Describe a night on the Underground Railroad on which the traveler has no guide and must choose between two roads.Fact: the majority of escapes from slavery did not have help from an abolitionist.
Describe one night's walk between two stations of the Underground Railroad, hour by hour, from dusk to the first gray light.Fact: most escapes took place at night, when travelers could hide under the cover of darkness.
The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. Explain the name to a reader who has only heard it.Fact: it was not a physical railroad; the name refers to people who escaped slavery and those who helped them.
Explain how a western route of the Underground Railroad led from Missouri to Canada, naming each stage in order.Fact: a western route led from Missouri to free Kansas and Iowa, then east by way of Chicago to the Detroit River.
Explain how historians can know about the Underground Railroad when it had to be kept secret.Fact: the sources are oral traditions, newspaper accounts, court cases, church records, journals and letters.
Explain how the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 changed where the routes of the Underground Railroad ended.Fact: before the act of 1850 many freedom seekers settled in Northern states; after it, many fled on to Canada.
Explain how the Underground Railroad could work with no headquarters, no printed map and no timetable.Fact: the network had no headquarters or governing body and no published guides or maps; news went by word of mouth.
Explain the part that ships, docks and sailors played in the Underground Railroad.Fact: the maritime industry spread information and offered work and transportation, the National Park Service says.
Explain why the National Park Service says the Underground Railroad started at the place of enslavement and not at the first safe house.Fact: many freedom seekers began the journey unaided, and many completed it without assistance.
Explain why the small groups along an Underground Railroad route knew so little about one another.Fact: participants generally organized in small, independent groups, which helped to maintain secrecy.
Most routes of the Underground Railroad followed rivers, canals, coasts and roads that were already there. Explain why.Fact: the routes followed natural and man-made ways of travel: rivers, canals, bays, the coast, ferries and roads.
The National Park Service compares the routes of the Underground Railroad to a spider web. Describe the web, strand by strand, and explain what the picture tells you.Fact: routes stretched like a spider web up the east coast and the Appalachians, through Ohio and across Iowa.
Not every route of the Underground Railroad ran north. Explain where else freedom seekers went, and why each place was chosen.Fact: freedom seekers also went to Mexico, Spanish Florida, Indian territory, the West and Caribbean islands.
So many routes of the Underground Railroad ended at the edge of a lake or a river on the northern border. Explain what the water had to do with it.Fact: Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and most of New York were separated from Canada by water, easy to cross by boat.
The Underground Railroad was neither underground nor a railroad. Explain the name to a reader who has only heard it.Fact: it was not a physical railroad; the name refers to people who escaped slavery and those who helped them.
A safe house 12
Describe a safe house on the Underground Railroad as a passer-by would have seen it, and explain why it had to look ordinary.Fact: the routes included safe houses and stations where freedom seekers could avoid being caught.
Describe what a safe house on the Underground Railroad had to have ready: food, a place to sleep, a way out. Explain each one.Fact: stations were resting spots where freedom seekers could sleep and eat.
Explain how a busy city restaurant could be a safe house on the Underground Railroad in plain sight.Fact: a free Black restaurant owner in New York hid freedom seekers in the basement of his oyster restaurant.
Explain how far apart the safe houses of the Underground Railroad stood, and why.Fact: freedom seekers traveled at night, about 10 to 20 miles to each station.
Explain how the next safe house on the Underground Railroad knew to expect visitors.Fact: while the travelers rested, a message was sent to the next station to say they were on their way.
Explain the risk a household took by keeping a safe house on the Underground Railroad after 1850.Fact: under the act of 1850, giving a fugitive food or shelter could bring six months in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Explain what a station master on the Underground Railroad did between one arrival and the next departure.Fact: the resting places were given the code names stations and depots and were held by station masters.
Explain what a vigilance committee was and how it protected a city neighborhood in the years of the Underground Railroad.Fact: vigilance committees were groups of African Americans organized to protect fellow citizens from slave catchers.
Explain what made a church a good station on the Underground Railroad.Fact: Black churches were stations, and Black communities in the North hid freedom seekers in churches and homes.
Explain where in a building freedom seekers on the Underground Railroad were hidden, and why those places were chosen.Fact: the stations were often located in basements, barns, churches, or in hiding places in caves.
Explain who kept the safe houses of the Underground Railroad, using what the National Park Service says about the people involved.Fact: people of all races, classes and genders took part in this widespread form of civil disobedience.
Some helpers on the Underground Railroad left food outside the door and never opened it. Explain what that small act did.Fact: enslaved and free Black people left food outside their front doors to feed freedom seekers.
Signals and words with two meanings 12
A coded Underground Railroad message about a shipment adds the single word via. Explain how one small word sent pursuers to the wrong train station.Fact: the word via meant the travelers were not on the usual train but were coming by way of another town.
A conductor on the Underground Railroad never drove a train. Explain what the job really was.Fact: conductors, both male and female, guided freedom seekers to stations and safe houses.
A forged pass on the Underground Railroad was a message to anyone who stopped its bearer. Explain what it said and why it was believed.Fact: free Black people carried passes as proof of freedom; forged free passes were made for freedom seekers.
An Underground Railroad message reads: four large hams and two small hams sent at two o'clock. Explain what it told the person who received it.Fact: in one recorded message, four large hams and two small hams meant four adults and two children sent by train.
Explain how a disguise on the Underground Railroad carried two meanings: one for the person fooled and one for the person helped.Fact: freedom seekers used disguises, forgeries and other strategies, the National Park Service says.
Explain the railroad words the Underground Railroad borrowed: station, depot, conductor, passenger. Say what each one really meant.Fact: it used rail terms such as stations and conductors because the railroad was the transportation system of the time.
Explain where the name Underground Railroad came from, as far as historians have traced it.Fact: the term's first documented use in print was on August 10, 1842, in an abolitionist newspaper of Albany, New York.
Explain why coded speech mattered on the Underground Railroad to people who could be overheard at any time.Fact: accounts written after slavery ended give examples of coded language that enslaved people used to discuss escape.
Explain why the National Park Service prefers the words freedom seeker to fugitive or runaway when it writes about the Underground Railroad.Fact: the Park Service calls freedom seeker a more accurate description than fugitive or runaway.
Explain why travelers on the Underground Railroad called Canada the Promised Land and the Ohio River the River Jordan.Fact: fugitives called Canada the Promised Land, and the Ohio River, between slave states and free, the River Jordan.
The Underground Railroad printed nothing, yet the newspapers of its time are a source for its history. Explain how.Fact: historians have found 200,000 runaway advertisements in North American newspapers.
The Underground Railroad was a railroad only as a figure of speech. Explain when the figure of speech began and what had been happening long before it.Fact: the railroad metaphor began in the 1840s; escape from slavery is recorded as early as the 1600s.
A night on the road, told 12
Describe a journey on the Underground Railroad made by real train, from boarding without a word to stepping down at the last stop.Fact: in a number of cases freedom seekers did use actual trains, though doing so could be very dangerous.
Describe a night on the Underground Railroad on which the traveler has no guide and must choose between two roads.Fact: the majority of escapes from slavery did not have help from an abolitionist.
Describe a night on the Underground Railroad spent hidden among a ship's cargo as the vessel leaves the dock.Fact: in New Bedford, Massachusetts, freedom seekers hid in ships' cargoes with help from Black and white crew members.
Describe a night walk on the Underground Railroad past a crossroads where a reward notice is posted, and explain how the traveler changes the plan.Fact: slave catchers watched the expected routes, and advertised rewards encouraged the public to help them.
Describe a night's shelter on the Underground Railroad in a village of a Native nation that takes travelers in.Fact: in northwest Ohio the Shawnee, Ottawa and Wyandot nations helped freedom seekers escape.
Describe a week of nights on the Underground Railroad, walking north along the Appalachian ridges toward Lake Erie.Fact: a main route led up the Appalachians and through northeastern Ohio to the shore of Lake Erie.
Describe finding supper on the Underground Railroad on a night with no house to knock at.Fact: freedom seekers foraged, fished and hunted for food on the journey.
Describe one night's walk between two stations of the Underground Railroad, hour by hour, from dusk to the first gray light.Fact: most escapes took place at night, when travelers could hide under the cover of darkness.
Describe the first meeting on the Underground Railroad between a traveler and a conductor who is a stranger, and what each must decide in a minute.Fact: conductors included free-born Black people, white abolitionists, the formerly enslaved and Native Americans.
In the order it happened, describe a night ride on the Underground Railroad in a farm wagon, as someone lying under the hay.Fact: travelers usually went on foot or by wagon, sometimes lying down covered with hay, in groups of one to three.
Step by step, describe a river crossing at night on the Underground Railroad in a small boat, from the push off one bank to the step onto the other.Fact: enslaved people who lived near rivers escaped on boats and canoes.
Using only what can be heard, describe a day on the Underground Railroad spent waiting in a wetland for dark.Fact: wetlands such as the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina and Virginia concealed people escaping north.
Arriving 12
Describe an arrival few people picture when they hear of the Underground Railroad: stepping off a whaling ship in a Pacific port.Fact: some freedom seekers shipped out on whaling vessels and stayed in places such as San Francisco and Hawaii.
Describe arriving at the lines of the Union army during the Civil War, and explain why that counts as a route of the Underground Railroad too.Fact: during the Civil War many freedom seekers sought protection by escaping to the lines of the Union army.
Describe arriving in a Northern city by the Underground Railroad before 1850 and deciding to stay.Fact: free Black communities in Indiana, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York helped freedom seekers.
Describe arriving in Mexico at the end of a southern route of the Underground Railroad, and explain what that border meant.Fact: some freedom seekers traveled south into Mexico, where slavery had been abolished.
Describe crossing the suspension bridge over the Niagara River at the end of the Underground Railroad, from the first plank to the far side.Fact: a suspension bridge crossed the Niagara River by 1848, and freedom seekers used it to reach Canada.
Describe the first week in a new country at the end of the Underground Railroad: finding work, a room, a name to sign. Explain what was hard about it.Fact: life in Canada was difficult: new arrivals had to compete for jobs, and discrimination was widespread.
Describe the moment a steamboat from an Ohio port ties up at a landing in Canada, as someone waiting on the dock in the last years of the Underground Railroad.Fact: after 1850 about thirty people a day crossed by steamboat to Fort Malden, in Amherstburg, Ontario.
Explain how many people reached Canada by the Underground Railroad, and why historians give a range instead of one number.Fact: estimates vary widely: at least 30,000 people, and potentially more than 100,000, escaped to Canada.
Explain what happened to the Underground Railroad after December 1865, and describe a journey made in the opposite direction.Fact: after the amendment of December 6, 1865, some people who had escaped to Canada returned to the United States.
Explain when the Underground Railroad ended, and why no single day can be named.Fact: it continued through the Civil War, until at least the Thirteenth Amendment ended legal slavery.
Explain where in Canada most travelers of the Underground Railroad settled, and describe the region as you would point to it on a map.Fact: most settled in Ontario, in the triangle bounded by Niagara Falls, Toronto and Windsor.
Explain why Canada was a destination of the Underground Railroad, and what crossing the border changed.Fact: Canada was beyond the reach of the Fugitive Slave Acts and farther from slave catchers.
How it works
Informational writing prompts on Underground Railroad history should hand the writer a fact first. Each of these sixty is an explain or a describe task, and the line under it gives one checked fact to build the piece on.
Read the full guide
Informative writing prompts: explain first, then tell
The first thirty-six prompts ask how something worked: a route with no map, a station, a message about hams that meant people. The other twenty-four are a night on the road or an arrival. For each one, state the fact, explain it, then give one example.
Writing prompts for the Underground Railroad, without the legends
Quilt codes, and songs said to give directions, are not on the list: the National Park Service says quilt codes lack historical documentation. The prompts use its term freedom seeker, and no real person is named.
Open with the fact in your own words, then explain why it had to be that way.
Describe in order: dusk, midnight, first light. Order is what keeps a description informational.
Questions and answers
What is an informational writing prompt on the Underground Railroad?
A task that asks you to explain or describe from facts and not to invent a story. For example: explain how the Underground Railroad could work with no headquarters, no printed map and no timetable.
Was the Underground Railroad a real railroad?
No. The National Park Service says it was not a physical railroad: the name covers people who escaped slavery and those who helped them. In a number of cases freedom seekers did use actual trains, which was very dangerous.
Where did the Underground Railroad go?
Anywhere a person could be free. Routes ran to Northern states and Canada, and also to Mexico, Spanish Florida, the Caribbean and the West. At least 30,000 people are estimated to have escaped to Canada.
When did the Underground Railroad start and end?
The railroad metaphor began in the 1840s, and escape from slavery is recorded as early as the 1600s. The Park Service says it continued through the Civil War, until at least the Thirteenth Amendment ended legal slavery.