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The Underground Railroad Reconsidered Summary

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The Underground Railroad was a secret network of safe houses that organized by people who helped runaway men, women and children slaves. From the years 1780 until the beginning of the Civil War in 1861 enslaved individuals would run away in hopes to receive help from the free and reach their way up into the northern part of the United States. Many historians have approached this topic in several perspectives. Daniel O. Sayers “The Underground Railroad Reconsidered” provides an overview of the Underground Railroad as a long-term of African-American defiance and marronage. It analyses the political economic impacts across the slave owning sectors, the slave’s culture and the influence of religion on the Underground Railroad. In another perspective, …show more content…

Lottie Jones Hood’s approach starts off by introducing herself to the International Congregational Journal and giving her reasons of interest in this topic. Hood begins by stating: “ There would have been no Underground Railroad in the United States had there been no Trans Atlantic Slave Trade in the global economy of the world”, (Hood, 48). Historical background on the Transatlantic Slave Trade is then provided by Hood in which she addresses that the Europeans and African nations engaged in an economic practice that enslaved many millions of Africans between the years 1441 through 1888 (Hood, 49). She also addresses that voyage for those enslaved and taken by the British; the famous Middle Passage took around six to eight weeks and slaved who survived the horribly described voyage were sold off in the markets as slaves (Hood, 50). More historical context is the provided by her in which she states that the first Africans were brought to North America to Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. She addresses that resistance to enslavement began the moment of enslavement (Hood, 51). “Slaved were forbidden from carrying guns, taking food, striking their masters, and running away” states Hood as she mentions the slave codes that the government put in tack only for slaves. Such laws and harsh treatment, according to Hood, led for slaves to fight for freedom; “It is the nature of all living creatures to want to be free” (Hood,

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