Editing Underground Railroad (section)

===Folklore===
{{Main|Quilts of the Underground Railroad|Songs of the Underground Railroad}}

Since the 1980s, claims have arisen that [[quilt]] designs were used to signal and direct enslaved people to escape routes and assistance. According to advocates of the quilt theory, ten quilt patterns were used to direct enslaved people to take particular actions. The quilts were placed one at a time on a fence as a means of nonverbal communication to alert escaping slaves. The code had a dual meaning: first to signal enslaved people to prepare to escape, and second to give clues and indicate directions on the journey.<ref>Williams, Ozella McDaniels, 1999.</ref>

The quilt design theory is disputed. The first published work documenting an [[oral history]] source was in 1999, and the first publication of this theory is believed to be a 1980 children's book.<ref name=SLJ407>{{Cite magazine| last=Aronson| first=Marc| date=April 1, 2007| url=http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6430152.html| title=History That Never Happened| magazine=[[School Library Journal]]| access-date=March 31, 2011| archive-date=November 9, 2012| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121109103018/http://www.schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6430152.html| url-status=live}}</ref> Quilt historians and scholars of pre-Civil War (1820–1860) America have disputed this legend.<ref>{{cite magazine|last1=Stukin|first1=Stacie|title=Unravelling the Myth of Quilts and the Underground Railroad|url=http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1606271,00.html|magazine=Time|date=April 3, 2007|access-date=January 18, 2017|archive-date=January 13, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170113104857/http://content.time.com/time/arts/article/0,8599,1606271,00.html|url-status=live}}</ref> There is no contemporary evidence of any sort of quilt code, and quilt historians such as Pat Cummings and Barbara Brackman have raised serious questions about the idea. In addition, Underground Railroad historian Giles Wright has published a pamphlet debunking the quilt code.

Similarly, some popular, nonacademic sources claim that spirituals and other songs, such as "[[Steal Away]]" or "[[Follow the Drinkin' Gourd|Follow the Drinking Gourd]]", contained coded information and helped individuals navigate the railroad. They have offered little evidence to support their claims. Scholars tend to believe that while the slave songs may certainly have expressed hope for deliverance from the sorrows of this world, these songs did not present literal help for runaway slaves.<ref name=songstory>{{cite journal| last= Kelley| first= James| title= Song, Story, or History: Resisting Claims of a Coded Message in the African American Spiritual 'Follow the Drinking Gourd{{'-}}| journal=[[The Journal of Popular Culture]]| volume=41| issue=2| date=April 2008 |pages=262–280| doi=10.1111/j.1540-5931.2008.00502.x}}</ref>

The Underground Railroad inspired cultural works. For example, "[[Song of the Free]]", written in 1860 about a man fleeing slavery in [[Tennessee]] by escaping to Canada, was composed to the tune of "[[Oh! Susanna]]". Every stanza ends with a reference to Canada as the land "where colored men are free". Slavery in [[Upper Canada]] (now Ontario) was outlawed in 1793; in 1819, [[Sir John Robinson, 1st Baronet, of Toronto|John Robinson]], the Attorney General of Upper Canada, declared that by residing in Canada, black residents were set free, and that Canadian courts would<ref>{{cite web| url=https://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/alvin_mccurdy/settlement.aspx| title=Black History-From Slavery to Settlement| website=Archives.gov.on.ca| access-date=June 7, 2016| url-status=dead| archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130214020850/http://www.archives.gov.on.ca/en/explore/online/alvin_mccurdy/settlement.aspx| archive-date=February 14, 2013| df=mdy-all}}</ref> protect their freedom. [[Slavery in Canada]] as a whole had been in rapid decline after an 1803 court ruling, and was finally abolished outright in 1834.