Throughout the United States’ involvement in the slave trade, nearly 400,000 slaves in the United States were transported from West Africa to the colonies. However, it is estimated that around 100,000 slaves escaped using the Underground Railroad in the late 18th Century to the early 19th century. The Underground Railroad was a network of routes containing safehouses for slaves trying to escape to the North or Canada. Many families would have secret rooms where they would be able to hide slaves on their path to freedom. In addition to these fugitive slaves, some Southern masters gave their slaves emancipation. One of the most common cases of this was when the slaves were mixed race. Many master’s would free their mulatto children to avoid being forced to whip and punish them.
In the United States, African Americans have been used as slaves for decades been white men. But some slaves have been able to buy or gain their freedom from the slave owners. Even though they are free they still will have to watch their backs for slave owners who might kidnap them because The Fugitive Act of 1850 allowed civilians and bounty hunters to legally capture
…show more content…
In the early 1830s, a Virginia law was passed prohibiting the teaching of all blacks to read or write. Free African-Americans could not even testify in court, If a slave-catcher claimed that a free black man or woman was a slave, the accused could not defend himself in court. Free blacks happened to be highly skilled as artisans, business people, educators, writers, planters musicians, tailors, hairdressers, and cooks. However, they faced discrimination in hiring practices. Getting a job was tough due to the fact that European immigrants made up a large part of the skilled and unskilled task force. Freed African-Americans who faced unemployment were at risk of being sold back into