Geography - Economics Lessons
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt
Two major groups who aided the runaway slaves were the free Blacks of northern states and the Society of Friends (or Quakers), a religious group who believed that slavery was against the will of God. Large number of Quakers lived in Indiana, Ohio, and Pennsylvania where they set up very organized escape routes to help get runaways into Canada.
Listed below is one of the routes of the Underground Railroad. Read the stations for the route and plot them on your map. Clara did not travel this route, but other slaves did.
A runaway slave left Charleston, South Carolina, traveled north by boat along the Atlantic coastline into Delaware Bay. Then traveled by land to Philadelphia and continued by land northeast to New York City and then to New Haven Connecticut.
Think about this route and what a runaway would see at the various stations along it. Make a list of the physical and human-made features that could be seen at each station and places between stations.
Then use the quilt pieces below to sketch a quilt that would show the route from South Carolina to Connecticut. You may use atlases or other maps to help you.
Return to Sweet Clara and the Freedom Quilt.
