While African Americans were in physical bondage, the minds and spirits of these individuals remained free. Many labels for escaping African Americans were constructs of the Southern slave-holding societal structure, or by some patronizing abolitionists. As such, these terms tend to reflect how slave-holding society viewed African American efforts toward freedom. Instead, the National Park Service and its partners use language reflective of the goal of liberty that Underground Railroad participants dreamed of, strove to, and eventually grasped.

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To understand the language of slavery, it is crucial to grasp what the Underground Railroad is. The Underground Railroad is an abstract concept that encompasses the sites and individuals that helped freedom seekers gain their freedom by escaping bondage. People of all races, classes and genders participated in this widespread form of civil disobedience.
The following examples contrast the difference between words commonly used in slaveholding society, versus language the National Park Service and its partners use reflective of the goal of liberty that Underground Railroad participants eventually gained.
Freedom Seeker | Escapee, Fugitive, Runaway |
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This term reflects the freedom of spirit by referring to escaping African Americans as "freedom seekers," rather than runaways, fugitives or escapees.
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Terms such as "runaway" and "escapees" refer to freedom seekers. These terms tend to disparage the freedom seeker. "Runaway" conjures up the image of a discontent adolescent, while "escapee" is linked to "fugitive," evoking the image of a guilty law breaker deserving of capture and punishment. |
Slave Holder | Slave Master, Slave Owner |
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“Slaveholder” best describes the non-regional character of North American Slavery. Too often, “slaveholder” is used synonymously with the term “Southerner.” Certainly, slavery was widespread throughout the American South, more so than any other part of the United States. |
The terms “slave master” and “slave owner” refer to those individuals who own slaves and were popular titles to use from the 17th to 19th centuries when slavery was part of American culture. These terms disparage those slaves who worked for White people because it implies that enslaved individuals were “lesser” than their slaveholder. Using the word “master” and “owner” takes away the agency and humanity of those slaves, and limits them to property of these individuals. In the era of slavery, enslaved individuals were defined as property, i.e. not human. Enslaved individuals are human and have the same emotional, mental and physical capabilities as other human beings. |
Special focus is placed on the escaped slave, or freedom seeker in North America, as well as the historic Underground Railroad, a powerful tool of resistance created by freedom seekers and abolitionist allies. This term, however, refers to status African American from the viewpoint of slaveholding society, especially when a freedom seeker is referred to as an "escaped slave."
Freedom seeker illustrates the African American decision to wrest control of his or her status from the slaveholder to one of their own choosing. Further, the use of the term "slave" to describe African Americans indicates that the individual accepted the term as a definition of their own humanity. "Enslaved," meanwhile, demonstrates the condition of the individual within the class and economic system of the dominant society, and less of an internalized, or intellectual condition.
Yet so widespread was the institution of slavery that slaveholders could transport their property into free lands, especially after the Dred Scott decision, and use that property as they would in slave states. Further, U.S. citizens of all regions owned human property, not only Southerners, and creates the false impression that Southerners were the only slaveholders while Northerners created and supported the Underground Railroad.
To regionalize slavery, to draw definite borders around so fluid an institution, only serves to limit a broader, perhaps borderless conceptualization of slavery, freedom seekers, and the Underground Railroad.
Last updated: September 9, 2020