Introducing
Your new presentation assistant.
Refine, enhance, and tailor your content, source relevant images, and edit visuals quicker than ever before.
Trending searches
As you may have guessed it wasn't easy to transport all of these slaves to freedom.
It all had to be done secretly, so there are a couple of theories on how they communicated about the way to freedom.
One theory is the quilt code.
Secret codes in quilts helped guide slaves on the underground railroad.
It was illegal for a slave to learn to read or write.
So the symbols on the quilts communicated certain things such as safe houses and direction.
Quilt worker patterns often had roots from Africa. History and stories came out of memories and were passed down orally, quilt patterns were also exchanged this way.
The symbols from these quilts were used in the Underground Railroad quilts.
The quilts were hung out on fences and windowsills seemingly to dry. This was common on plantations, so the masters were none the wiser.
The symbols, themselves, were quite common such as the monkey wrench.
It is suggested that stitching and knotting on the quilts may have communicated distance and or map routes between safe houses.
There is controversy of quilt code theory because again there is not really any written history of the Underground Railroad.
Caroline Quarlls from St. Louis, Missouri. July 4, 1842. 1st recorded fugitive slave who went through us.
She had a 100 dollars on her person from her free grandmother.
She illegally took a steamboat across the Mississippi to Alton, Illinois. Crossed by Stage (stage coach) to Milwaukee and arrived early August.
She hidden by sympathetic allies.
When authorities caught wind, she was spirited away to Waukesha which was known for anti-slavery radicals.
Late summer she was moved farm to farm through Walworth and Racine counties.
Then Lyman drove her around Chicago through Indiana and Michigan where she escaped through Detroit to Canada. She rode in cover of potato chutes and barrels.
Prosecution against Booth because of the fugitive slave law led to Wisconsin Supreme Court to reject it.
Wisconsin's Famous Underground Stop
In 1838, Joseph Goodrich, originally from New York, left for the West.
He founded Milton by moving a cabin to his new property.
He expanded the cabin to create the original Milton Inn.
He needed more space and began expanding it to the Milton House.
Joseph Goodrich openly spoke out against slavery, so Historians believe that he was a stop on the Underground.
Runaway slaves used the tunnel to move from the cabin to a more secure hiding place in the basement of the Milton House.
The Milton House is the most well known stop in Wisconsin.
http://www.wisconsinhistory.org/topics/undergroundrr/
http://www.teachingwithstories.com/students/episode1.ht
http://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/underground/wi1.htm
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part4/4p2944.html
http://www.berkshistory.org/articles/underground.html
http://www.history.com/topics/wisconsin
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_Railroad
http://www.osblackhistory.com/quilts.php
http://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/What_The_Lyrics_Mean.htm
http://www.followthedrinkinggourd.org/
http://www.osblackhistory.com/songs.php
There was a tunnel discovered much later connecting a small cabin to underneath the Milton House.
Originally dug from the earth and lined in limestone, it was just large enough for a person to crawl through.
1850 fugitive slave act formed which forced all citizens to help return any escaping slaves to their owners.
The Underground Railroad