• Looking at one portion of the text ("Right There")
• Searching through multiple parts of the text and thinking ("Think and Search")
• Expressing their ideas and opinions ("On your Own").

Some accounts show the gross inhumanity that was an unfortunate part of many slaves' experience. You are the best judge of whether your students are mature enough to handle this kind of information.

Introduce the activity by talking a bit about primary source documents and their reliability. Talk about factors that might change one's impressions of a past event, such as the passage of time and the purpose for writing down one's impressions of this event. Before beginning the activity, students might want to review the focus question "What were some of the factors people had to consider as they thought about escaping from slavery?" to be sure what their task is. Encourage students to read many accounts before formulating their responses to the focus question. Responses can be oral or written.

This is an activity that is probably best utilized by students at the eighth grade level. Others may need more support in reading and interpreting these documents. There is some annotation included for each account, but you may need to supply more for your students. Struggling readers or 4th grade students may find it easier to read the excerpts provided instead of jumping directly to the primary source document.

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Go to Eyewitness to History | View printable vocabulary list



In this section, students are asked to look at aggregated data accumulated from census reports in the years 1790, 1800, 1810, 1820, 1830, 1840, 1850, and 1860 to answer specific questions related to slavery and Maryland.

By sliding the bar on the timeline at the top of the page, students can select a specific year, and then click on each county to get data for that year in that location. A demonstration (accessed through the "demo" box) is available throughout the interactive, showing students how to work with the data.

Students are asked to synthesize information they find, using ThinkSheets that contain open-ended questions to direct their investigations.

Before your students access the information on a computer, you may want to provide them with copies of the ThinkSheets available to help them think through each question. You might also consider bookmarking the section related to ThinkSheets so students can access them online.

You may want to encourage students to fully explore each year before moving on to review data for other years.

NOTE: Because some counties were not formed until later in this period, sometimes the box displaying information will say that no data is available. Please note that an explanation of this appears in the upper right hand corner of the screen when one of these counties is selected. The explanation also explains where students can look for this data. Wicomico County was formed in 1867. Carroll County was formed in 1837. Garrett County was created in 1872.

To access more information from census records during this period, visit this site maintained by Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research (ICPSR), in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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Go to Figure It Out



One of the most intriguing parts of the Underground Railroad is the complete secrecy within which it was carried out. The routes, the stations, the conductors, and all other elements of this underground system had to be known only to a few. Communication was limited to only those who had to know - escaping slaves and the people who helped them.

In this section of the site, students can explore some of the secret ways of communicating that those involved in the Underground Railroad knew about:

Follow the Drinking Gourd investigates a common astronomical symbol (the North Star) and how escaping slaves used it to guide their path to freedom. It also explores the words to the song "Follow the Drinking Gourd," and what its words may have signaled to those traveling on the Underground Railroad. Students can also listen to the song to see what they think about its hidden messages.

Music allows students to read and listen to spirituals related to the Underground Railroad movement, while they learn about the different ways slaves may have used them. This activity is especially useful for challenged readers.

The Language of Quilts explores a recent theory that slaves may have used quilts to "talk" to others either before or during their escapes. Drs. Tobin and Dobard believe that slaves displayed quilts in a certain order to signal that an escape was imminent. In addition, they may have sewn quilts to give escaping slaves a simplistic kind of road map for their journey. This theory has been disputed by others. Perhaps your students would like to debate this issue after reading this section of the site.

Language of the Railroad explores some of the code words people involved in the Underground Railroad used. You may want to discuss with your students the reasons such a code had to be used.

• The completed quilt will include the block the student created, multiplied many times.
• Students can place an unlimited number of shapes in one square. If they make a "mistake" in their pattern, they can quickly correct it by covering up the shape with another. Students can also start over again by using the RESET button.
• You will need a color printer to print students' work in color. If you have a black and white printer, students could color their quilt after printing.
• Remind students to leave their computer on and at its current page location until printing is complete.

This activity can be used effectively by both fourth and eighth grade students. Students who think visually will find this activity particularly rewarding.