around the enslaved race. The mind and the soul as well as the body
were placed under domination. They might marry to breed but not to
make homes. Such charity and kindness as they experienced, they
received entirely from individual humane masters; society treated them
merely as chattels.

Attempted insurrections, such as that in South Carolina in 1822 and
that in Virginia in 1831 in which many whites and blacks were killed,
only produced harsher laws and more cruel punishments, until finally
the slave became convinced that his only salvation lay in running
away. The North Star was his beacon light of freedom. A few thousand
made their way southward through the chain of swamps that skirt the
Atlantic coast and mingled with the Indians in Florida. Tens of
thousands made their way northward along well recognized routes to the
free States and to Canada: the Appalachian ranges with their
far-spreading spurs furnished the friendliest of these highways; the
Mississippi Valley with its marshlands, forests, and swamps provided
less secure hiding places; and the Cumberland Mountains, well supplied
with limestone caves, offered a third pathway. At the northern end of
these routes the "Underground Railway"[11] received the fugitives.
From the Cumberlands, leading through the heart of Tennessee and
Kentucky, this benevolent transfer stretched through Ohio and Indiana
to Canada; from southern Illinois it led northward through Wisconsin;
and from the Appalachian route mysterious byways led through New York
and New England.

How many thus escaped cannot be reckoned, but it is known that the
number of free negroes in the North increased so rapidly that laws
discriminating against them were passed in many States. Nowhere did
the negro enjoy all the rights that the white man had. In some States