Despite the risks of being captured and sold into bondage, some free people of color illegally provided aid to fugitive slaves in the early years of the Underground Railroad's operations. As more fugitive slaves came into Indiana in the 1820s, a growing number of white abolitionists and antislavery advocates took part the network, especially after 1850, when federal fugitive laws made it more difficult for runaways to make their escape to Canada. The Underground Railroad gradually evolved in the 1830s and 1840s, reaching its peak during the 1850s, and remained in operation until 1865, when slavery was abolished throughout the United States at the end of the American Civil War.
