United States History Student Edition

in Akron, Ohio, in 1851. Although the speech is often referred to as Truth’s “Ain’t I a Woman?” speech, it is unclear if she actually spoke those words in her address. In the speech, Truth spoke of women’s strengths and of the difficult tasks she herself had carried out in her life as being equal to the strength of and work done by men. She also noted the growing prominence of the struggles of women and enslaved people for freedom and rights. The Underground Railroad Abolitionists sometimes risked prison and death to help African Americans escape slavery. They helped create a network of escape routes from the South to the North called the Underground Railroad. The “passengers” on the Underground Railroad were escaping African Americans. They traveled by night, often on foot, guided by the North Star. During the day they rested and hid at “stations”— barns, basements, attics, and other hiding places protected by sympathetic whites.

The railroad’s “conductors” were whites and African Americans who guided the runaways to successive stations and eventually to freedom in the Northern states or Canada. Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor. Estimates of the number of escapees who fled on the Underground Railroad range from 25,000 to as many as 100,000. It gave hope to many more. 7 CHECK FOR UNDERSTANDING 1. Describing What were Underground Railroad “stations”? 2. Explaining In what way did Frederick Douglass’s ideals and goals go further than those of many other abolitionists of the time? Reaction to Abolitionists GUIDING QUESTION Who opposed the abolition of slavery? Abolitionist activism stirred strong reactions among white Southerners who believed abolition threatened their way of life. Even in the North, only a minority of white people supported abolition.

Harriet Tubman (left) stands with family members, some of whom she led to freedom on the Underground Railroad.

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