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Although slaveholders in 19th century America regularly claimed their “property” was content with living in bondage, attempted or successful escapes by slaves were fairly common, whether assisted by the Underground Railroad or taken on by individuals with little or no outside help.
The following collection presents twelve of the best-known and most dramatic escapes from slavery in the era preceding the American Civil War (1861-1865) which led to the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment and the end of legalized slavery in the United States of America.
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About the Author
![Joshua J. Mark]()
Joshua J. Mark is World History Encyclopedia's co-founder and Content Director. He was previously a professor at Marist College (NY) where he taught history, philosophy, literature, and writing. He has traveled extensively and lived in Greece and Germany.
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Uploaded by Joshua J. Mark, published on 24 July 2025. The copyright holder has published this content under the following license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike. This license lets others remix, tweak, and build upon this content non-commercially, as long as they credit the author and license their new creations under the identical terms. When republishing on the web a hyperlink back to the original content source URL must be included. Please note that content linked from this page may have different licensing terms.
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