7 Pervasive Myths About the Underground Railroad That Have Been Debunked

It Was the Right-Thinking Quakers Who Led It The Quakers and other Caucasians were active in the abolition movement and with the Underground Railroad. However, it was predominantly run by free Black people from the North, especially in its earliest years. William Still from Philadelphia was at the forefront of the movement, with Harriet Tubman, Levi Coffin, Thomas Garrett, Calvin Fairbank and Charles Torrey. They were the true heroes of the Underground Railroad. Still rescued 649 fugitives sheltered in Philadelphia, including 16 who arrived on one day alone, June 1, 1855, according to historian David Blight. The Railroad Ran Throughout the South The Underground Railroad was primarily a Northern phenomenon. It operated mainly in the free states, which only makes sense, according to "Pathways to Freedom," an extensive study on the Underground Railroad. Fugitive enslaved people were largely on their own until they crossed the Ohio River or the Mason-Dixon Line, where they reached the so-called free states. It was then that the Underground Railroad and its “conductors” or “engineers” could take effect. There Were Underground Tunnels Sounds intriguing, but not true. Most fugitive enslaved people seeking freedom escaped during the deep, dark night, and not through tunnels, which would have taken years to build and cost way too much to construct, according to the documentary Many Rivers on PBS. A few homes in the North had secret passageways or hidden rooms in which the enslaved could be concealed, but no tunnels. Freedom Quilts? Legend goes that the enslaved family had the forward-thinking to craft a quilt that they used to send messages about supposed routes on the Underground Railroad in the North, places they had never traveled. Not logical — or true, according to quilthistory.com. There were times when messages were delivered at Black church gatherings and prayer meetings, but not about the day and time that Tubman would be coming to town, according to the Many Rivers documentary. The risk of betrayal about individual escapes and collective rebellions was too great. Around 25,000 Used the Railroad Some scholars estimate that 25,000 is a little low, that more like 40,000 enslaved people traveled via the Underground Railroad to freedom, maybe even 50,000. The National Underground Railroad Freedom Center in Cincinnati says the number could be as high as 100,000, according to Elizabeth Pierce, an official there. Families Escaped According to John Hope Franklin and Loren Schweninger, scholars of the Underground Railroad, families rarely stayed together when escaping through the Underground Railroad. Eighty percent of the escapees were young males in their teens and 20s who generally absconded alone, they said, and between 1838 and 1860, 95 percent of the enslaved fled alone. Young enslaved women were much less likely to run away because of their family and child-rearing responsibilities. Entire families with children did attempt flights to freedom, but such instances were rare, Franklin and Schweninger say. Code Language Many believe that enslaved Africans invented their own language to communicate in front of plantation owners about escape attempts without them knowing. This was a myth, however. Reality, according to Many Rivers, was that, for reasons of safety, privacy, security and protection, most enslaved people ran seeking freedom on their own. They did not inform many outside their families about their plans for fear of betrayal.

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