{"id":322,"date":"2018-05-05T16:24:30","date_gmt":"2018-05-05T20:24:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/?p=322"},"modified":"2018-05-10T18:22:13","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T22:22:13","slug":"slavery-and-the-underground-railroad","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/2018\/05\/slavery-and-the-underground-railroad\/","title":{"rendered":"6. Slavery and The Underground Railroad"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The institution of slavery was established in Virginia in 1619\u00a0and quickly spread throughout the colonies. It was very\u00a0profitable for landowners, especially those who owned\u00a0successful crop producing plantations. First enacted in\u00a01793, the Fugitive Slave Act was in response to a series of\u00a0slave revolts. Governments and residents of free states were\u00a0required to help catch and return runaways.<\/p>\n<p>Many free states defied the law, allowing an Underground\u00a0Railroad to function under immense pressure. The term\u00a0\u201cUnderground Railroad\u201d figuratively refers to a resistance\u00a0movement that used railway terminologies, including\u00a0conductors (guides) and way stations (hideouts). It served\u00a0as a network of safe houses and secret routes used by\u00a0enslaved Africans to escape into free states and Canada\u00a0with the help of abolitionists. Escaped slaves traveled on\u00a0foot or by wagon with information passed along by word\u00a0of mouth. By the end of the 1850s, approximately 100,000\u00a0slaves managed to escape.<\/p>\n<p>During this time, several influential books were written\u00a0by African-Americans. In 1773, Phillis Wheatley, a freed\u00a0slave originally from West Africa, became the first African-\u00a0American to publish a book in the U.S. Of her many poems,<em>\u00a0On Being Brought from Africa to America<\/em> speaks about\u00a0slavery. Freed slave Gustavus Vassa published one of the\u00a0first slave narratives in 1789, an autobiography titled <em>The\u00a0Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-371 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-5-1024x420.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"420\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-5-1024x420.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-5-300x123.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-5-768x315.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-372 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-6-1024x603.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"603\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-6-1024x603.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-6-300x177.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-6-768x452.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-373 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-7-1024x521.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"521\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-7-1024x521.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-7-300x153.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-7-768x391.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-374 size-large\" src=\"http:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-8-1024x469.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"1024\" height=\"469\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-8-1024x469.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-8-300x137.jpg 300w, https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/files\/2018\/04\/treeflowersmiami-8-768x352.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<div class=\"mh-excerpt\"><p>The institution of slavery was established in Virginia in 1619\u00a0and quickly spread throughout the colonies. It was very\u00a0profitable for landowners, especially those who owned\u00a0successful crop <a class=\"mh-excerpt-more\" href=\"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/2018\/05\/slavery-and-the-underground-railroad\/\" title=\"6. Slavery and The Underground Railroad\">[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":2408,"featured_media":371,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,8],"class_list":["post-322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-online-exhibition","tag-slavery","tag-underground-railroad"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2408"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":453,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322\/revisions\/453"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/371"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.miamioh.edu\/tellingapeoplesstory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}