Freedom seeker

While African Americans were in physical bondage, the minds and spirits of these individuals remained free. The terminology used in the "Learn About the Underground Railroad" section of this website reflects this freedom of spirit by referring to escaping African Americans as "freedom seekers," rather than runaways, fugitives or escapees.

These labels were constructs of the Southern slave-holding societal structure, or by some well-meaning but nonetheless patronizing abolitionists. As such, these terms tend to reflect how slave-holding society viewed African American efforts toward freedom.

Instead, the National Park Service and its partners use language reflective of the goal of liberty that Underground Railroad participants dreamed of, strove to, and eventually grasped. The term "freedom seekers," then, demonstrates what was in the hearts of freedom seeking African Americans who acted to make liberty a reality.

Fugitive

"Fugitive" was a common term in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that is still used today to describe the freedom seeker. The term was attached to the various Fugitive Slave Laws passed by the U.S. Congress, and suggests that the "fugitive" was criminal to escape from bondage. The language employed was key in attempts to preserve the view that the law was on the side of slaveholding society -- which it was -- while reinforcing the view that the "fugitive" was incapable of acting responsibly in a society governed by the rule of law.

Conductor

The term "conductor" refers to an individual who escorted or guided freedom seekers between stations or safe houses. A Conductor need not have been a member of an organized section of the Underground Railroad, only someone who provided an element of guidance to the freedom seeker.

Stationmaster

A "stationmaster" refers to an individual who provided shelter or a hiding place to freedom seekers. Shelter need not be in the dwelling of the stationmaster, yet refuge of any sort was the responsibility of the stationmaster. The stationmaster served as a clearinghouse for information regarding safe routes and nearby pursuit of freedom seekers, and coordinated with conductors and other stationmasters to provide safe passage for freedom seekers upon departure from that station.

Station

The "station" provided a haven for traveling freedom seekers, was secured by the stationmaster, and took many forms. Stations might be basements, cabins, homes, barns or caves, or any other site that provided an element of security while giving the freedom seeker an opportunity for rest and provisions.

Runaway, escapees

Terms such as "runaway" and "escapees" refer to freedom seekers. Like "fugitive," the terms tend to disparage the freedom seeker. "Runaway" conjures up the image of a discontent adolescent, while "escapee" is linked to "fugitive," evoking the image of a guilty law breaker deserving of capture and punishment.

Slave, enslaved

The historical term for human beings held in bondage and forced to perform labor or services against their will under threat of physical mistreatment or death. For the general purposes of this web site, which by no means encompass all historical references to "slave and enslaved," the terms refer to the tens of millions of kidnapped Africans transported to the Americas, and held in bondage from the sixteenth century through the American Civil War.

Special focus is placed on the escaped slave, or freedom seeker in North America, as well as the historic Underground Railroad, a powerful tool of resistance created by freedom seekers and abolitionist allies. This term, however, refers to status African American from the viewpoint of slaveholding society, especially when a freedom seeker is referred to as an "escaped slave."

Freedom seeker illustrates the African American decision to wrest control of his or her status from the slaveholder to one of their own choosing. Further, the use of the term "slave" to describe African Americans indicates that the individual accepted the term as a definition of their own humanity. "Enslaved," meanwhile, demonstrates the condition of the individual within the class and economic system of the dominant society, and less of an internalized, or intellectual condition.

Slaveholders

For the purposes of this overview of North American Underground Railroad organization and activity, the term "slaveholder" best describes the non-regional character of North American Slavery. Too often, the term "slaveholder" is used synonymously with the term "Southerner." Certainly, slavery was widespread throughout the American South, more so than any other part of the United States.

Yet so widespread was the institution of slavery that slaveholders could transport their property into free lands, especially after the Dred Scott decision, and use that property as they would in slave states. Further, U.S. citizens of all regions owned human property, not only Southerners, and creates the false impression that Southerners were the only slaveholders while Northerners created and supported the Underground Railroad.

To regionalize slavery, to draw definite borders around so fluid an institution, only serves to limit a broader, perhaps borderless conceptualization of slavery, freedom seekers, and the Underground Railroad.

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