Free blacks settled in Madison as early as 1820. In the growing black community in this area, later called Georgetown, they began businesses and organized churches and schools. Risking their own freedom, some free black residents actively aided slaves seeking freedom, and a few had to flee from Madison themselves in the late 1840s. Despite the danger, after the late 1840s some free blacks in Madison continued to aid freedom seekers. The Underground Railroad was a widespread network of diverse people in the nineteenth century who aided slaves escaping to freedom from the southern U.S.