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The Underground Railroad and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850
An 1872 drawing of Maria Weems, an African American woman who escaped slavery in 1855 wearing male attire.

An 1872 drawing of Maria Weems, an African American woman who escaped slavery in 1855 wearing male attire.

Citation Information
Still, William, “Maria Weems escaping in male attire,” Digital Public Library of America, https://dp.la/item/b71f53f92d06ea3c874fa97f4518a765.
Note: These citations are programmatically generated and may be incomplete.
Courtesy of The New York Public Library.

Tips for Students

For this source, consider:

  • the author's point of view
  • the author's purpose
  • historical context
  • audience

Item 3 of 15 in the Primary Source Set The Underground Railroad and the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850

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A map of the nineteenth-century Underground Railroad created in 2005.
An excerpt from Scenes in the Life of Harriet Tubman by Sarah H. Bradford, 1869.
An 1872 drawing of Maria Weems, an African American woman who escaped slavery in 1855 wearing male attire.
A 1922 drawing of Ellen Craft, who escaped slavery in 1848 while disguised as her master.
An excerpt from Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom or the Escape of William and Ellen Craft from Slavery by William Craft, 1860.
A broadside announcing the Fugitive Slave Bill of 1850.
An excerpt from The Fugitive Slave Law and its Victims, an 1861 antislavery book listing cases of individuals targeted by the Fugitive Slave Law.
“Leap of the Fugitive Slave,” an 1880 drawing of a woman leaping to her death rather than be returned to her master.
A drawing called “Operations of the Fugitive-Slave Law.”
An 1850 political cartoon, “Effects of the Fugitive Slave Law,” showing four escaped slaves being recaptured by armed white men.
A poster calling for a meeting in Camillus, New York in 1852 to protest the Fugitive Slave Law.
A picture and narrative of Lear Green escaping slavery in a chest via the Underground Railroad, 1850s.
An excerpt from The Underground Railroad from Slavery to Freedom by William M. Mitchell, 1860.
An excerpt from A Woman's Life Work: Including Thirty Years' Service On the Underground Railroad and in The War by Laura S. Haviland, 1888.
Portraits of the Philadelphia Vigilance Committee, 1859.

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