Isaac Tatem Hopper (December 3, 1771 – May 7, 1852) was an American abolitionist who was active in Philadelphia in the anti-slavery movement and protecting fugitive slaves and free blacks from slave kidnappers.

David Ruggles was an African-American abolitionist, writer, publisher and hydropathic practitioner who was a courageous voice of black freedom. He assisted hundreds escaping slavery, and mentored future abolitionist luminaries Frederick Douglass, Sojourner Truth, and William Cooper Nell.

Anti-slavery sentiment was particularly prominent in Philadelphia, where Isaac Hopper, a convert to Quakerism, established what one author called “the first operating cell of the abolitionist underground.” In addition to hiding runaways in his own home, Hopper organized a network of safe havens and cultivated a web of …

David Ruggles (March 15, 1810 – December 16, 1849) was an African-American abolitionist in New York who resisted slavery by his participation in a Committee of Vigilance and the Underground Railroad to help fugitive slaves reach free states.

He is buried in an unmarked grave in the Ruggles family plot in Norwich’s Yantic Cemetery.

The Darg Case, as it was called, caused a furor in New York’s newspapers in the autumn of 1838. Its proceeding exposed the extreme dangers for Ruggles and other anti-slavery warriors. New York City residents in the 1830s were deeply divided over the future of America’s peculiar institution.

The New York Vigilance Committee with the help of Ruggles intervened in over 300 cases of fugitive slaves in 1836, the first year of its existence. In September 1838 Ruggles took on the case of an escaped Maryland slave, Frederick Washington Bailey. Later Bailey changed his name to Frederick Douglas.

Ruggles sheltered runaway Frederick Douglass here at 36 Lispenard Street. He also ran a boarding house at 67 Lispenard that was a meeting place for abolitionists. David Ruggles was the leading, and possibly the most hated, abolitionist in New York City.

The famous abolitionist, writer, lecturer, statesman, and Underground Railroad conductor Frederick Douglass (1817–1895) resided in this house from 1877 until his death. He was a leader of Rochester’s Underground Railroad movement and became the editor and publisher of the North Star, an abolitionist newspaper.

Frederick Douglass was determined to escape to freedom. On Sept. 3, 1838, Frederick Douglass stepped onto a train in Baltimore.

What is the North Star? The reason Polaris is so important is because the axis of Earth is pointed almost directly at it. During the course of the night, Polaris does not rise or set, but remains in very nearly the same spot above the northern horizon year-round while the other stars circle around it.

the drinking gourd

“Day-to-day resistance” was the most common form of opposition to slavery. Breaking tools, feigning illness, staging slowdowns, and committing acts of arson and sabotage–all were forms of resistance and expression of slaves’ alienation from their masters. Running away was another form of resistance.