The life of a slave or even runaway was awful. You were treated poorly as a slave, but you were treated just as bad free. Being black you did not have many freedoms. For the people who believed that the blacks deserved the freedom and rights that the whites did, their life was rough as well. Some people were just as desperate to help the slaves, as the slaves were to escape. The Underground Railroad "conductors" were risking everything to help these slaves, they risked being caught and punished by the authories as well as their fellow neighbors. It was a very risky business. I found a link which contains dairy pages of a fugitive slaves' story. These stories are so important to our history, we get to see a personal account of the life these people were living. Nothing is covered up, you learn the ups, the downs, how these people were able to survive. These journal entries date back to June 1855, just five years after the Fugitive Slave Act. The Fugitive Slave Act made it illegal for anyone to help or harbor escaping slaves. This diary would have put the conductor at risk, if he was caught.
http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_vault/2013/09/10/william_still_his_diary_recorded_details_of_slaves_escaping_on_the_underground.html
_Emily
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