About the Underground Railroad Vocabulary

VOCABULARY WORDS FOR "ABOUT THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD"
As they explore "About the Underground Railroad" students will notice these words highlighted. Students can click on the words to see a definition and/or hear the word pronounced.
  • anti-slavery: believing that the practice of owning people as slaves is wrong
  • arouse: to stir up or cause
  • arrange: to plan and prepare for
  • auction: any sale where something is sold to the person who bids the most money
  • blacksmiths: workers who heat and shape iron into objects such as tools
  • carpenters: skilled workers who build or repair things made of wood
  • coaches: passenger vehicles drawn by horses
  • colonial assembly: a group of people who made laws
  • colonizers: people who create a new settlement
  • concluded: to come to a decision about something
  • conductor: a code word used by people involved in the Underground Railroad to talk about a person who helped slaves escape
  • constitution: a document stating the basic laws of a nation or state
  • cruelty: actions that causes pain or sadness
  • Declaration of Independence: the document signed in 1776 that established the United States as a nation, declaring its freedom from England
  • emancipation: the act of setting people free from slavery
  • Emancipation Proclamation: a law passed in 1863 that ended slavery in the Confederate states
  • forbade: to have commanded someone not to do something
  • extensive: large and involved
  • foreign: from another place or country
  • forged: not real; counterfeit or copied
  • fugitives: people who are running away
  • frequently: often
  • gradually: moving or changing by small degrees
  • harsh: severe or cruel
  • inflict: to give something hurtful, as if you were actually hitting the person
  • institution: a custom or practice
  • master: a person who owned slaves
  • mistress: a master's (slave owner's) wife
  • Nazis: members of a German political party brought to power under Adolph Hitler.
  • network: an organized and connected system
  • plantation: a large farm
  • preferred: to like better or best
  • prevent: to stop
  • industries: large sections of business involved in making or trading goods
  • Quakers: a Christian religious group that did not believe in slavery. Many Quakers volunteered on the Underground Railroad.
  • rebellious: opposing authority or control
  • recognizing: saying or feeling that something is right or true
  • reconstruct: to build again
  • Revolutionary War: the war for American independence from Britain, fought in the 1700s.
  • Romans: people whose first century empire was centered in Rome, Italy
  • severe: harsh or extremely painful
  • skipper: a person in charge of a ship
  • slave: a person who is the property of another
  • slavery: the wrongful practice of owning a person as property
  • undermine: to weaken or wear away
  • undertaker: someone who buries the dead
  • union: the group of states that remained as part of the United States during the Civil War
  • United Nations: an international group of nations that promotes peace.
  • in the vicinity: near
  • wages: money paid to workers in exchange for doing a job
  • World War II: a war fought from 1939 to 1945 between German, Italy and Japan against the Allies: France, Britain, the Soviet Union and the United States.