The Underground Railroad 

        Please take a few minuets to visit this website and go through the journey of the underground railroad. This journey helps explain that run away slaves did not know what was going to come next and always had to make their decisions on the spot, some good and others bad. Such as approaching a safe house not knowing what to expect rather than hiding out in the woods. 

http://education.nationalgeographic.com/education/multimedia/interactive/the-underground-railroad/?ar_a=1

        Because escaping slaves and the people who helped them were technically breaking the law, they had to stay out of sight. They went “underground” in terms of concealing their actions. Sometimes they even hid in unusual places like shown below.

CLOSED    Those who went south to find slaves seeking freedom were called "pilots.” Those who guide slaves to safety and freedom were "conductors.” The slaves were "passengers.” People’s homes or businesses, where fugitive passengers and conductors could safely hide, were "stations.”        Stations were added or removed from the Underground Railroad as ownership of the house changed. If a new owner supported slavery, or if the site was discovered to be a station, passengers and conductors were forced to find a new station.      The Underground Railroad had many notable participants, including John Fairfield in Ohio, the son of a slaveholding family, who made many daring rescues, Levi Coffin, a Quaker who assisted more than 3,000 slaves, and Harriet Tubman, who made 19 trips into the South and escorted over 300 slaves to freedom ~ WHAT WOULD HAVE HAPPENED IF THIS DIDNT HAPPEN?  If the underground railroad did not exist then that would mean that no one was willing to stand up for the slaves, and/or everyone was ok with slavery, and did not see the need for change.  ~IN WHAT WAS DID PASSION HELP INFLUENCE HISTORICAL EVENTS?  The "conductors" of the railroad all had a strong passion and belief that slaves should be free. This mindset pushed them to do what they thought was necessary in freeing the slaves, creating the underground railroad.

OPEN    ***It effectively moved hundreds of slaves northward each year -- according to one estimate, the South lost 100,000 slaves between 1810 and 1850.