The Underground Railroad

The Underground Railroad was a network of people and religious groups, including whites, free blacks, fugitive slaves, Native Americans, Quakers, Methodists, and Baptists, organized to provide safety and comfort to slaves escaping to freedom. The work was dangerous, and over the years dozens of agents were jailed for aiding escaping slaves. Although Delaware was legally a slave state, more than fifteen Underground Railroad stations have been identified there, reflecting the moral courage of many of its citizens. In the Wilmington area, Harriet Tubman, a black fugitive slave conductor, and Thomas Garrett, a white Quaker stationmaster, were critical links. Because Wilmington was a key transportation hub to points north, it was one of the most dangerous passages for fugitive slaves, and Frederick Douglass later recalled it as the last point of imminent danger in his own escape. Crossing the Market Street bridge was especially perilous because it was the only public roadway across the Christina River into Wilmington and an ideal checkpoint for pursuing runaway slaves. On one occasion, Tubman and the fugitives with her hid south of the river while Garrett sent two wagons loaded with straw and a team of bricklayers over the bridge to meet them, and hours later the wagons returned into Wilmington with Tubman and the fugitives hidden under the straw while the bricklayers shouted and laughed as if they had been celebrating all day, allowing them to avoid capture. Garrett, a Wilmington iron merchant, devoted his life to the abolition of slavery beginning in 1820 and over the next four decades helped more than 2,000 blacks reach freedom despite threats and the loss of all his property after a heavy court fine in 1848. Tubman, after escaping from slavery in Maryland in 1848, made 19 trips into the South over the next decade and led nearly 300 slaves to freedom, later serving as a spy for the Union army during the Civil War while continuing to aid runaway slaves and eluding capture despite a large bounty on her head.

Wilmington, Delaware · United States