![]() ![]() When slaves escaped, slaveowners often ran advertisements in the local paper to alert the authorities and slaveowners occasionally punished the slaves left behind.įugitive slaves in Maryland often fled without knowing whom they could trust. Owners feared that escaped slaves would encourage others to rebel or runaway. They also viewed slaves as dangerous threats who needed to be controlled. Slaveowners saw their slaves as property, sources of revenue, status symbols, and important investments. Slaveholders in Maryland used slaves to cultivate wheat and tobacco, or to perform domestic work and skilled labor. Maryland's economy was dependent on slavery. Simultaneously though, slaveowners and pro-slavery advocates worked to capture escapees for financial gain and to preserve the institution they knew. Runaway slaves looked to friends, family, and strangers for assistance. Thus, the Underground Railroad influenced many individuals: enslaved and free, and black and white. Abolitionists and allies sympathetic to the anti-slavery cause often aided fugitives on their flight to freedom. ![]() ![]() The Underground Railroad, a network of secret routes and safe houses emerged as a clandestine, organized system to assist runaway slaves in their escape from slavery. This document packet explores previously unknown stories of slaveowners, fugitives, and accomplices to show how slavery and flights to freedom shaped the lives of all Marylanders. ![]()
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