The name is a reference to the Underground Railroad, the informal network of abolitionists and sympathizers who helped smuggle escaped slaves to freedom, generally in Canada[3] but also in Mexico[4] where slavery had been abolished.

In New York, a gang known as 'the black-birders' regularly waylaid men, women and children, sometimes with the support and participation of policemen and city officials.

He farther informed us, that a few days previous, he had absconded, and had nearly reached the Ohio River, when he was overtaken; and was then on his way back to the plantation of CONOLL WISTER, where he expected to meet the most savage treatment for his temerity.

He was intelligent and interesting; and anxious to discover whether he were free or not, we questioned him relative to the location of the city of New York, its streets, inhabitants, public edifices and climate, and were perfectly satisfied the tale he told was scrupulously true.

"[8] From 1811 to 1829, Martha "Patty" Cannon was the leader of a gang that kidnapped slaves and free blacks, from the Delmarva Peninsula of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Chesapeake Bay and transported and sold them to plantation owners located further south.

She had recounted that "when she was a girl, about twelve years old, she was on a fence near Richmond, Va., seeing a procession go by in honor of Lafayette, and she was stolen, taken to Georgia by slave traders and became the property of Hon.

"[9] John Hart Crenshaw was a large landowner, salt maker, and slave trader, from the 1820s to the 1850s, based out of the southeastern part of Illinois in Gallatin County and a business associate of Kentucky lawman and outlaw, James Ford.

In 1860, John and Nancy Curtis were arrested for trying to kidnap their own freed slaves in Johnson County, Illinois to sell back into slavery in Missouri.

South Carolina passed the Negro Seamen Act in 1822 out of fear that free black sailors would inspire slave revolts, requiring that they be incarcerated while their ship was docked.

This could lead to black sailors being sold into slavery if their captains did not pay fees resulting from them being jailed, or if their freedom papers were lost.

Once landed, they were marched through brushwood, swamp and cornfields to the home of Joe Johnson and Jesse and Patty Cannon, on the line between Delaware and Maryland, where they were "kept in irons for a considerable amount of time".

[17] As early as 1775, Anthony Benezet and others met in Philadelphia and organized the Society for the Relief of Free Negroes Unlawfully held in Bondage to focus on intervention in the cases of blacks and Indians who claimed to have been illegally enslaved.

The Pennsylvania Abolition Society compared records of apprehended blacks to try to free those who were wrongfully detained, kept a list of missing people who were potential abductees, and formed the Committee on Kidnapping.

In 1800, Richard Allen and Absalom Jones sent a petition to Congress from 73 prominent free Black citizens urging a stop to the kidnappings.

[23] Due to the lack of effectiveness from government institutions, free blacks were frequently forced to use their own methods to protect themselves and their families.

[22] From Philadelphia, high constable Samuel Parker Garrigues took several trips to Southern states at the behest of mayor Joseph Watson to rescue children and adults who had been kidnapped from the city's streets.

Garrigues was able to find and arrest Bailey's abductor, Captain John Smith, alias Thomas Collins, head of "The Johnson Gang".

In the first, two family members were able to prove they were stolen and legally free in the north, but the Alabama courts simply never addressed the claim, just passing it forward for years.