The Little-Known Underground Railroad That Ran South to Mexico

I found this article regarding a little-known aspect of the Underground Railroad. “TheUnderground Railroadran south as well as north. For enslaved people in Texas, refuge in Canada must have seemed impossibly far away. Fortunately, slavery was also illegal inMexico. Researchers estimate 5,000 to 10,000 people escaped from bondage into Mexico, saysMaria Hammack, who is writing her dissertation about this topic at the University of Texas at Austin. But she thinks the actual number could be even higher. ‘These were clandestine routes and if you got caught you would bekilled and lynched, so most people didn’t leave a lot of records,’ says Hammack. There’s some evidence thattejanos, or Mexicans in Texas, acted as ‘conductors’ on the southern route by helping people get to Mexico. In addition, Hammack has also identified a Black woman and two white men who helped enslaved workers…