Harriet Tubman

In 1849, following the death of her owner and the threat that she would be sold deeper into the South, Tubman made her escape. Traveling alone at night, guided by the North Star and aided by sympathetic helpers along the Underground Railroad, she crossed nearly ninety miles from Maryland through Delaware to freedom in Philadelphia.

The moment of crossing into free territory was both liberating and lonely. As Tubman later recalled: 'I had crossed the line. I was free; but there was no one to welcome me to the land of freedom. I was a stranger in a strange land.' Many escaped slaves would have counted themselves fortunate and tried to build new lives in safety. Tubman did something almost inconceivable: she went back.

Over the next decade, Tubman made approximately thirteen trips back into slave territory, personally leading around seventy people to freedom. She also provided escape instructions to an additional fifty or sixty people who made the journey independently. Her success rate was perfect - she never lost a single person she guided. At the 1896 suffrage convention in New York, she declared with justified pride: 'I was the conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can't say - I never ran my train off the track and I never lost a passenger.'

Tubman's success was not reckless bravery but meticulous planning. She typically conducted her rescues in late fall or early winter, when longer nights provided more cover. She left on Saturday evenings, knowing that newspapers would not print runaway notices until Monday. She established a network of safe houses, memorized routes through swamps and forests, and used disguises and coded communications to avoid detection.

She carried a pistol - for protection against slave catchers, but also, by her own account, to discourage any of her charges from turning back. A person who lost their nerve and returned could be tortured into revealing the route and the safe houses, endangering everyone. Tubman's willingness to enforce discipline with the threat of violence was not cruelty but cold pragmatism: the stakes were too high for hesitation.

The 1850 Fugitive Slave Act dramatically raised the danger, requiring Northern states to return escaped slaves and imposing penalties on anyone who aided them. Tubman responded by extending her routes all the way to Canada, beyond the reach of American law. The additional distance made each journey longer and more dangerous, but Tubman adapted without complaint.

Slaveholders in Maryland offered rewards totaling ,000 for her capture - an enormous sum in the 1850s. Yet Tubman remained uncaught, her identity unknown to many of the people hunting her. She operated in the shadows with a discipline and operational security that would have impressed any military commander.

When the Civil War began, Tubman's unique skills made her invaluable to the Union cause. In 1862, she traveled to South Carolina, where she served initially as a nurse caring for black soldiers and newly freed slaves. But her knowledge of covert operations, her ability to navigate hostile territory, and her rapport with the local enslaved population quickly led to a more significant role.

Working with Colonel James Montgomery, Tubman became a spy and scout, gathering intelligence from enslaved people behind Confederate lines. This network provided the Union Army with critical information about troop movements, supply lines, and defensive positions.

On June 2, 1863, Tubman guided the Combahee River Raid, becoming the first woman to lead an armed military expedition in American history. The raid, carried out by the 2nd South Carolina Infantry (a regiment of formerly enslaved men), destroyed Confederate supply lines along the river and liberated more than 700 enslaved people. It was a stunning military success, and Tubman's role as its architect and field commander demonstrated that her talents extended far beyond the Underground Railroad.

Despite her extraordinary service, Tubman was never adequately compensated by the government. She received only for three years of service and fought for decades to obtain a full military pension, which was not granted until 1899 - and then only as the widow of a veteran, not in recognition of her own service.

After the war, Tubman settled in Auburn, New York, where she had purchased property with the help of Senator William H. Seward. She devoted her remaining decades to causes that extended her lifelong fight for human dignity: women's suffrage, care for the elderly, and support for formerly enslaved people struggling to build new lives.

She worked alongside Frederick Douglass, [Susan B. Anthony], and other leaders of the suffrage and civil rights movements, speaking at conventions and lending her moral authority to the cause of women's voting rights. Her activism demonstrated the connection she saw between racial justice and gender equality - both were, in her view, fundamental questions of human freedom.

In her final years, Tubman established the Harriet Tubman Home for the Aged and Indigent on land adjacent to her own property. She eventually moved into the home herself when her health declined. She died on March 10, 1913, surrounded by family and friends, and was buried with military honors at Fort Hill Cemetery in Auburn.

Tubman's religious faith was not merely a comfort but an operational tool. She believed her seizure-induced visions were divine communications, and she used them to make decisions during rescues. Whether or not one shares her theological interpretation, the practical result was a decision-making confidence that proved remarkably effective under extreme pressure.

Her illiteracy, far from being a limitation, may have been a strategic advantage. Unable to write, she left no paper trail for slave catchers to follow. Her routes, safe houses, and contacts existed only in her memory, making the network virtually impossible to compromise through captured documents.

Tubman's physical toughness was legendary. Despite her seizures and chronic pain from the childhood head injury, she routinely made journeys of hundreds of miles on foot through hostile territory, often in winter conditions. She continued this work for over a decade, long after the physical toll should have been debilitating.

In 2016, the U.S. Treasury announced plans to place Tubman's portrait on the twenty-dollar bill, replacing Andrew Jackson. Though the redesign has faced delays, the symbolism is powerful: a formerly enslaved woman on the currency of the nation that once enslaved her. In 2024, the state of Maryland posthumously awarded Tubman the rank of brigadier general - a recognition, more than a century late, of her extraordinary military service.