Take your students on a trip on the Underground Railroad, the loosely organized routes to freedom used by fugitive slaves before and during the Civil War. This extraordinary collection of primary source documents, including narratives by Underground Railroad conductors and runaway slaves; a full-color Antebellum map showing slave and free states; runaway slave advertisements; a freedom certificate; abolitionist broadsides; a plan of the Canadian Elgin Settlement; and the Joint Resolution of Congress, signed by Abraham Lincoln, submitting the proposed 13th Amendment to the states for ratification, graphically illustrates the political, economic and human aspects of slavery as well as the courage and ingenuity of runaway slaves and those who helped guide them to freedom. Historians: Michael Fulton and Regina Krieger Fulton. The contents of this Jackdaw feature:

Broadsheets

• “Negroes for Sale”: A Brief History of Slavery in the United States
• Laying Tracks for an Underground Railroad
• Fighting Slavery above Ground
• The Train to Freedom

Timeline: 1619-1879
Map: Major U.S. Underground Railroad Routes
Stories from the Underground Railroad

Historical Documents

• Runaway slave advertisements and reward poster, 1736-1837.
• Anti-abolition handbill, 1837.
• “Song of the Abolitionist,” William Lloyd Garrison, 1841.
• Front page of The North Star, June 2, 1848.
• Certificate of freedom of Harriet Bolling, 1851.
• Anti-slave catcher’s mass convention broadside, 1854.
• Broadside warning of slave catchers, 1851.
• Antebellum map showing free and slave states, 1856.
• Page from the Boston Vigilance Committee handbook, c. 1854.
• Excerpt from The Underground Railroad, William Still, 1879.
• Detail from the Elgin Settlement Plan, 1866.
• Excerpt from Reminiscences of Levi Coffin, Levi Coffin, 1876.
• Joint Resolution of Congress submitting the proposed 13th Amendment to state legislatures for ratification, February 1, 1865.
• Photo-poster: “Underground Railroad: The Train to Freedom.”

Reproducible Student Activities