er large numbers from other parts of the United States joined
them.

In 1830-31 the first Negro conventions were called in Philadelphia to
consider the desperate condition of the Negro population, and in 1833 the
convention met again and local societies were formed. The first Negro
paper was issued in New York in 1827, while later emancipation in the
British West Indies brought some cheer in the darkness.

A system of separate Negro schools was established and the little band of
abolitionists led by Garrison and others appeared. In spite of all the
untoward circumstances, therefore, the internal development of the free
Negro in the North went on. The Negro population increased twenty-three
per cent between 1830 and 1840; Philadelphia had, in 1838, one hundred
small beneficial societies, while Ohio Negroes had ten thousand acres of
land. The slave mutiny on the Creole, the establishment of the Negro Odd
Fellows, and the growth of the Negro churches all indicated advancement.

Between 1830 and 1850 the concerted cooperation to assist fugitives came
to be known as the Underground Railroad. It was an organization not simply
of white philanthropists, but the cooperation of Negroes in the most
difficult part of the work made it possible. Hundreds of Negroes visited
the slave states to entice the slaves away, and the list of Underground
Railroad operators given by Siebert contains one hundred and twenty-eight
names of Negroes. In Canada and in the northern United States there was a
secret society, known as the League of Freedom, which especially worked to
help slaves run away. Harriet Tubman was one of the most energetic of
these slave conductors and brought away several thousand slaves. William
Lambert, a colored man, was reputed between 1829 and 1862 to have aided in
the escape of thirty thousand.

The decade 1840-50 was a period of hope and uplift for the Negro group,
with clear evidences of distinct self-assertion and advance. A few
well-trained lawyers and physicians appeared, and colored men took their
place among the abolition orators. The catering business in Philadelphia
and other cities fell largely into their hands, and some small merchants
arose here and there. Above all, Frederick Douglass made his first speech
in 1841 and thereafter became one of the most prominent figures in the
abolition crusade. A new series of national conventions began to assemble
late in the forties, and the delegates were drawn from the