Talk:Underground Railroad/Archive 1

message: No mention yet of the Christiana Tragedy?  It's one of the best documented parts of the underground railroad movement.  It'd be nice to see at least a paragraph or two about what happened and what effects it had on the movement. --brian0918 talk 18:24, 19 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Christiana Tragedy 

message: Public domain art and photos here.  Also do a search on that site for more besides the two pages listed.  --brian0918 talk 16:10, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pictures 

message: Just curious, is that worth mentioning? -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:14, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Good point; it should be worked in somewhere. You said Mason-Dixie but the name Dixie derives from the Mason-Dixon Line. --Dhartung | Talk 18:17, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mason-Dixon Line 

message: Why is the article link "Metro" present? -- AllyUnion (talk) 23:20, 15 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think that the reference is there because some people might interpret "Underground Railroad" to mean "Subway" (North American sense). --Big_Iron 17:29, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: This is more confusing than a proper disambiguation. It should probably reference the best-known subway with that name, the London Underground. I'll try to improve it. --Dhartung | Talk 18:15, 16 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: See Wikipedia:Disambiguation#Types_of_disambiguation, where it notes "Primary topic" disambiguation: if one meaning is clearly predominant, it remains at "Mercury", the general title. The top of the article provides a link to the other meanings, or if there are a large number, to a page named "Mercury (disambiguation)". For example: the page Rome has a link at the top to a page named "Rome (disambiguation)" which lists other cities named Rome. The page Cream has a link to the page Cream (band) at the top. I think this is clearly one of these cases, and I don't think it's likely we'll have an edit war over the point with any of the trainspotting ;-) crowd (which would necessitate a separate disambig page). --Dhartung | Talk 17:17, 20 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Metro 

message: The article states, "Approximately 30,000 slaves successfully escaped to Canada. Fugitive slaves were a significant presence in the then underpopulated Canadian colonies and formed the basis of the present-day black population throughout Ontario." To my knowledge, the majority of black residents of Ontario are of Caribbean origin, making this statement a little misleading. I don't want to change anything, as my knowledge of the subject matter isn't great, but are there any Ontarians who can verify this? 64.231.191.236 04:19, 10 February 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Ontario's Black Population 

message: I removed the lyrics to Follow the Drinkin' Gourd as they can be found in that article. Seemed redundant to have them here too. B00P 11:46, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Cut 

message: Why has all the information about the terminology been moved?
—Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.173.169.249 (talk • contribs) 
:Good question.  I hadn't noticed it was missing.  I've restored it from an older version of the page. wrp103 (Bill Pringle) 13:37, 16 May 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Terminology 

message: There appears to be a discrepency in this article.  In one section it says that 30,000 slaves escaped to Canada, yet later in the article it says 20,000.  Which is correct?  Please confirm to maintain accuracy. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by  (talk • contribs) .
:This appears to be a difference between an estimate for all of Canada vs. Upper Canada alone (i.e. just Ontario). I've clarified the one figure to help the reader.--Dhartung | Talk 18:52, 11 September 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  20,000 or 30,000?

message: To say 30,000 to 100,000 blacks used the railroad to freedom is a worthless statistic. The margin of error is so huge it doesn't qualify as meaning anything, especially when the census is quoting 6,000. This needs to be cleaned up or cited, as it stands it has no meaning —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 4.142.141.203 (talk • contribs) .
:I agree that the estimates are insufficiently cited, but I disagree that they have "no meaning" -- they're just different estimates. I'm not sure why there should be a margin of error when they come from different sources, methods, etc. The true figure will never be known. It's clear that Canada believes five times as many blacks reached Canada alone compared with the official census figure. --Dhartung | Talk 11:39, 6 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Statistic Quote 

message: I'm not exactly sure, but I think the portal link in the article has been vandalized (or badly misspelled).  Right now it says "Africansex American Portal".  The link doesn't actually go anywhere, so I put it through google to check and see if it was actually something.  I got about ten links, 7 of which were about porn and animal sex.  As I'm not exactly Wiki-literate, I'll let someone else take care of that. 70.113.79.34 05:11, 8 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Good for you for doing some research and checking. Just so you know, if you had checked the article history, too, you would have seen that it was vandalized about four hours before you viewed the page. Someone else fixed it shortly after you posted here. --Dhartung | Talk 06:11, 10 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Odd name for a portal... 

message: On the Wiki Tubman page it says she made 13 trips back to the south to free "over 70 enslaved friends and family members", but on this page it says 19/300. It's a pretty big disparity. 66.57.224.120 03:17, 2 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Tubman 

message: The introduction estimates 6,000 slaves at a lower bound, but the Canada section states a minimum of 30,000 escaping to Canada only. 128.208.1.238  —The preceding  signed but undated. 
: Sorry about that, didn't realise I wasn't logged in. laddiebuck 18:58, 24 August 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Estimates 

message: "Upon arriving at their destinations, many fugitives were disappointed. While the British colonies had no slavery, discrimination was still common. Many of the new arrivals had great difficulty finding jobs, and overt racism was common." - where's the citation?  Upon what source is this statement based?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.147.161.173 (talk) 04:40, 1 October 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: [[WP:Spotlight]]

message: Ontario's Underground Railroad -`this link goes to a site that is definately not what the link states.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ringwall (talk • contribs) 22:25, 6 March 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  link to spam site 

message: Must I repeat? Who the heck screwed up this page?!!!!?  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Jkwinders (talk • contribs) 14:33, 10 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Who the heck screwed up this page? 

message: Unless valid source can be found to support the claim that 100,000 slaves were helped, this information will be removed. The previous source used in the introduction merely restated the claim. Anyone have a better source? Matt Gerber (talk) 17:21, 29 April 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Number estimates 

message: The links between the Underground Railroad and Africville in Nova Scotia or Vancouver Island are not clear to me (and there is no reference cited).  Was the Halifax region in fact a terminus of the Underground Railway?  Given the geography it seems very unlikely.  As for Vancouver Island, the discussion of settlement by African Americans invited by Governor Douglas should be discussed in relation to the articles on Vancouver Island, Saltspring Island, James Douglas, Black Canadians etc., but I don't know of any evidence that the colony of Vancouver Island was a terminus on the Underground Railroad per se.  Again geography alone would have made it unlikely.  If someone could provide references in relation to these two issues, please do.  Otherwise they don't seem pertinent to the subject of the article. Corlyon (talk) 23:03, 10 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Africville, Nova Scotia; Vancouver Island 

message: If this page were not locked I would have fixed it myself...
"The quilts were placed one at time on a fence ..." should be "The quilts were placed one at _a_ time on a fence ..."
--41.245.145.197 (talk) 18:34, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for pointing that out. I fixed it. — Malik Shabazz  18:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Folklore missing word 

message: There is an inconsistency in this statement "made 19 trips back to the South and helped free over 300 people"  in the Notable People section does not match the figure of 70 given earlier in the article (photo caption) and sourced in the Tubman article. Can someone more knowledgeable than myself rectify the inconsistency? Dave (talk) 20:24, 7 May 2009 (UTC)
thread_title: How many people did Tubman rescue?

message: How and when did this system get its name?  I understand why the metaphor is apt, so I know why the name stuck, but that dones't really give its etymology.  Given that the system was at its peak from 1810 to 1850 (according to the article) and the first steam locomotive operated in the United States in 1830, I think it unlikely that the terms of railroad operation like "conductor" would have been familiar enough to get adapted before perhaps 1840.  So, if I am correct, the name came rather late in the operation.  Was it something applied towards the end?  After the fact by historians?  Paulc206 (talk) 14:50, 27 December 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I was watching a video that said it was used by a plantation owner. He was chasing an escaping slave when the slave disappeared. The owner said it was as if the slave disappeared to an underground railroad. It may have been used around 1810 when railroads first began being built, or later. 96.248.98.212 (talk) 00:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

text: I see no problem here. Nobody's saying that the railroad terms were in use from day one, but as ralroad terminology entered into vernacular speech the Undergoround Railway adopted it. Incidentally, railroad development in the US was indeed underway in 1810, see Leiper_Railroad. The use of wagons running on or guided by wooden or metal rails in mines (true underground railroads) predates that era. -- Timberframe (talk) 12:44, 17 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Name origin 

message: The article cites work by Larson, David Potter (1976), David Blight (2005), Fergus Bordewich (2005) and Ozella McDaniels Williams (1999) but does not cite the specific works, therefore none can be verified. I note that works by some of these authors, some with the same years, are listed in Sources and Further reading, but it's not clear whether these are the same works that the article cites. (Although this is a reasonable guess for titles under Sources it's not for those under Further reading. The refs in the article to David Blight (2005) may be typo errors as a 2001 work by David Blight is detailed in the Sources section.) Can anyone supply the titles of the works? I'd then be happy to amend the article to make unambiguous references to the works which have been used as sources for the article. -- Timberframe (talk) 11:26, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: I added the Potter source and filled in some page numbers on one of the footnotes.  Can't help with the others. Tom (North Shoreman) (talk) 15:35, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources 

message: "Because of this, the number of former slaves who owed their freedom at least in part to those who operated the Underground Railroad was greater than the many thousands who actually traveled its secret routes."
Because of WHAT? Please clarify if you re-insert.
Bellagio99 (talk) 02:17, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
replies: text: See here, here, and here for the edit mini-skirmish over the content of that paragraph. May be worth discussing further. Fat&Happy (talk) 03:34, 5 August 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Route section -- this sentence was deleted because incomprehensible to me 

message: Harriet Tubman led 19 trips from the south to canada and helped free over 300 slaves including her parents!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Mrs.Cloud (talk • contribs) 02:29, 1 December 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Misinfo. 

message: I adjusted the recently added image of this work a bit, mostly to reduce the amount it dominated the page at 350px, but question whether it belongs in this article at all. Not every runaway slave was shepherded by members of the Underground Railroad. The description of the work on the Brooklyn Museum site says 
This seems to indicate a spur-of-the-moment decision to escape to troops in the field rather than any planned attempt to follow the drinking gourd or any other reliance on the UR organization. Fat&Happy (talk) 16:46, 23 March 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Eastman Johnson painting 

message: Under the picture of Harriet Tubman, it says there were about 300 slaves that were escaped. Also, at the top of the page, it says there were about 30,000 slaves escaped. Whoever wrote this got the numbers confused and I don't know how many people exactly were escaped. Please fix this. Cookie Monster (talk) 20:21, 5 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The caption clearly says that Harriet Tubman helped free about 300 people, and the article says the Underground Railroad may have helped over 30,000 people escape. Tubman was only one "conductor" on the Railroad. — Malik Shabazz (talk · contribs) 03:43, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree with the above..Harriet Tubman alone accounted for aiding approximately 300 who escaped; many others were instrumental in the operations of the "Underground Railroad" and aiding in the escape of thousands of people. Modernist (talk) 14:04, 6 November 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Harriet Tubman article states the following: "After escaping from captivity, she made thirteen missions to rescue over seventy slaves". The claim is made in the first paragraph. I uncovered this discrepancy while doing a school project. My history book ("The American Pageant", 12th ed.) states that "During nineteen forays into the South, she (Harriet Tubman) rescued more than three-hundred slaves..." Personally, I would regard this as the most accurate source of information. Morganismysheltie (talk) 02:04, 14 November 2008 (UTC)

text: Thanks for catching that. I just fixed it. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 05:23, 8 January 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: It turns out we were wrong. According to this and similar articles, an abductor was a person on the Underground Railroad who went south to rescue blacks, whereas a conductor provided food and shelter along the journey. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 03:33, 9 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  The Number of Slaves Escaped????? 

message: The article says the Railroad was "[c]reated in the early 19th century", yet the article on Richard Allen has him operating a station as early as 1797. Neither seems to be documented. I doubt the term "railroad" was in use in 1797, but obviously the system could have been. --Haruo (talk) 11:56, 29 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: According to this Associated Press piece, a network aiding escaped slaves operated for over a century, roughly between 1670 and 1790. The main escape route went to Florida, then under Spanish control. — Dale Arnett (talk) 20:05, 23 March 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  When did it start? 

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thread_title: File:UndergroundRailroadmonumentWindsor.jpg Nominated for speedy Deletion

message: Whomever is editing this article and rearranging text and/or photos, please be mindful of the changes you are making as it is making the photos and article appear disorganized.  Daniellagreen (talk) 05:00, 28 November 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Please Maintain Arrangement of Photos in Article 

message: Include or exclude? - Slavery in the United States (−) (±)...Modernist (talk) 23:53, 31 July 2015 (UTC)
replies: text: WP:UCS The article essentially exists because of 'Slavery in the United States (−) (±)'...Modernist (talk) 12:19, 2 August 2015 (UTC)
thread_title: Category question

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: The Underground Railroad by Colson Whitehead may be worth notice.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.15.124.242 (talk) 21:03, 5 August 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: Whitehead's historical novel really has no place in a history article, except perhaps in the "Further reading" section (where it should be clearly marked as fiction). — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 17:08, 6 August 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  Historical novel 

message: Was the underground railway limited to slaves that were of African descent? Were non-Africans not allowed to use it?203.80.61.102 (talk) 04:50, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
replies: text: The Underground Railroad was a means to help enslaved Africans—who, beside Native Americans, were the only people enslaved in the United States during the 19th century. The Underground Railroad, as the first sentence of this article says, help escaped Africans find their way North to free states and Canada, but (as the second sentence of this article says) it was made up of people of all races. — Malik Shabazz Talk/Stalk 05:23, 22 December 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  People of African descent 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: Just a note that the map of underground railroad routes omits the route most used by Harriet Tubman (prominently mentioned in the article), across the DelMarVa peninsula to Philadelphia. It's not clear how that can be fixed, but it's a notable omission.  Thosem (talk) 13:35, 28 March 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I know, I wish there was something more complete. It misses routes through Michigan as well.–CaroleHenson (talk) 23:27, 2 March 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Map 

message: I have been cleaning up the List of Underground Railroad sites page and have a question on the talk page about what should be included in the  list (official stations, on the NPS Network to Freedom list, another qualification). Input is greatly appreciated!–CaroleHenson (talk) 15:45, 25 May 2021 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[List of Underground Railroad sites]]