Scott Shane wrote that the first documented use of the term was in an article written by Thomas Smallwood in the August 10, 1842, edition of Tocsin of Liberty, an abolitionist newspaper published in Albany. Robert Clemens Smedley wrote that following slave catchers' failed searches and lost traces of fugitives as far north as Columbia, Pennsylvania, they declared in bewilderment that "there must be an underground railroad somewhere," giving origin to the term. Origin of the name Įric Foner wrote that the term "was perhaps first used by a Washington newspaper in 1839, quoting a young slave hoping to escape bondage via a railroad that 'went underground all the way to Boston'". One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad began in the late 18th century. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession (except 1763–1783), existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790. Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the "Underground Railroad". The network, primarily the work of free African Americans, was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states and from there to Canada. The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century.
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