Good Example Of Article Review On United States History

1. Arnold Gragston was also a slave Kentucky. And his story began from his visit to a nearby house where he met an old lady, which used to live there. She asked him with an extraordinary request, to help one young girl pass the Ohio River. Gragston knew well all the risks and dangers that this trip could have got him to. If he were caught by his master, he would probably be killed. However, the girl’s beauty amazed him so much that he could not say no to the request. She was scared as much as Gragston was about the trip. And so at night they have crossed the river and on the other side they were met by two mans. Gragston thought that this was the end, but those mans were not hunters. They were supporters of the Underground Railroad, how took them Gragston and the girl to Brown County, Ohio. And that was his first experience with the Underground Railroad.
2. Before the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 the African American slaves were trying to run mostly by themselves. They knew that it would be a lot harder to find them on the north. However, after the implementation of the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, north was not that safe as it had been before. Furthermore, this compromise agreement between South and North was taken highly unacceptable by the anti-slave movement. And so, this led to a bigger development of the abolitionist movement. People knew that the slaves need a lot more help now.
3. Ann Maria Jackson situation was that she was in slavery with her seven children. Her master has been planning to take four of her oldest children away to another city. And when she heard about the plans of her master for her children, she made a fast decision to run to Pennsylvania and then further north. Considering the fact of slave-hunters spy activity, the road was highly dangerous. However, with the help of Underground Railroad, they have managed to get successfully to Pennsylvania and after to Canada.
The story of Caroline Hammond is quite different. Her mother was a slave of Thomas Davidson and her father George Berry “free colored man from Annapolis”. Hammond’s father and Davidson have made an arrangement that Hammond’s family will get freedom by $700 over the course of three years. But suddenly, Mr. Davidson has died and his business came to his wife. Mrs. Davidson did not feel the same way about the slaves, and she disagreed to free them according to the agreement. Afterwards, Hammond’s father decided to go with another plan. He went to the sheriff and bribed him for permission that allowed him to travel with his family to Baltimore, where they successfully contacted the people how were supporters of Underground Railroad.
4. Taking about the efforts of southerners to capture runaway slaves, it was quite important for the southerners. There more slaves would they catch, the more difficult this plan would look for them in the future. And with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, the southern hunters were allowed to hunt them even on the north territory. A clear example of the hunting process we can see in Caroline Hammond situation. After the run, her master offered a $50 reward for them, motivating the hunters to find the family. But luckily for Hammond’s family, they were assisted by the Underground Railroad supporters.
5. The correspondence between John Henry Hill and William Still, and the work of the Federal Writers’ Project are important to understanding the history of the Underground Railroad because of their context. Those latters represented all the feelings that escaped slaves had and also all described the volunteers of Underground Railroad. The escaped slave’s worries, concerns about their families as well as relatives and their joy for freedom in those letters are a clear example of how it was to live a slave life in those days. That is way, those letters are so important in order to understand the full picture.