What was the Underground Railroad Movement?

I'm not sure that it will ever be possible to arrive at a definition that will be acceptable to all, but it is useful to have a working definition so that we can at least say we are playing in the same ballpark.

Here's my attempt. I see the Underground Railroad as a subset of a larger set of cases of people, individually or in groups, "self emancipating" themselves from enslavement by flight.

I think we need three elements:

1. Assistance-- aid in some form (directions, food, shelter, transportation) given to the freedom seeker from someone who is aware that the person involved is, or is likely to be an enslaved person.

This does omit people who reached freedom totally on their own initiative. However, in practical terms of studying the Underground Railroad, we often don't know whether, or to what extent, a fugitive received aid. William Still's book is filled with accounts of people who we know were enslaved and we know they arrived in Philadelphia, but in most cases we have little or no idea how they got from one place to another. In some cases, we will be able to find more information, particularly as we share research problems on this and other forms.

For the purposes of understanding the Underground Railroad, it seems
important to know about all those who escaped. It would be very interesting to know, for example, what portion of the self emancipated did connect with Underground Railroad networks, and for what portion of their travels.

I said above that the recipient of aid was someone who might likely be a fugitive. There do seem to be cases of "don't ask, don't tell" as well as reluctance of some freedom seekers to share their stories with people they just met and have no particular reason to trust. There is an account of a Quaker iron maker in the neighborhood of Christiana, Pennsylvania, who claimed not to have been involved with the anti-slavery movement before 1851. His future wife and future in-laws were involved in the Underground Railroad. However, this individual also employed people who turned out to be "fugitives from labor." He didn't ask, they didn't tell, but he provided support and legal aid when some of them were being pursued. Is an employer who provides jobs for newly arrived freedom seekers part of the Underground Railroad therefore part of the Underground Railroad? Is it a question of motives?

2. Connections-- if a person gave food, or allowed him or her to sleep in their barn, knowing the recipient of the aid was a fugitive or likely to be a fugitive, it is certainly assistance, but I think for the helper to be counted as part of the Underground Railroad, that person had to be able to point the fugitive to another "station"

Aiding the hungry man at the door is an act of compassion; being able to send him toward a place of safety suggests organized compassion, e.g. being part of the Underground Railroad.

In my thinking (at this point), these connections may not have had to think of themselves as an organized Underground Railroad. I've been looking recently into fugitive slave cases in Chester and Lancaster Counties of Pennsylvania, and the areas of most reported Underground Railroad activities was also the area that had lots of Quakers, lots of African-Americans (as a proportion of the population in 1850 and 1860, much higher than Philadelphia at the same time), and African-Union Churches. Traveling through this region may have been a matter for some of traveling on the organized "Underground Railroad" from station to station, or it might also have been a matter of linking up with people who were likely to be friendly who could point them out to someone down the road who would not turn them away.

3. Continunity -- I think to be considered part of the Underground Railroad a person or place needs to have been involved more than once. This seems a practical matter-- in looking at Wilbur Siebert's raw data, he sometimes lists people as Underground Railroad agents on the basis of a single incident. Should a person be considered part of the Underground Railroad because he helped one person at one time and perhaps never saw another fugitive? On the other hand, if someone was part of a network pledged to aid fugitives-- a Vigilance Committee, or an anti-slavery society or a church that went on public record to say that they would aid fugitives-- then perhaps one incident is enough. If normally fugitives are sent from Frank to George, but Mike has offered to provide refuge if ever it is needed (but never called upon), Mike does seem to be part of the URR network.