The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early- to the mid-19th century. It was used by enslaved African Americans primarily to escape into free states. The network, primarily the work of free African Americans, was assisted by abolitionists and others sympathetic to the cause of the escapees. The slaves who risked capture and those who aided them are also collectively referred to as the passengers and conductors of the "Underground Railroad". Various other routes led to Mexico, where slavery had been abolished, and to islands in the Caribbean that were not part of the slave trade. An earlier escape route running south toward Florida, then a Spanish possession, existed from the late 17th century until approximately 1790. However, the network now generally known as the Underground Railroad began in the late 18th century. It ran north and grew steadily until the Emancipation Proclamation was signed by President Abraham Lincoln. One estimate suggests that, by 1850, approximately 100,000 slaves had escaped to freedom via the network.
The African Methodist Episcopal Church, usually called the AME Church or AME, is a predominantly African American Methodist denomination. It adheres to Wesleyan-Arminian theology and has a connexional polity. The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the first independent Protestant denomination to be founded by black people; though it welcomes and has members of all ethnicities.
The Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is an historic church and congregation which is located at 419 South 6th Street in Center City Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA. The congregation, founded in 1794, is the oldest African Methodist Episcopal congregation in the nation.
In the United States, fugitive slaves or runaway slaves were terms used in the 18th and 19th centuries to describe people who fled slavery. The term also refers to the federal Fugitive Slave Acts of 1793 and 1850. Such people are also called freedom seekers to avoid implying that the enslaved person had committed a crime and that the slaveholder was the injured party.
Amherstburg Freedom Museum, previously known as 'the North American Black Historical Museum', is located in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada. It is a community-based, non-profit museum that tells the story of African-Canadians' history and contributions. Founded in 1975 by local residents, it preserves and presents artifacts of African-Canadians, many of whose ancestors had entered Canada as refugees from United States slavery. They found it relatively easy to enter Canada from across the Detroit River.
Rev. Jermain Wesley Loguen, born Jarm Logue, in slavery, was an African-American abolitionist and bishop of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, and an author of a slave narrative.
Samuel D. Burris was a member of the Underground Railroad. He had a family, who he moved to Philadelphia for safety and traveled into Maryland and Delaware to guide freedom seekers north along the Underground Railroad to Pennsylvania.
Harriet Tubman National Historical Park is a US historical park in Auburn and Fleming, New York. Associated with the life of Harriet Tubman, it has three properties: the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged, in Auburn; the nearby Harriet Tubman Residence, just across the city/town line in Fleming; and the Thompson A.M.E. Zion Church in Auburn. They are located at 180 and 182 South Street and 90 Franklin Street, respectively. The Zion Church unit is administered by the National Park Service (NPS), and the South Street properties, including a historic barn and a visitor center, are jointly managed and operated by both the NPS and the Harriet Tubman Home, Inc. The church also works with the NPS in park operations. The Harriet Tubman Grave, in nearby Fort Hill Cemetery, is not part of the park.
The British Methodist Episcopal Church (BMEC) is a Protestant church in Canada that has its roots in the African Methodist Episcopal Church (AMEC) of the United States.
St. James AME Zion Church is a historic African Methodist Episcopal Zion church located at Ithaca in Tompkins County, New York. It is a two-story, frame church structure set on a high foundation and featuring a four-story entrance tower. The church structure was begun in the 1830s and modified many times since. The original stone meetinghouse was built in 1836 and is believed to be Ithaca's oldest church and one of the oldest in the AME Zion system.
Bethel A.M.E. Church, now known as the Central Pennsylvania African American Museum, is a historic African Methodist Episcopal church at 119 North 10th Street in Reading, Berks County, Pennsylvania. It was originally built in 1837, and is a 2½-storey brick and stucco building with a gable roof. It was rebuilt about 1867–1869, and remodeled in 1889. It features a three-storey brick tower with a pyramidal roof topped by a finial. The church is known to have housed fugitive slaves and the congregation was active in the Underground Railroad. The church is now home to a museum dedicated to the history of African Americans in Central Pennsylvania.
Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church is a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church in Springtown, New Jersey, United States. The church was part of two free negro communities, Othello and Springtown, established by local Quaker families. The congregation was established in 1810 in Greenwich Township as the African Methodist Society and joined the African Methodist Episcopal Church in 1817. A previous church building was burned down in the 1830s in an arson incident and the current structure was built between 1838 and 1841.
Hiram Wilson was an anti-slavery abolitionist who worked directly with escaped and former slaves in southwestern Ontario. He attempted to improve their living conditions and help them to be integrated into society by providing education and practical working skills. He established ten schools to educate free blacks in southwestern Ontario. Wilson worked extensively with Josiah Henson to establish the British-American Institute and the Dawn Settlement in 1841. He was a delegate to the World Anti-Slavery Convention of 1843 in London, England. He resigned from the British-American Institute and moved to St. Catharines, Ontario, where his home was a final terminal for the Underground Railroad.
The Bethel A.M.E. Church, known in its early years as Indianapolis Station or the Vermont Street Church, is a historic African Methodist Episcopal Church in Indianapolis, Indiana. Organized in 1836, it is the city's oldest African-American congregation. The three-story church on West Vermont Street dates to 1869 and was added to the National Register in 1991. The surrounding neighborhood, once the heart of downtown Indianapolis's African American community, significantly changed with post-World War II urban development that included new hotels, apartments, office space, museums, and the Indiana University–Purdue University at Indianapolis campus. In 2016 the congregation sold their deteriorating church, which will be used in a future commercial development. The congregation built a new worship center at 6417 Zionsville Road in Pike Township, Marion County, Indiana.
Richard Amos Ball was a British Methodist Episcopal Church (BMEC) minister in Canada.
Springtown is an unincorporated community in Greenwich Township, in Cumberland County, New Jersey, United States.
Bethel AME Church of Crawfordsville is a historic African Methodist Episcopal church located at Crawfordsville, Montgomery County, Indiana. It was built in 1892, and is a one-story, gable fronted frame building on a brick foundation. It features a large round-arched window and two-story, square corner tower. Portions of the building are believed to date to 1847. Also on the property is a contributing one-story, Queen Anne style cottage that served as the original parsonage.
