By Katherine Brown
It’s estimated that during the time of chattel slavery, the Underground Railroad helped 100,000 enslaved people escape from bondage between 1810 and 1850.
What exactly was this railway that spirited people to freedom?
Contrary to its name, the Underground Railroad wasn’t truly underground, nor was it a literal railroad. Rather, the Underground Railroad was a secret network of people, places, and routes that helped enslaved people travel to freedom.
The system had to operate discreetly. If enslaved people were caught trying to escape bondage, they could be beaten, sold, verbally abused, or murdered. If the people aiding enslaved people were caught helping them, they too could be punished. Therefore, the enslaved people and the people assisting them needed a way to communicate without human traffickers knowing about it.
This was done by using various types of secret code signals.
LETTERS AND WRITINGS
When communicating in writing about the Underground Railroad, code words were used to refer to enslaved people, the people assisting them, and the places used to hide them.
In these letters and notes, enslaved people were referred to as “passengers”, “cargo”, “freight”, “baggage”, “parcels”, or “fleece”. Historical records show that other creative terms were also used to refer to enslaved people. William Still, a prominent Black abolitionist and Underground Railroad conductor who was born free, kept the correspondence from his fellow operations. He subsequently published them in his book The Underground Rail Road (1872). One letter sent to Still by a lawyer, Jacob Bigelow, appears to refer to enslaved people as “property” and “packages”. This letter also spoke of needing to keep a small package together with two big packages, which could have meant keeping a family together. In another note, written by Black Underground Railroad conductor Joseph Cassey Bustill to Still, Bustill appears to refer to enslaved people as “hams”: “I have sent via at two o’ clock four large and two small hams.”
Many of the coded terms mirrored the actual railroad system. A person who led enslaved people between hiding places was called a “conductor”. A person whose home was a hiding place or safe house for enslaved people was called a “station master”. A person who donated to the Underground Railroad was called a “stockholder”. The hiding places and homes used to shelter enslaved people were called “stations” or “depots”. Taking enslaved people from station to station was referred to as “forward”. Sydney Howard Gay was the editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard publication, and also heavily involved in the Underground Railroad in New York City. He kept a detailed record of enslaved people whom he helped travel to freedom, called the Record of Fugitives (1855). In this record, he used the code word “forward” frequently.
One of the most well known Underground Railroad conductors, Harriet Tubman, also used coded language. Worried about her three brothers who were still enslaved, she sent a coded letter to a freed Black man, Jacob Jackson, that she would be coming to help them escape bondage. Jackson lived near where her brothers were being held. Tubman signed the letter as the man’s adopted son, along with a coded message. Knowing that the man would understand the secret meaning of the letter, she sent it saying, “Read my letter to the old folks, and give my love to them, and tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer, and when the good old ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step aboard.” Because Jackson was speculated by local authorities to have helped enslaved people escape bondage, his letters were read by inspectors before he himself could read them. Feigning ignorance in front of the inspectors, the man proclaimed, “Dat letter can’t be meant for me, no how. I can’t make head nor tail of it.” However, he understood the letter’s secret message, and promptly went to inform Tubman’s brothers of her impending arrival.
Harriet Tubman used other code signals as well.
SONG AND VOICE
In an early biography of Tubman by Sarah H. Bradford called Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman (1869), Bradford explains how singing was used by enslaved people to communicate their intentions. Before escaping from bondage, Harriet Tubman wanted to inform others of her plan. An excerpt from the book reads,
"But she must give some intimation to those she was going to leave of her intention, and send such a farewell as she might to the friends and relations on the plantation. These communications were generally made by singing. They sang as they walked along the country roads, and the chorus was taken up by others, and the uninitiated knew not the hidden meaning of the words –
Wher, dat ar ole chariot comes,
I’m gwine to lebe you;
I’m boun’ for de promised land,
I’m gwine to lebe you.
These words meant something more than a journey to the Heavenly Canaan.”
And, before escaping, Tubman sang goodbye to her enslaver through a coded song, again referring to her freedom as a physical place, “the promised land.”
I’m sorry I’m gwine to lebe you,
Farewell, oh farewell;
But I’ll meet you in the mornin’,
Farewell, oh farewell.
I’ll meet you in the mornin’
I’m boun’ for de promised land.
On the oder side of Jordan,
Boun’ for de promised land.
I’ll meet you in the mornin’,
Safe in de promised land,
On the oder side of Jordan,
Boun’ for de promised land.
In his autobiography My Bondage and My Freedom, Frederick Douglass recounts how he and other enslaved people sang when they were planning to escape. He wrote,
“A keen observer might have detected in our repeated singing of ‘O Canaan, sweet Canaan, I am bound for the land of Canaan,’ something more than a hope of reaching heaven. We meant to reach the north – and the north was our Canaan.”
Douglass continued by more fully quoting the song:
“I thought I heard them say,
There were lions in the way,
I don’t expect to stay
Much longer here.
Run to Jesus - shun the danger -
I don’t expect to stay Much longer here,”
Douglass, concludes by saying “[It] was a favorite air, and had a double meaning. In the lips of some, it meant the expectation of a speedy summons to a world of spirits; but, in the lips of our company, it simply meant, a speedy pilgrimage toward a free state, and deliverance from all the evils and dangers of slavery.”
Songs could also be used as alerts while in the journey, too. While leading a group of enslaved people to freedom, Harriet Tubman would sing to signal to them if it was safe to leave their hiding spots. An excerpt from Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman reads,
“After nightfall, the sound of a hymn sung at a distance comes upon the ears of the concealed and famished fugitives in the woods, and they know that their deliverer is at hand. They listen eagerly for the words she sings, for by them they are to be warned of danger, or informed of safety. Nearer and nearer comes the unseen singer, and the words are wafted to their ears:
Hail, oh hail ye happy spirits,
Death no more shall make you fear,
No grief nor sorrow, pain nor anger (anguish)
Shall no more distress you there.
Around him are ten thousan’ angels,
Always ready to ‘bey command’.
Dey are always hobring round you,
Till you reach the hebbenly lan’.
Jesus, Jesus will go wid you;
He will lead you to his throne;
He who died has gone before you,
Trod de wine-press all alone.
He whose thunders shake creation;
He who bids the planets roll;
He who rides upon the temple, (tempest)
An’ his scepter sways de whole.
Dark and thorny is de desert,
Through de pilgrim makes his ways,
Yet beyon’ dis vale of sorrow,
Lies de flel’s of endless days.”
Of that song, Tubman said,” De first time I go by singing dis hymn, dey don’t come out to me till I listen if de coast is clar; den when I go back and sing it again, dey come out. But if I sing:
Moses go down in Egypt,
Till ole Pharo’ let me go;
Hadn’t been for Adam’s fall
Shouldn’t hab to died at all.
Den dey don’t come out, for dere’s danger in de way.”
In addition to using songs and lyrics to communicate whether it was safe to emerge, Tubman also used owl calls to communicate to enslaved people that it was safe to leave their hiding spots. Harriet Tubman State Park Ranger Angela Crenshaw explained that the call would have sounded like that of a Barred Owl, which makes a noise that mimics the phrase, “Who cooks for you? Who cooks for you?”
It’s believed that enslaved people also used natural phenomena - the nighttime stars - to help navigate to freedom. The North Star could lead them in the direction of the north. Enslaved people could determine where the North Star was by finding a group of stars called the Big Dipper, or, the Drinking Gourd. Based upon this, it’s also thought that enslaved people sang a song called “Follow the Drinking Gourd” to help them navigate to the north.
In a pamphlet published by the Texas Folklore Society in 1928, an entomologist and amateur folklorist named H.B. Parks recounts three different occasions when he heard various people singing “Follow the Drinking Gourd”. Parks explains that he eventually meets an older Black man who tells him the story of a peg-legged sailor in the South. While working at plantations, this peg-legged man would strike up friendships with enslaved people, and teach the young enslaved males to sing “Follow the Drinking Gourd”. The sailor would vanish after a short period of time. During the next spring, almost all of the young enslaved males would disappear, having headed to the north and Canada by way of a trail created by the peg-legged man. Parks wrote that he was from a family that used to be involved in the Underground Railroad. He then explains how his great-uncle recalled a story of a man named Peg Leg Joe in the Anti-Slavery Society records. It is uncertain whether Peg Leg Joe existed, but the figure of an itinerant journeyman spreading coded messages through music is useful to explain how people in enslaved conditions could communicate undercover.
Some sources deny that enslaved people sang “Follow the Drinking Gourd” or used it as a way to gain their freedom. One source reports that the song was composed and sung by a folk group called the Weavers in 1947 - decades after the Underground Railroad operated. This would make it impossible for enslaved people to have sung it. However, Parks had documented the song (complete with musical notation) two decades earlier in his 1928 publication.
QUILTS AND FABRICS
It’s thought that even quilts were used as code signals for enslaved people. Much research has been done about the use of quilts to relay messages and information about possible escape. While there isn’t definitive proof due to the nature of the craft, there is reason to believe fabric and textiles were used to communicate about escaping from bondage.
In the book Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, Ozella McDaniels Williams speaks about quilt patterns that contained a code for enslaved people. Williams’ ancestors were enslaved people. She received the quilt pattern story from her mother, who had received it from her own mother.
The Underground Railroad Quilt Code contained secret messages for enslaved people. Several different quilt patterns instructed enslaved people on what to do as they traveled north. Each quilt would be hung up outside one at a time in a specific order. The first quilt pattern to be shown was called the Monkey Wrench, and it communicated to enslaved people to gather tools that they would need on their journey. Other patterns in the quilt lineup included Bow Ties, which told enslaved people to dress up to appear of a higher class, or Drunkard’s Path, which told enslaved people to travel in a zig-zag style to throw off human traffickers.
Because there is no physical or written evidence to support the theory of a quilt code for enslaved people, some sources dispute the idea that it ever existed. One source calls it a myth. Another expert writes that if enslaved people had a quilt, they would use it to shield themselves from cold weather, not to write secret codes with it. One expert says that the quilt code story allows people to believe that enslaved people had some sense of control over their plight.
However, another scholar points out that it makes sense that there is no evidence left behind of quilt codes, because people could be killed if anyone knew about it.
As history tells, enslaved people would eventually be legally freed, and the codes of the Underground Railroad would no longer be needed in the same way. The Emancipation Proclamation was issued, but this manuscript only freed slaves in the Confederate states.
It was the 13th Amendment that truly abolished slavery and set all enslaved people free for good, in plain, and not encoded, language:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude … shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
On June 19, 1865, in Galveston, Texas, Major General Gordon Granger of the Union Army informed enslaved people of their freedom. That milestone in history is now celebrated as Juneteenth annually.
Katherine Brown is passionate about social justice, and uses her journalism platform to bring attention to issues she cares about. She writes about social issues, human rights issues, and history.
Further Reading
Bryant, Marie Claire. “Underground Railroad Quilt Codes: What We Know, What We Believe, and What Inspires Us.” Smithsonian Center For Folklife & Cultural Heritage, May 3, 2019.
Gates, Henry Louis, Jr. “Who Really Ran the Underground Railroad?” PBS,
Keyes, Allison. “Harriet Tubman, an Unsung Naturalist, Used Owl Calls as a Signal on the Underground Railroad.” Audubon, February 25, 2020.
Stachura, Sea. “The enduring story for Underground Railroad Quilts.” NPR, March 3, 2024.
Walls, Bryan. “Underground Railroad Terminology.” Buffalo Toronto Public Media.
“Myths & Facts About Harriet Tubman.” National Park Service.
“North Star to Freedom.” National Park Service.
“Secrets: Signs & Symbols.” Pathways to Freedom: Maryland & the Underground Railroad.
“The Underground Railroad.” National Geographic.
“The Underground Railroad.” PBS.
“The Underground Railroad.” PBS.