The decade 1830-40 was a severe period of trial.  Not only were the chains of slavery tighter in the South, but in the North the free Negro was beginning to feel the ostracism and competition of white workingmen, native and foreign.  In Philadelphia, between 1829 and 1849, six mobs of hoodlums and foreigners murdered and maltreated Negroes.  In the Middle West harsh black laws which had been enacted in earlier days were hauled from their hiding places and put into effect.  No Negro was allowed to settle in Ohio unless he gave bond within twenty days to the amount of five thousand dollars to guarantee his good behavior and support.  Harboring or concealing fugitives was heavily fined, and no Negro could give evidence in any case where a white man was party.  These laws began to be enforced in 1829 and for three days riots went on in Cincinnati and Negroes were shot and killed.  Aroused, the Negroes sent a deputation to Canada where they were offered asylum.  Fully two thousand migrated from Ohio.  Later 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 cooeperation to assist fugitives came to be known as the Underground Railroad.  It was an organization not simply of white philanthropists, but the cooeperation 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.