Underground Railroad: A network of secret routes and safe houses used by enslaved African Americans to escape to free states or Canada during the mid-nineteenth century.
Fugitive Slave Act: A law passed in 1850 that required all citizens to assist in capturing runaway slaves and denied escaped slaves any legal rights.
Emancipation Proclamation: A presidential proclamation issued by Abraham Lincoln in 1862 that declared all slaves in Confederate territory as legally free.