Most people think that Underground Railroad means there was a railroad underground, well guess what, that's wrong. It really was a chain of houses that were twenty miles apart going through the states of Illinois, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, Delaware, and New England. Most of the people that lived in the houses wanted to help slaves because they thought slavery was wrong. The slaves were known as passengers. The people who help slaves were known as conductors or stationmasters and the houses were known as stations. The slaves used codes to tell the next stationmaster who was coming when they were coming and how they were getting there. Some code words are "hope" and "sunrise." These codes also told what town they were in, what city slaves were in and what station they were at. Slaves also had ways to know what houses were safe. Some ways were one row of white bricks on a chimney, a colored lantern, a flag hanging on a door. Slaves had to move quickly. Some ways they moved were by walking, riding, and hiding in fake wagon compartments. Once the slaves got to where they were going they had to hide in attics, lofts in barns, corncribs, cellars, secret rooms, fake closets, hidden tunnels, and chimneys. Slaves also traveled by fishing boats, canal boats, cargo boats, ferry, flat boats, and canoes. If someone came over to the boat the slaves would jump into the river until they left. After a while the plantation owners got mad and had a law passed that all whites must return slaves to their owners. This made the whites help even more slaves.