Slavery affected 12.5 million slaves in the United States, due to such a large number of slaves there had to be a very large number of people helping slaves. There were approximately 3,200 ‘conductors’ on the Underground Railroad, one of them being William Still. A conductor was anyone who helped the Underground Railway function in any way. William Still ended up becoming the most successful black businessmen in the city of Philadelphia of his time, all while helping up to 800 slaves’ escape. William Still is an important figure in American history because of his life, dedication to the Underground Railroad, and his memory, which is honored today.
William Still was a very brave man, despite coming from humble beginnings. Still was born a free black man despite both of his parent’s being born into slavery. He was born on October 7th in New Jersey as the youngest of 18 children. His mother had run away from her master while his father had bought his freedom. Due to the origins of both his parents, Still was forced to teach himself everything he knew. As a result, he couldn’t get a very well-paying job. Nonetheless, Still got a job as a janitor for the Pennsylvania Society for the Abolition of Slavery.
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William Still’s efforts were very acknowledgeable. Still never learned how to read and had to teach himself. It was against the law for anyone of color to know how to read, but Still was motivated. William Still’s motivation for learning so much was to document the treatment of slaves. Still also used his knowledge to kept records of all the slaves he helped. Still had started helping slaves shortly after getting his job as a janitor. The first slave he ever kept a record of was his half-brother, which his mother could not bring when she escaped. Still destroyed most records in fear that they would be used against him. After the Civil War, his children encouraged him to keep the records. His book ‘The Underground’ is one of the most important documents about the Civil War. Still was so important that Harriet Tubman, one of the most famous conductors on the Underground Railroad, was a frequent visitor at William’s station on her runs to help slaves.
William Still was one of the top Underground Railroad conductors with over 800 escaped slaves, all while being the most successful black businessmen in Philadelphia. Still’s station gained much attention after he helped a shepherd escape to Canada as many slaves did. Despite all of this he is still most known for his book where he describes the horror the slaves he helped before he assisted them. Still’s book goes into the deep detail of the intricate network of houses and people dedicating themselves to helping slaves and how the information of stations was passed around.
William Still helped hundreds of slaves. We know about all of these slaves because of the extensive records kept by William Still. Still’s records are some of the best that we have from his time period. Out of the many conductors on the Underground Railroad, Still had some of the biggest impact. In total, the conductors assisted over 100,000 slaves. Some conductors housed slaves, these conductors’ homes were called ‘stations’, while others helped by running slaves from station to station, following the North Star.
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