he managed to set in place. In this sense, they had at every moment a wagon stationed in the places slaves were considered to…...

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Bibliography

Jenkins, P. A history of the United States. New York: Palgrave, 1997.

Coffin, Levi. The underground railway.

Bloss, a Christian evangelist and labor activist who published a newspaper titled "Rights of Man" (Kaye, p. 147).
ere there others whose names are not well-known but who played an important role in the abolitionist movement? According to author Harvey J. Kaye, the co-editor of "Freedom's Journal" was an African-American named Samuel Cornish. Kaye writes (p. 147) that Cornish also launched his own abolitionist newspaper, "The Rights of All." Another free black man, David alker, from North Carolina, was "apparently moved by the Bible, the egalitarian spirit of the Declaration of Independence, and the revolutionary example of Paine's "Common Sense," started his own pamphlet that called on black slaves to "rise up against their white oppressors" (Kaye, p. 148). The pamphlet launched by alker was called: "An Appeal, in Four Articles, Together with a Preamble, to the Colored Citizens of the orld, but in Particular and Very Expressly to Those…...

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Works Cited

Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass: An American Slave.

Charleston, SC: Forgotten Books, 1845.

Kaye, Harvey J. Thomas Paine and the Promise of America. New York: Macmillan, 2006.

Lamme, Ary J. "Commemorative Language in Abolitionist Landscape Texts: New York's 'Burned-Over District'." Southeastern Geographer 48.3 (2008): 356-373.

Essay Topic Examples 1. Harriet Tubman: The Journey from Slavery to Freedom:
     This essay would explore the remarkable life of Harriet Tubman, focusing on her transformation from a slave to a conductor on the Underground Railroad. It would detail her brave escapes, the missions she led to rescue others, and the lasting impact of her work on the abolition movement and the Civil War.

2. The Tactical Genius of Harriet Tubman in the Underground Railroad:
     Discuss the intricate escape strategies and methods of communication Harriet Tubman utilized in her role as a conductor on the Underground Railroad. This essay would analyze her leadership qualities, use of geographic knowledge, and the risks she took to navigate enslaved people to safety.

3. Harriet Tubmans Advocacy for Womens Suffrage:
     An exploration of Harriet Tubman's contributions to the women's suffrage movement, detailing how she fought not only for the liberation of African Americans but also for gender…...

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Primary Sources

Still, William. The Underground Rail Road. Porter & Coates, 1872.

Tubman, Harriet. Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. W.J. Moses, Printer, 1869.

Bradford, Sarah H. Harriet Tubman: The Moses of Her People. Geo. R. Lockwood & Son, 1886.

“Harriet Tubman Papers.” Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library, Manuscripts and Archives Division.

Conductor on the Underground Railroad: Testimonies of H. Tubman & Others; executive documents printed by the order of the Senate of the United States. Second session of the thirty-eighth Congress; 1864-\'65.

Real Harriet Tubman
Harriet Tubman -- Journal Article Review

The stories, myths, and facts surrounding Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad may seem to be a settled matter to the public, but this is far from true (Larson 9). Over the past several decades, historians have been sifting through primary source material for additional information about Tubman's contributions to the Underground Railroad during the Pre-Civil ar period. The routes that Tubman used ran through Maryland, Delaware, Pennsylvania, and New York to St. Catharines in Canada. This journal article will examine this new evidence and the arguments presented by Kate Larson to justify her findings and conclusions.

A New Perspective

Larson lists various types of primary source material documenting the Underground Railroad and sounds surprised that historians had, until recently, largely ignored this wealth of information (9-10). These sources revealed that there were scores of men and women who took great risks to ensure that the…...

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Works Cited

Larson, Kate Clifford. "Racing for Freedom: Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad Network through New York." Afro-Americans in New York Life and History 36.1 (2012): 7-33.

Slavery
According to the Concise Oxford English Dictionary, a slave is a 'person who is the legal property of another or others and is bound to absolute obedience' (Blackburn 262).

To be very concise, slavery is the opposite of freedom. A 'liberated' individual possesses all the freedom to enjoy basic human rights of citizenship, profession choice and lifestyle. Not only this, he has all the rights of security of self and property. On the contrary, the slave is a hereditary chattel who can be legally punished, sold or transferred, controlled and separated from the loved ones. Both his productive and reproductive capacities are exploited by the master. Thus, a slave doesn't have any right that a 'free' individual holds. Slaves belong to a different economic group; totally separated with the 'independent' working class (Campbell viii).

Slavery can be described as an institution that is founded on a relationship of control and obedience. This…...

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References

Blackburn, Robin. "Eighteen Defining Slavery -- its Special Features and Social Role."Slavery and Other Forms of Unfree Labour. Ed. LEonie J. Archer. London: Routledge, 1988. 262-276. Questia. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.

Campbell, Gwyn, ed. The Structure of Slavery in Indian Ocean Africa and Asia. London: Frank Cass, 2004. Questia. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.

"Historic Timeline of Slavery and the Underground Railroad." National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. U.S. Department of Education Underground Railroad Educational and Cultural (URR) Program, n.d. Web. 6 Dec 2011. .

"History of Man from the Start Is Blighted by Slavery." South Wales Echo (Cardiff, Wales) 18 Sept. 2006: 10. Questia. Web. 6 Dec. 2011.

Primary Source Material Analysis: Harriet Tubman
Mrs. Sarah H. Bradford wrote a small book in 1868 for the purpose of raising funds to benefit Harriet Tubman's efforts to buy a house and support herself and her aging parents (Introduction). This book was composed immediately before Bradford set sail for Europe in 1868 and its publication costs were covered by several benefactors. The book is remarkable because it is written by a hite abolitionist and suffragist who had become acquainted with Harriet's work on the Underground Railroad through friends and associates.

The stories that Bradford included in the book were corroborated through independent sources and therefore represent a collection of accounts detailing Harriet's struggle to move her family and other slaves north to freedom in Canada along the Underground Railroad. To substantiate the veracity of these accounts Bradford includes in the preface several letters attesting to Harriet's contributions, including one from Frederick Douglass…...

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Works Cited

Bradford, Sarah H. Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman. 1869. Salem, NH: Ayer Company, 1992. Print.

Miller, Anne Fitzhugh and Miller, Elizabeth Smith. Miller NAWSA Suffrage Scrapbooks, 1897-1911. Scrapbook 1905-1906. Library of Congress, Rare Book and Special Collections Division, Washington, D.C. Web. 9 Sep. 2013.  http://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D-rbcmillerbib:3:./temp/~ammem_fED1 ::

Tubman, Harriet. "General Affidavit" [Claim of Harriet Tubman: General affidavit of Harriet Tubman Davis regarding payment for services rendered during the Civil War]. The Center for Legislative Archives, National Archives, c. 1898. Web. 9 Sep. 2013.  http://www.archives.gov/legislative/features/claim-of-harriet-tubman/ .

Additionally, it has been observed that the Obama Administration's approach differs from the Bush Administration in that the latter was more short-sighted in its anti-trafficking goals (Ditmore, 2009). The Bush Administration was focused primarily on combating sex trafficking, while the Obama Administration aims to address a wider array of abusive labor practices (Ditmore, 2009). The aims of the Obama Administration reach for wider public support and attempting to deal with the problem more effectively by addressing important, related abusive practices.
States are also playing a critical role in anti-trafficking measures. State and local law enforcement officials are working on combating human trafficking (National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, 2010). Many states have their own human trafficking legislation (National Underground Railroad Freedom Center, 2010). Maryland is also committed to anti-trafficking measures. In particular, the Attorney General of Maryland, the Baltimore City State's Attorney, and the U.S. Attorney's Office created a Human Trafficking…...

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Works Cited

Ditmore, Melissa. (June 2009). The sweep of modern-day slavery. Guardian. Retrieved from  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/560/10/ .

Maryland Human Trafficking Task Force. (April 2010). Human Trafficking. Retrieved from http://www.justice.gov/usao/md/Human-Trafficking/index.html.

National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. (February 2010). Anti-Human Trafficking

Efforts on the Home Front Remain a Work in Progress. Retrieved from  http://freedomcenter.org/freedom-forum/index.php/2010/02/progress-slow-fighting-domestic-human-trafficking/ .

Lincoln-Douglas Debates and Politics in the Mid-19th Century
To the Editor of the Freeport Press:

I am writing today to express my strong support for Abraham Lincoln's candidacy in the upcoming Senatorial elections. There are many reasons why I have decided to vote for a Republican -- going against my life-long commitment to the Democratic Party -- not the least of which is the way in which Lincoln stood up to the demagoguery of Mr. Douglas. While Lincoln showed great skill at oratory, Douglas' dirty tactics and his obsession with the idea that Negroes are less than human have contributed to my decision in this election.

In fact, when Douglass loudly asserted that Republicans who supported an end to slavery were something akin to demons, I was outraged. When Douglas said he would "…nail it [Republican platforms] upon the back of every Black Republican in the state," he alienated me, my friends, and…...

McCoy received a United States patent for this device on June 23, 1872. (AfricaWithin.com)
McCoy's lubricating cup proved adaptable to other types of steam engines, which were used in factories and at sea. Versions of this cup became standard components on many types of heavy machinery, entering service on railways of the West, on Great Lakes steamships, and even on transatlantic liners. (AfricaWithin.com)

McCoy began inventing other mechanisms. In 1892, McCoy invented devices to lubricate railroad locomotives. In the 1920s, McCoy applied his lubricating system to airbrakes used on locomotives and other vehicles using air brakes. Almost all of McCoy's patents related to automatic lubrication, with the exception of a patent for an ironing table and a lawn sprinkler.

McElrath)

As bigger, heavier and more powerful locomotives were built, rather than use oil alone as a lubricant, designers preferred to mix the oil with powdered graphite, a form of carbon. Powdered graphite is…...

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Bibliography

AfricaWithin.com. "Elijah McCoy." 2001. Africa Within. 27 January 2009  http://www.africawithin.com/bios/elijah_mccoy.htm .

Lemelson MIT Program - Inventor of the Week. May 1996. 27 January 2009  http://web.mit.edu/invent/iow/mccoy.html .

McElrath, Jessica. "Elijah McCoy." n.d. About.com - African-American History. 27 January 2009 http://afroamhistory.about.com/od/elijahmccoy/p/bio_mccoy_e.htm.

Northern California Council of Black Professional Engineers. Elijah McCoy. 09 October 2007.

Harriet Tubman has always been a great choice for an essay topic because her life story is dynamic, interesting, and incredibly inspiring.  Born into slavery, Tubman not only escaped, but also risked her own freedom returning to the South in order to help others escape from slavery using the Underground Railroad.  She deserves respect as one of the country’s leading freedom fighters, but it took decades for her story to be fully told.  A full-length movie describing her life was only released in 2020 and while most people recognize her as a....

The Forgotten Chapters of American History: Uncovering Lesser-Known but Captivating Essay Topics

Beyond the familiar narratives of the American Revolution, Civil War, and westward expansion, American history is a tapestry woven with countless lesser-known stories that offer valuable insights and provoke thought. Here are some intriguing essay topics that illuminate hidden aspects of our nation's past:

1. The Forgotten Pioneers: Exploring the Contributions of Women in the Transcontinental Railroad

While the construction of the transcontinental railroad is often attributed to male workers, over a thousand women played a crucial role as cooks, laundresses, nurses, and telegraph operators. Their contributions were essential to the....

Certainly! Here are five potential essay topics related to Harriet Tubman:

1. The Leadership and Activism of Harriet Tubman: Explore the ways in which Harriet Tubman's leadership and activism contributed to the abolitionist movement and the fight for civil rights.

2. Harriet Tubman's Role in the Underground Railroad: Analyze Harriet Tubman's contributions to the Underground Railroad and the impact her actions had on the lives of enslaved individuals seeking freedom.

3. Harriet Tubman and the Women's Rights Movement: Discuss Harriet Tubman's involvement in the women's rights movement and her advocacy for gender equality in addition to racial equality.

4. The Legacy of Harriet Tubman:....

1. The Underground Railroad: Harriet Tubman's Journey to Freedom and the Network of Allies She Created:

Explore Harriet Tubman's personal journey to freedom from slavery and the obstacles she faced along the way.
Investigate the Underground Railroad, its routes, and the network of individuals who supported it.
Analyze Tubman's leadership and organizational skills in coordinating the Underground Railroad and facilitating the escape of enslaved people.

2. Harriet Tubman's Influence on the Abolitionist Movement and the Civil War:

Examine Tubman's involvement in the abolitionist movement, including her speeches, writings, and political activism.
Explore her role as a spy and scout for the....