6 Strategies Harriet Tubman and Others Used to Escape Along the Underground Railroad

Question 1

Escaping often involved…..

Answer 1

leaving behind family and heading into the complete unknown, where harsh weather and lack of food might await.

Question 2

So-called slave catchers and their dogs roamed both sides of the ________ - _________ ______, nabbing runaways—and sometimes free Black people like _________ _________—and transporting them back to the plantation, where they would be whipped, beaten, branded or killed.

Answer 2

Mason-Dixon line, Solomon Northup

Question 3

Yet those willing to brave the risks did have one main ally: the ___________ ____________ , a vast, loosely organized network of constantly-changing routes that guided Black people to freedom.

Answer 3

Underground Railroad

Question 4

All told, in the decades preceding the ______ _______, up to 100,000 Black people escaped slavery.

Answer 4

Civil War

Question 5

Some went to Mexico or Spanish-controlled ______ or ______ ____ ___ _____ _____________.Most, though, traveled to the Northern free states or Canada.

Answer 5

Florida , hid out in the wilderness.

Question 6

The luckiest, however, followed so-called “conductors,” such as _____ ______, who, after escaping slavery in 1849, devoted herself fully to the Underground Railroad.

Answer 6

Harriet Tubman,

Question 7

Like her fellow conductors, Tubman cultivated a _________ ________ ___________ including so-called “stationmasters,” who stashed her charges in barns and other safe houses along the way.

Answer 7

network of collaborators

Question 8

She would, for example, _____ ______ _____, or mimic an owl, to signify when it was time to escape or when it was too dangerous to come out of hiding. She also mailed coded letters and sent along messengers.

Answer 8

sing certain songs

Question 9

In Georgia, a light-skinned _______ ______ _______ ___ ___ _______ ________ ________, with bandages on her face and her right arm in a sling, while her darker-skinned husband pretended to be under her possession.

Answer 9

enslaved woman posed as an injured white gentleman

Question 10

______ _______ likewise escaped slavery hiding in plain sight.

Answer 10

Frederick Douglass

Question 11

Desperate to avoid her master’s unwanted sexual advances, one enslaved woman ___ ____ ______ _________ in an attic crawlspace.

Answer 11

hid for seven years

Question 12

Another lodged _____ ______ ___ _______ ________and shipped himself from Richmond, Virginia, to abolitionists in Philadelphia.

Answer 12

himself inside a wooden crate

Question 13

For much of its length, though, the Underground Railroad operated openly and brazenly, despite the passage of the 1850 ______ ____ ____, which mandated harsh punishments for those found to have aided runaways.

Answer 13

Fugitive Slave Act

Question 14

Meanwhile, so-called “stockholders” raised money for the Underground Railroad, funding _____ ______ ________that provided ex-slaves with food, clothing, money, lodging and job-placement services.

Answer 14

anti-slavery societies

Question 15

At times, abolitionists would simply buy an enslaved person’s freedom, as they did with ………

Answer 15

Sojourner Truth.

Question 16

When all else failed, Underground Railroad participants would occasionally form large groups to _______ ______ fugitive enslaved people from captivity and intimidate slave catchers into returning home empty-handed.

Answer 16

forcibly liberate

Question 17

Perhaps not surprisingly, _______ _______was among those who favored brute force.

Answer 17

John Brown

Question 18

Prior to his failed ________ ____ ________ _______, Brown led a group of armed abolitionists into Missouri, where they rescued 11 enslaved people and killed an enslaver.

Answer 18

revolt in Harpers Ferry