Editing Underground Railroad (section)

====Slave states and slave hunters====
The Southern Underground Railroad went through slave states, lacking the abolitionist societies and the organized system of the north. People who spoke out against slavery were subject to mobs, physical assault, and being hanged. There were slave catchers who looked for runaway slaves. There were never more than a few hundred free blacks in Texas, which meant that free blacks did not feel safe in the state. The network to freedom was informal, random, and dangerous.{{sfn|Bird|2021}}

[[United States Armed Forces|U.S. military]] forts, established along the Rio Grande border during the [[Mexican–American War]] of the 1840s, captured and returned fleeing enslaved people to their slaveholders.<ref name="Leanos">{{Cite news |last=Leanos |first=Reynaldo Jr. |date=March 29, 2017 |title=This underground railroad took slaves to freedom in Mexico |language=en |work=The World, a public radio program |url=https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-03-29/underground-railroad-took-slaves-freedom-mexico |access-date=2021-07-07 |archive-date=October 18, 2020 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201018081421/https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-03-29/underground-railroad-took-slaves-freedom-mexico |url-status=live}}</ref><ref>{{cite web |last1=Grant |first1=Richard |title=South to the Promised Land |url=https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/southbound-underground-railroad-brought-thousands-enslaved-americans-mexico-180980328/ |website=Smithsonian Magazine |publisher=Smithsonian Institution |access-date=15 September 2024}}</ref>

The [[Fugitive Slave Act of 1850]] made it a criminal act to aid fleeing escaping enslaved people in [[Slave states and free states|free states]]. Similarly, the United States government wanted to enact a treaty with Mexico so that they would help capture and return bonds-people. Mexico, however, continued their practice to allow anyone that crossed their borders to be free. Slave catchers continued to cross the southern border into Mexico and illegally capture black people and return them to slavery.{{sfn|Little|2021}} A group of slave hunters became the [[Texas Ranger Division|Texas Rangers]].<ref name="Leanos" />