Name __________________________
Period _____
Underground Railroad
60 Points
Answer the following questions in complete sentences except where you can fill in
the blank. Answer each question as completely as possible.
1. It is believed that as many as _______________ (#) slaves traveled the invisible rails of
the Underground Railroad.
2. In 1526, _______________ (nationality) settlers brought the first indentured servants to
North America from Africa. Before the Revolutionary War, slavery was legal in all
thirteen of the original colonies and in _______________.
3. The earliest slaves looking for freedom in the 1600s and 1700s attempted to escape to the
West or to the _______________ (direction). ____________________ Americans were
the enslaved Africans’ first allies.
4. As early as 1693, Spain was willing to grant sanctuary in ____________________ to
African runaways who would fight for them and convert to Catholicism.
5. After the Revolution, slavery was concentrated in the South where _______________
was king. By 1786, _______________ (#) Northern states and territories had abolished
slavery or had legislated gradual emancipation. By the early 1800s, crossing the
_______________-Dixon Line became the goal of most slaves seeking freedom.
6. “________________ Joe” wrote the slave song “Follow the Drinking Gourd.” What was
the drinking gourd? What did the song’s lyrics instruct escaping slaves to do (be specific)?
7. If a white man grasped his _______________ as a black man passed by, it meant “follow
me to a safe house.” There were also secret ____________________ to identify friends.
8. To many, abolitionist was just another word for ____________________. Abolitionism
started in the late __________ (decade) and early __________ (decade).
9. People aiding a fugitive slave justified breaking a federal law by saying that they were
following a higher law—the law of _______________.
10. In _______________ (city) in 1828, William Lloyd Garrison began publishing America’s
first abolitionist weekly newspaper, The ____________________.
11. _________________________ brought slavery alive for people who had never seen a
black person before. His anti-slavery newspaper was called The ____________________.
12. Between 1840 and 1861, William Still and his family harbored over 2,700 runaway slaves
at their home in ____________________ (city). Still wrote down the personal
____________________ of hundreds of fugitive slaves. What happened when William’s
brother Peter returned to the South? Who was Seth Conklin and what happened to him?
13. In 1848, Henry “_______________” Brown was placed in a crate by an accomplice and
shipped by train from Richmond to Philadelphia. His 26-hour journey was especially
uncomfortable because he was shipped ____________________.
14. Brown’s accomplice, Samuel Smith, served _______________ (#) years in prison, but
never _______________ his actions.
15. What two means of transportation did William and Ellen Craft use to travel north?
16. The _________________________ Act of 1850 was supposed to appease Southern
slaveholders by making it easier to retrieve their runaways in the North.
17. African communities were concerned that past runaways would be _________________
and sent to the South (with those who had never been enslaved).
18. Jonathan Walker was ordered by a federal court to have his hand branded with the letters
__________, which stood for _________________________.
19. African Americans in _______________ in 1850 could own businesses, expect fair
treatment in court, and most importantly, vote. By the end of the Civil War, more than
__________ (#) African-Americans had resettled there.
20. Harriet Tubman was described as “the _______________ of her people.” In 1849,
Tubman vowed she had a right to either liberty or _______________.
21. Tubman returned south some _______________ (#) times to personally conduct as
many as __________ (#) fugitives—including members of her own family—to freedom.
Planters in Maryland offered a $ _______________ reward for Tubman’s capture.
22. What was the goal of slaves in Mississippi, Louisiana, Missouri and Kentucky? Why was
this potentially a problem for most African Americans?
23. Ripley, Ohio was known as ____________________ Town, U.S.A. The house of
Reverend John Rankin was found atop ____________________ Hill. For 40 years,
Rankin and his family harbored as many as _______________ (#) fugitive slaves.
24. Kentucky slave-owners offer a $2,500 reward for the ____________________ or the
____________________ of Reverend Rankin.
25. _________________________ was another resident of Ripley who quietly helped slaves
escaping to freedom. It took him twenty years to raise the $_______________ to buy his
freedom in 1845. He went on to send four of his children to __________________. The
title of his autobiography was His ____________________ Land.
26. By the mid-1850s, black _______________ became the unofficial “post offices” of the
Underground Railroad. Black _______________ were the mail carriers.
27. The population of Oberlin, Ohio—site of the first integrated, co-educational
_______________—was made up of Quakers, free blacks, and abolitionists.
28. Uncle Tom’s Cabin sold more than _______________ (#) copies in less than a year. The
fugitive slave girl at the heart of the novel was named ____________________.
29. In 1854, the trial of fugitive slave Anthony Burns led to riots in _______________ (city).
President Franklin Pierce called out the _______________ to secure Burns. It is
estimated that it finally cost the federal government between $20,000 and
$_______________ to return Burns to slavery in the South.
30. Chief Justice Roger B. Taney’s decision in the ____________________ case in 1857
reduced all slaves to nothing more than _______________.
31. The “Oberlin-Wellington Rescue of 1858” inspired ____________________, one of
Oberlin’s native sons. He thought some sort of _______________ resistance or some
sort of overt act was necessary to begin a physical end to slavery.
32. The Civil War was not the first time that blacks chose up sides in a battle for freedom on
American soil, but it was the first time they would _______________. After the signing
of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the Underground Railroad shifted its focus
and abolition societies became ____________________ organizations.
33. Harriet Tubman was a ________________, scout, and a Union army _______________
during the Civil War. Tubman died at the age of 93 on _____________________ (date).
34. _________________________ eventually served as U.S. Marshal of the District of
Columbia and then U.S. minister to Haiti.
35. John P. Parker lost his business to an _______________ fire. All of his children became
____________________. When William Still died in 1902, the ____________________
(newspaper) called him the “Father of the Underground Railroad.”
36. By the time of the Civil War, there were four million enslaved in a nation that was
supposed to be priding itself on _______________.