For the many African Americans who lived in the Slave States prior to and during the American Civil War, the Underground Railroad provided them the opportunity and assistance for escaping slavery and finding freedom. One of the most curious characteristics of the Underground Railroad was its lack of formal organization. No one knows exactly when it started, but there were certainly isolated cases of help given to runaways as early as the 1700s. By the early 19th century, there were organized flights to freedom. Much of the early help was provided by Quaker abolitionists in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. ( The Underground Railroad was not a railroad. In fact very few escapes took place on the railroad. It was a name given to a movement of people, both black and white, who risked their lives helping slaves to escape.)

The Freedom Sympathizers and Fighters

As early as 1786, organizations had been founded to protest the practice of slavery in the United States. For instance, the Pennsylvania Abolition society, whose members included George Washington, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Paine and the Marquis de Lafayette, was one of the many abolitionist groups that assisted fugitive slaves in their attempts to find freedom in the Free States. People who contributed to the cause of emancipation or freeing of slaves were called "abolitionists."