The Road to Freedom
What do you think of when you hear the word "Conductor"? Some people think of a train conductor or the conductor of an orchestra. But to Hariet Tubman, being a conductor on the Underground Railroad meant risking her life to help African Americans escape slavery. In the ten years between 1850 and 1860, she led about 300 people on secret voyages north toward freedom.
The "Underground Railroad" was the name given to secret routes between the "slave" states of the southern United States and the "free" states of the North. It was not a real railroad, but a secret network of hiding places, safe houses, and helpful people stretching for hundreds of miles. Slaves hoping for better lives as free and women traveled north on foot, following 'conductors" like Hariet Tubman who knew the way. They often traveled at night, hiding in the barns, attics or cellars of safe houses.
You can understand and remember historical information better if you organize it in your mind. Classifying information is one way to organize it. When you classify, you group objects, people, events, actions, or ideas based on something they have in common.
Steps in Classifying
1. Choose the Information
You can classify any kind of information. People can be classified by where they live, when they were born, or what they do. Things can be classified by their size, shape, or color. Events can be classified as happening before or after other events. To get started, decide what you want to classify and why.
2. Examine the Details
Focus on one important quality of the items you want to classify. For example, if you are grouping events in American history, you could classify them as before or after the Civill War. Words such as before, after, and during signal time sequence, or the order in which events took place. These words can help you classify. You can also use words such as yesterday, today, tomorrow, last week, and next year to classify events by time sequence.
3. Record the Information
Keep track of your classification by making lists, diagrams, or charts. These will help make the information you have classified easy to understand.
Before Escaping
Hard work on plantation
Not paid for work
Family split up, living on different plantations
After Escaping
Hard work at a factory
Paid each week
Family is safe and living together